Previous postings: http://prince.org/msg/8/325891




(Not the official album cover)


March 2010

Release date:March 30, 2010
Track listing:

1."20 Feet Tall" (Produced by Erykah Badu and 9th Wonder) –

2."Window Seat" (Produced by Erykah Badu and James Poyser) – 4:54

3."Agitation" (Produced by Erykah Badu and Shafiq Husayn of SA-RA Creative Partners) (Contains a sample of "Just As I Thought" by David Sancious.) –

4."Get Money" (Produced by Erykah Badu and Karieem Riggins (drums), Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner (bass), James Poyser (keys), Tommy Trajlio (guitar), Mike "Chav" Chavarria (mooger fooger) (Contains an interpolation of "Can't Turn Me Away", by Sylvia Striplin) –

5."Gone Baby, Don't Be Long" (Produced by Erykah Badu and Ta'Raach) (Contains a sample of "Arrow Through Me" by the Wings.) –

6."Love" (Produced by Erykah Badu and J Dilla) –

7."Umm Hmm" (Produced by Erykah Badu and Madlib) –

8."Fall in Love" (Produced by Erykah Badu and Karieem Riggins) (Contains a sample of "Intimate Friends" by Eddie Kendricks.) –

9."Incense" (Instrumental) (Produced by Erykah Badu and Madlib featuring Kirsten Agnesta (harp)) –

10."Out My Mind Just in Time (Part 1) (Undercover Over-Lover)" (Produced by Erykah Badu featuring James Poyser (keys)) –

11."Out My Mind Just in Time (Part 2)" (Produced by Erykah Badu and Georgia Anne Muldrow) –

12."Out My Mind Just in Time (Part 3)" – [6]

Web-Only Bonus Track:

"Jump Up In The Air (Stay There)" Feat. Lil Wayne (Produced by Erykah Badu, RC Williams and Jahborn) (Contains an interpolation of "Hydraulic Pump" by Parliament Funkadelic.) - 4:25
[Edited 3/25/10 16:54pm]

Erykah will be performing ‘Window Seat’ on Late Night W/ Jimmy Fallon Wednesday night, March 3rd.

Thanks!

looking forward to her new cd.

I think I might pick this one up, I love "Window Seat" :music

Jump Up in the Air aint gonna be on the album?

^

Tell me about it. I did a double take over her decision to delete the track from the album's final configuration.

can't wait for this release

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

But that's the best solution for everyone! It's like when a member of the royal family visits the common dwellings or workplace of one of their wretched subjects. There'll be a few minutes of them smiling and going along with things while the ungainly 'lesser-than' bores them with ramblings about the daily traipse they're forced to make through a sorry, meaningless existence, and that will be the bit you'll see on the news. But you shouldn't imagine that the grimy serf will actually return with them to their normal regal environs. It's all just a brief, functional departure.

So, here, she slums it in Lil Wayne's world of populist mulch-by-numbers to get the attention of the unrefined masses and their mulch-feeders, then she packs the pug-faced little munchkin on his way, so as not to taint the album's pure class with his indecorous presence.

Makes perfect sense!

deebee said:

When you put it that way I'm relieved

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

thanx for the heads up.

Damn...March 30th???!!?? That's too long a wait.

SPYZFAN1 said:

We been waiting since August of 2008. It aint that long

lol...true dat Supa! Can't wait.

Live performance of "Window Seat" on Late Night W/ Jimmy Fallon, March 3.

Awesome. I recorded it but hadn't watched yet. I really like the bridge of Window Seat. It's a very easy flowing song. Can't wait for March 30th!

LOVE it! Sista's BAD! xo

Identity said:

Damn... Erykah is thick as hell!!!

March 3, 2010

Badu Discusses Her Career, New Album With Billboard


If Lil Wayne is from Mars, then Erykah Badu is the high priestess of Venus.

It's a cosmic bummer that the syrup-soaked rapper and the future-funk diva hadn't thought to pair up before Badu's new single, "Jump in the Air."

Originally a cut from her upcoming "New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh" album, the duo's collaboration leaked and was subsequently released as a Web-only track, accompanied by one acid trip of a music video, in which Wayne's and Badu's heads float and multiply. (Badu describes it as an "Erykahleidoscope.") Wayne raps about going "nuts like a danish" and vanishing into thin air while Badu howls and ululates, beckoning the listener to "come fly with us" over a sample of Parliament Funkadelic's "Hydraulic Pump." Viral music videos don't get any weirder -- or really, more genius -- than this.

