Rhondab said:

Still haven't heard them. And there will be a Badu invasion!

http://www.guidelive.com/...330c0.html


Erykah Badu back with new album, same confidence

By THOR CHRISTENSEN / The Dallas Morning News
tchristensen@dallasnews.com


Also Online

CD review: New Amerykah Part One

Listen: Samples of the new album on Amazon.com
"When I came out in '97, they told me I changed the state of R&B," says Erykah Badu.

"This album is gonna do it again in some kinda way."

She's talking about New Amerykah Part One (4th World War). And before you dismiss her words as hype, consider this:

In an age when R&B and hip-hop revolve around booty and bling, the Dallas singer dares to write about things that actually matter, like poverty, racism and the poisonous effect of drugs and guns.

If rap was once "the black CNN," to quote Chuck D., then New Amerykah is the psychedelic MSNBC – an album of hard news mixed with mind-bending music.
"It's hard to enjoy the fruits of my labor when everyone else is suffering," she says Monday night during a rehearsal break at a North Dallas studio.

"I don't try to write solutions, because I don't think I'm qualified. But let's at least organize and say, 'How many people want change?' And that's what the song 'Soldier' is about."

Another song on her first CD in five years reinterprets the "mad as hell" speech from the 1976 film Network. While Ms. Badu says she's an optimist, she's also a realist about how bad things have gotten.

"Where there are no choices, there's no progress," she says. "Children end up in prison, they end up in blood, because of the lack of choices."

The entire album isn't grim, but even her lighter songs can be provocative. In the self-discovery tale "Me," Ms. Badu sings "I salute you" to controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who's been accused of anti-Semitism.

In January, she raised eyebrows by defending Mr. Farrakhan in, of all places, Israel. Speaking during a press conference before her Tel Aviv concert, she said he's "not an anti-Semite. He loves all people."

Now, in wake of the flap, Ms. Badu is seated next to her East Coast publicist, Carla Sims, during an interview with The Dallas Morning News. When Mr. Farrakhan's name comes up, Ms. Sims interrupts to ask if the conversation can be "off the record."

But Ms. Badu ignores the request and dives into the subject: She's not a member of the Nation of Islam, she says, but she's long admired the religious organization.

"When we see the Nation of Islam, we see healthy families. We see fathers who stay home with their families. We see educated people."

But what about Mr. Farrakhan's critics, who see some of his statements as racist and homophobic?

"He's misquoted," Ms. Badu says. She paid tribute to him in "Me," she says, "because everyone else is afraid to, because everyone's ganged up on him and he's blackballed in this country."

New Amerykah may be her most political CD yet, but the former Erica Wright has been singing about society's problems since 1997, when she debuted with Baduizm.

That album sold 5 million copies worldwide and made her the leader of a burgeoning neo-soul movement. But she shied away from neo-soul on 2000's esoteric Mama's Gun and 2003's Worldwide Underground, her last album.

What's she been doing in the five years since then?

"Procrastinating," she says, bursting out in laughter. "Procrastinating is living."

She didn't dawdle away the entire five years. She stayed busy doing work for her South Dallas charity organization, B.L.I.N.D. (Beautiful Love Incorporated Nonprofit Development). She also studied reiki – a type of healing therapy – and earned a license as a holistic health practitioner.

But most of all, she was busy raising her kids. Puma, 3, is the girl in the pink dress bouncing around the rehearsal studio blurting out, "Mama, I love you!" Her 10-year-old brother Seven is the quiet one sprawled out on the carpet, his eyes glued to his homework.

"They come first," she says. "That little girl is me all over again, and Seven is who I want to be – he's a humble, gentle person who takes his studies very seriously."

He also helped transform his mom from a technophobe into a computer fanatic.

In 2003, Ms. Badu told The News, "I'm an analog girl in a digital world. I don't even have the Internet." But that all changed when she got a laptop as a gift and her musician pals started e-mailing half-written tunes for her to work on.

"Seven taught me how to drag the songs into GarageBand and how to lay down the vocal," she said. "I had the computer in the kitchen, and I could still tend to the kids or dinner ... Before I knew it, I had 50 songs."

