Erykah Badu Essentials
Thanks to its silky hit “On & On,” Erykah Badu’s 1997 debut album <i>Baduizm</i> established her as a leading light of the neo-soul movement. But the Dallas-born singer-songwriter quickly transcended that fleeting scene. She displayed her affinity for jazzy hip-hop with a high-profile guest spot on 1999’s “You Got Me,” The Roots’ layered tale of soured romance. In 2000, her second album broadened her range with the Isaac Hayes co-write “Bag Lady” and the Dilla-helmed “Didn’t Cha Know.” Though Badu’s singing never became any less hypnotic, she began to assume more of a hand in co-producing her work, all while delving deeper into hip-hop culture. She teamed up with Common for 2002’s Grammy-winning “Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)” and gazed fondly back to 1970s funk and R&B on 2003’s aptly titled “Back in the Day.”
Badu then returned with the politically outspoken <i>New Amerykah</i>, a duology of albums that also saw her call hip-hop bigger than religion and the government on the 2008 Madlib collab “The Healer” and wax romantic on 2010’s Wings-sampling “Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long.” Her experimental impulses are even more prominent on her 2015 mixtape <i>But You Caint Use My Phone</i>, for which she riffs on Drake’s “Hotline Bling” and taps her ex, André 3000, to rap on the spacey and dislocated “Hello.”