"No one can say anything negative about it, because it's just fun," Badu says of the song. "That's all it's meant to be."

"Jump in the Air" (now retitled "Jump Up in the Air and Stay There") is no longer on "New Amerykah Part Two" because Badu is a woman of her word. In December, she gathered with Universal Motown president Sylvia Rhone, Jay Electronica (her longtime boyfriend and the father of her third child, Mars Merkaba) and select journalists for an album listening at New York's Chung King Studios. Over candlelight, she unveiled each track like it was sacred text and threatened to toss the album altogether if it leaked before the official street date.

Badu hasn't performed much of the unreleased material live, either, instead performing catalog tracks and a take on Snoop Dogg's raunchiest party anthem, "Ain't No Fun," on a string of recent West Coast dates.

When she explains her reasoning behind this, she's just returned home to Dallas, where she raises her children: 12-year-old son Seven Sirius, 5-year-old daughter Puma Sabti and 1-year-old Mars.

"The Age of Aquarius is a whirlwind, baby," Badu says. "I can say, 'No pictures, no video,' but everything is a video camera now. Because of the kind of artist I am, I don't want to lose the boutiqueness or the exclusivity of the music. The element of surprise is a true element for an artist, just like earth, wind, fire and water."

Due March 30, "New Amerykah Part Two" is Badu's fifth studio album and first since 2008's "New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War," which found Badu riffing on politics, drawing from jazz, hip-hop and funk and sticking with mostly electronic production to freer and freakier effect than on her 2003 release, "Worldwide Underground."

"New Amerykah Part One" landed on many music critics' year-end lists and sold 360,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- Badu's lowest total of her career. Her 1997 breakout debut, "Baduizm," remains her best-selling, with 2.6 million copies sold. What's helped the singer maintain her relevance through the years -- namely, her uncompromising far-outness -- could also be why longtime fans have occasionally had trouble keeping up.

"We got flak over 'New Amerykah Part Two' because it wasn't a traditional Badu album," says Kay K Rosemond, an A&R exec at Universal Motown who's worked closely with Badu on all of her studio albums. "The thought was, 'Why wouldn't we give fans a classic Badu album now? We're going to lose them.' But ultimately, there's a piece of art for every season."

Badu originally planned to release her "New Amerykah" projects as a double-album -- she describes "Part One" as the left side of her brain and "Part Two" as the right -- but split the work with the release of "Part One" in 2008. She kept working on "Part Two" with a host of underground musicians and producers, from Madlib, Shafiq Husayn and 9th Wonder to Karieem Riggins, Georgia Ann Muldrow and the Roots' James Poyser, who produced the lead single, "Window Seat."



"As long as I have time to keep working on the album, that's as long as I'm going to be working on it," Badu says. "I'm always finishing until the last minute."



More than any other subsequent album, the spirit of "Part Two" recalls that of "Baduizm." Musically, it's as progressive as "Part One," but Badu sings less about politics and more about romance; she sounds vulnerable. On the rapturous "Fall in Love," Badu warns: "You don't want to fall in love with me/There's gonna be a lot of slow singing and flower bringing, if my burglar alarm starts ringing," in a nod to a lyric by late rapper the Notorious B.I.G. (Traces of Biggie also appear on "Get Money," named after the Junior Mafia song of the same name but more directly harking back to its original sample, Sylvia Strippling's soul classic "Can't Turn Me Away.")

On "Window Seat," Badu sings, "I just want a chance to fly, a chance to cry, and a long bye-bye/But I need you to want me," over an earthy stomp and slinking piano melody. The track enters Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at No. 47 this issue, the best debut of the year so far and Badu's second-best career start. Delta Airlines has signed on to use the song as the boarding music for its flights.

Aside from "Window Seat," "Jump" is the main piece of content that Badu is using to entice fans to buy her new album. Different versions of the song are being recorded and rolled out one by one through March 30. Each features a different MC, and the list of names is enough hype on its own: Raekwon, Big Boi, David Banner, Redman, stic.man of Dead Prez, Snoop Dogg, Mos Def and Jay Electronica. Like the original "Jump," these versions will live online only, and such top hip-hop blogs as Okayplayer.com and NahRight.com will premiere each one exclusively.

"The Internet has afforded us with a way to not limit ourselves to the album project," Badu says. "There are so many ways to put out music now without having it just being a part of an album."