Some of them will likely turn up on Part Two of New Amerykah, due out later this year. Others may show up on a CD tentatively titled Loretta Brown. And she also might release an album she's recorded with Edith Funker, her side band featuring Dallas-born guitarist Doyle Bramhall II and Wendy and Lisa of Prince fame.

But first, she's got to teach her live band the songs from New Amerykah Part One.

As her musicians mill about the studio waiting for rehearsal to resume, Ms. Badu is still busy waxing philosophic about life at age 37 (her birthday was Tuesday, the same day her new CD came out).

"Things moved really quick in '97," she says, reminiscing about her debut CD.

"The first single came out in February, I won about 28 trophies, got pregnant in March, had a baby in November, and had more money than anyone in South Dallas could think about. There was too many things happening."

But at least her rocket ride to fame gave her a window on the true meaning of celebrity.

"I discovered I'm in a world full of personality worshippers: People aren't looking for a savior. They're looking for someone who looks like one," she says of her days as the headdress-wearing goddess of neo-soul.

Today, she's no longer willing to play the goddess game.

"I snatched myself off the platform," she says with a laugh.

The barcode beneath the fingerprints bugs me because I know it means something. I see the word "SYSTEM" but don't know what the first part means.

How awesome that she got her license in holistic health. I was just thinking of taking getting a degree in the same thing.

She also studied reiki – a type of healing therapy – and earned a license as a holistic health practitioner.

Ah....it´s brave, too. It´s brave to put this out.

The barcode beneath the fingerprints bugs me because I know it means something. I see the word "SYSTEM" but don't know what the first part means.

JackieBlue said:

at first glance I read
"social system"...
I have what you would call
something close to dyslexia sometimes
it's funny how I saw the words
and not the coding

what you think? *scratches chin*

*now the barcode on the babies
(found on the front & back covers)
I don't get that just yet...
any ideas?

Commodities To be purchased and sold. Think Grocery store scanner.....

And social system is what is says Numbers in place of alpha but that is it

JackieBlue said:

at first glance I read
"social system"...
I have what you would call
something close to dyslexia sometimes
it's funny how I saw the words
and not the coding

what you think? *scratches chin*

*now the barcode on the babies
(found on the front & back covers)
I don't get that just yet...
any ideas?

Yup, that's it. Funny that I read the 5 as an S in the second part but couldn't read in the first part.

Despite all the conversation, I haven't even begun to study the cover of the album yet. I need to get up on that.

JackieBlue said:

I am going for my degree in spiritual psychology
[Edited 2/29/08 14:35pm]

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Damn Richard, your growth these past years gives me the goose bumps. You're so awesome! I love you!

This quote choked me up:

"When you don't love yourself, you never seek or expect others to love you. If you don't even think you yourself are worthy to be loved, you defintitely don't think you deserve that from anybody else."

The quote above is very important to me, you nailed it. Although I did not go through the hell your cousin went through. I too have felt unworthy of love because of the lack of self love and self respect. And this - this lack of selfish self love, lack of rational self-interest - has been that fatal flaw in my life. I was brought up with so much cold indifference towards who I was, that I can still feel the chill, after all these years. I was never taught to love and respect myself and subconsciously I placed my self in situations and relationships were I could repeat the cycle of self-loathing over and cover, the dreaded cycle of samsara and so forth. But, it was literature and music that really gave me hope and gave me the courage to actually see that I had value and worthy of love. In time's of struggle I turn to the literature and the music, my life lines. It's weird, but Mama's Gun was such a definitive record for me, I really can't explain it. It's like she was singing to ME. And every single time I've seen her live it's been like a celebration of that initial experience when I realized the beauty of Mama's Gun. And now we have this new record some five years later. And again, she's speaking to me. It's creepy in way. Maybe it's the Texan in the two of us. Who knows. I'm different. I've changed. non sum qualis eram and all that...there's always hope when you realize you can change.

I seriously need a LIVE cd of this!!! Did our girl throw the fuck down on the VH1 Live Sound Stage or what?

I'd give my right tit to know what she said to Prince after he sang "Happy Birthday" to her on Tuesday!

I seriously need a LIVE cd of this!!! Did our girl throw the fuck down on the VH1 Live Sound Stage or what?

I'd give my right tit to know what she said to Prince after he sang "Happy Birthday" to her on Tuesday!