 |
|
at a glance...
Hometown: Dallas, Texas
First Recordings: 1994
Personnel:
Erykah Badu -- songwriting, vocals, acoustic guitar, production
James Poyser -- keyboards, programming, production
Jay-Dee -- bass, programming, production
Ahmir (?uestlove) Thompson -- drums, percussion
Roy Hargrove -- trumpet
D'wayne Kerr -- flute
Betty Wright -- vocals
Jef Le Johnson -- guitar
Roy Ayers -- vibes, muttering
Gino "Lock Johnson" Inglehart -- drums
Shawn Martin -- keyboards, production
Brandon Lacy -- bass
Related Artists :
The Roots, D'Angelo, Slum Village, Common, OutKast, Guru, Jill Scott, Betty Wright
Notes:
Check this rags-to-riches story: Erica Wright, a 22-year-old schoolteacher who wants to sing, gets a gig opening for the just-about-to-break-wide-open D'Angelo in 1994. She belts it out, D's manager likes her, she gets a contract and a new name: Erykah Badu. (No, I don't know what it means either.) When Ms. Badu busts out with Baduizm, her 1997 debut album, it storms out of nowhere to get to #2 on the charts. (Remember that song "On and On" where the singer sounded like Billie Holiday on attitudoids? That was her.) Yeah, she was the headwrap, but also the galvanizing live performer (her second album, which produced the great single "Tyrone") and burgeoning actress (she was Rose Rose in The Cider House Rules), as well as half of a heavy-hype celeb couple with André Benjamin of OutKast -- yeah, that's her momma they're talking about in "Ms. Jackson." So people thought they understood the whole Badu thing … until, of course, they heard Mama's Gun in 2000.
|
|
 |
|
Erykah Badu
Mama's Gun
Motown/Universal, Released 2000
|
|
|
 |
|
For me, this was the best album of 2000, and someone's going to have to really work hard to do better in 2001. It's everything we say we want in music: gutsy, introspective, innovative, bold, real in a way that few other albums even try to be--and yet nobody was talking about this record at the end of the year.
Mama's Gun starts out with a blistering funk workout called "Penitentiary Philosophy," whose lyrics weren't even finished when the album's artwork had to be turned in. So when you first hear it, all you have to think about is how canny her melodic theft from Stevie Wonder's "Ordinary Pain" is, and Jef Le Johnson's kick-ass guitar work, and how she got the killer opening she needed. (This was actually going to be the 11th track on the album, and is listed as such, but the CD itself reads "i changed the sequence at the last minute. peace, e.badu" Good thing, too, because the original order was too soft at first and would have been a downer.)
And then the moony rondelay "Didn't Cha Know" kicks in, and you start floating through Erykah's world. You won't even mind when "My Life" goes lyrically new-agey ("in my heart i know i'll see that day/when my freedom comes along," etc.), because the damned thing's so pretty with all its strings and stuff; you won't mind that "Cleva" is a little too cleva and that "Booty" is too easy, because by the time she's done with them you realize that A) they are both instant pop classics and B) that you are in love with Erykah Badu. Then she hits you with "Bag Lady," which is better than either one, and is a rare example of cliché triumphing through simple truth: "when they see you comin/niggas take off runnin/from you/it's true/oh yes they do."
And she gives you the good and the bad too: she warns you on "Cleva": "This is how I look without makeup/And with no bra my ninnies sag down low." Her 10-minute passive-aggressive farewell to André, "Green Eyes," starts out like an old self-punishing Billie Holiday number and builds to a dialogue with her divided self that certainly should give any new boyfriend pause. And come on, Badu, you really didn't need to pan your vocals so hard on "A.D. 2000". We were listening, really. You had us at "Booty."
This album is as good and important as all those soul and rock albums my friends say aren't made anymore: Talking Book, Court and Spark, Curtis, Darkness on the Edge of Town, What's Goin' On, Maggot Brain, all them. This one's going down in the books. When you realize that, you'll remember I told you first and best. Let that realization be now, not ten years from now. Respect her: she is the most important American musician working today.
And this is just her third album.
If you like Erykah Badu, check out:
Erykah Badu Baduizm
Erykah Badu Live
D'Angelo Voodoo
Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life
Curtis Mayfield Curtis
Joni Mitchell Court and Spark
Prince Sign O' the Times
Van Morrison St. Dominic's Preview
-- Bill Meyer
Ink Blot Home
about | archives | contact | links
|
|
 |
|
|