Badu worked with Xavier Jernigan, senior director of digital and traditional marketing at Universal Motown, to devise the album's marketing campaign. Dubbed (((333))), it stems from Badu's fascination with numerology and centers on the release date for "Part Two": March 30, 2010, or 3/3/3 (2 + 0 + 1 + 0 = 3).



"The numerology aspect of the campaign is totally Erykah Badu and who she is," Jernigan says.


"Jump" and its music video were scheduled to premiere at 3:33 p.m. through Badu's Twitter account, which directed her followers to the newly launched ErykahBadu.com. Every subsequent piece of content will be launched at 3:33 as well. (It can occur at a.m. or p.m. and the time zones also vary because, as the label duly notes, "Erykah is worldwide.") Even Badu's performance on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," scheduled for March 3, fits neatly into the strategy.


"The number has always been in my life -- every time I look at the clock it seems to be there, whether it's a.m. or p.m.," Badu says with a laugh. "I look at it as a sign that I'm on the right path."


Though Badu has an executive assistant and tour manager, she's never had a manager, and she does everything from conceptualize and direct her videos to style her outfits and handwrite her albums' thank-you notes.



"She's adept in the digital realm, clear about her imaging and video presentation and able to come with the music, with the strategic plan, with the look," says Sylvia Rhone, who describes "Part Two" as "vintage Erykah."



Artists who keep this level of control are often described as high maintenance, but Badu says, "It's not going to stop me from doing what I do. It doesn't worry me to the point of 'Should I?' There's nothing freaky about controlling your image or your art, especially if you have the understanding and talent to do it."

"Erykah is crazy like a fox, but she knows what she's doing," "Window Seat" producer Poyser says. "The road that she takes is not the normal road that people walk down to get from A to Z. But she always gets to where she's going."


Threes aside, it's two Ts that keep the Erykah Badu machine pressing on these days: Twitter and touring. All announcements surrounding "Part Two" come directly from her Twitter account, which, according to the label, has averaged an increase of 15,000 followers per week since the (((333))) campaign started. "We don't want anyone else to scoop her on her own content," Jernigan says.



Badu was a devout Twitter user long before the Ashton Kutcher/CNN race to 1 million followers, and she gained notoriety for taking the concept of oversharing to a new level by live-tweeting giving birth. "Home birth, no painkillers, about five hours, she was a little past due date, but I didn't mind waiting," one of her posts read. Electronica partook as well, tweeting, "I see the head, full of hair."



"I got so close to the little Twitter community that it was important to me they knew what was happening," Badu says. "We laugh and we talk and we cry ...and it's never like, 'This is the superstar and these are the fans.' It makes me feel less like someone put on a pedestal and more like a human being."



At her live shows, which Badu describes as "another form of therapy" like Twitter, she tries to create the same feeling of connectedness. "I don't drink or smoke or take any kind of drugs, so I'm almost like the lightweight mad bitch walking around," she says. "But what those things do for other people is what performing live does for me. It's the love of my life, and it's what I do best."


Cara Lewis, a senior VP at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, cites everything from Badu's "eclectic wardrobe" to her "eccentric vocal stylings" as the keys to her draw as a live act.

In 2008 Badu grossed $2.6 million from touring and $1.2 million in 2009, according to Billboard Boxscore (see chart, below), and she plans to continue touring this summer, with her own headlining dates as well as on the revived Lilith Fair festival. Like "Part Two," Lilith will bring Badu back to the spirit of her early days: The first time she played its main stage was in 1998, a year after "Baduizm" dropped.


"I remember my life at that point and how stress-free it was," Badu says. "I was so confident, inspired and fresh. There were no expectations and there was nothing to top. I didn't know the rules. I didn't care for them -- and that's how I feel right now."



http://www.billboard.com/...ory?page=2

That "ONION".....

Identity said:

so part II is the weird one?!

Great article

JackieBlue said:

But I

that part is brilliant This is such a great song. Can't wait for the album

Identity said:

Damn those boots!!!!! I want those!!!!

deebee said:

chrisslope9 said:

I do like the track though even if His Fugliness's presence didn't add much to it.

Upcoming television appearances on:


- The Wendy Williams Show (March 25)

- Good Day New York (March 26)

- Jimmy Kimmel Live (March 30)

- The Wanda Sykes Show (April 3)

- Chelsea Lately (April 5)

- The Mo’Nique Show (TBA)

i'm liking window seat . hope the album isn't entirely like this ("throwback" badu ) though. she looked good on fallon too . not too long for the album

Is the cover going to be similar to this?