Erykah Badu needs the lights down low. The singer, producer, actor and registered doula shuffles into a private room at London\u2019s Soho hotel and quietly asks for some changes to the atmosphere: lights dimmed, soft seat. A green juice would be great.<\/p>\n
As it turns out, Badu was out last night with Dave Chappelle, sitting with the comedian at a grand piano and playing songs into the wee hours. She looks mischievous when she thinks about the impromptu party, but declines to go into detail about what, exactly, went on. Instead, the 55-year-old smiles at me, eyes wide, her gold teeth glinting in the low light: \u201cOh yes,\u201d she says slowly and quietly, like some kind of mysterious warlock. \u201cIt was a late one \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Meeting Badu, in other words, is everything you want it to be and more. She and I are here to talk about Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment, a collaborative record with famed underground producer the Alchemist. It\u2019s Badu\u2019s first full-length project since the release of 2015\u2019s But You Caint Use My Phone mixtape, and its dense, layered sound feels like an internet-fried take on her era-defining New Amerykah albums, from 2008 and 2010.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s surprising, I suggest, that she has taken so long between records, given how much she analyses the world around her. She says that\u2019s the point. \u201cProcrastinating and living, learning and stuff \u2013 that gives you stuff to write about,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s important to gather the data, upload as much as I can. I don\u2019t have a choice. But when the thing gets kind of full, I download it through writing music.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Erykah Badu and the Alchemist: Witch Doctor \u2013 video<\/p>\n
Badu has been a star since 1997, when the release of her debut album, Baduizm, announced her as one of the leading lights of what music industry executive Kedar Massenburg called \u201cneo soul\u201d, a new wave of alternative soul and R&B. In the years since, a handful of wild, boundary-pushing records have made Badu one of the most revered artists in the world. The Alchemist \u2013 LA producer Alan Maman \u2013 was one of those early fans. In 1997, he was a roadie for Cypress Hill, who were co-headlining the Smokin\u2019 Grooves tour alongside Badu. \u201cI was such a fan \u2013 I used to go out in the crowd and watch her show every night,\u201d he says on the phone later. \u201cI never would have thought in a million years that one day I would be making music with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, Maman has produced a number of hits, including Mobb Deep\u2019s 1999 track The Realest, and enjoyed a recent career renaissance in collaborations with underground rappers such as the duos Armand Hammer and Mike & Wiki. A few years ago, while DJing a party, he ran into an old friend named Cold Cris who happened to work for Badu, and told him that working with her was on his bucket list. Two years after that, he got the call that Badu was interested in playing around with his beats. She came to his studio in LA, and the pair, he says, \u201cinstantly became friends, and realised how much shit we had in common, in the way we create, the way we think\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018His compositions are like classical music to me\u2019 … Badu and the Alchemist. Photograph: Adraint Bereal<\/p>\n
\u201cHis compositions are like classical music to me \u2013 how he layers chimes and voices and strings and horns,\u201d says Badu. \u201cOur process is the same. The way we build is the same. I don\u2019t know what it is exactly, but it\u2019s a burning, beautiful fire. I get chills when I hear his music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Badu was born in Dallas, Texas. Her mother was an actor; her uncle, an avid record collector; Badu\u2019s grandmother bought her her first piano. She still remembers the first artwork she ever made, in a primary school art class: a sculpture of a spaceship made out of a rubber glove, which she called Lady Luna 2. Attending a performing arts high school in Dallas, she was \u201cthe first person at school and the last person to leave\u201d, and would spend hours dancing while facing a mirror.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the beginning, there was no audience \u2013 there was just me and the things I loved \u2013 music, painting, dancing,\u201d she says. \u201cI grew up listening to Earth, Wind & Fire, the Emotions, Deniece Williams, Eric Clapton of course, Joni Mitchell, Phoebe Snow, Parliament Funkadelic \u2026 they were creating from a place that nothing else came from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Badu started making music in earnest when she was a theatre major at Grambling State University in Louisiana after her cousin Robert \u201cFree\u201d Bradford mailed her a cassette tape with beats on it. Their collaboration ended up becoming Baduizm. It was an instant hit \u2013 No 2 in the US \u2013 and, thanks to Massenburg\u2019s clever marketing, announced Badu as \u201cthe queen of neo soul\u201d, a term she quickly rejected. \u201cI was the first one who denied it \u2013 I denounced my throne\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m an ever-changing vessel, and I just didn\u2019t want to be pigeonholed. When I hear the algorithm today, when I type in Erykah Badu somewhere, I don\u2019t like everything that\u2019s with it, because it limits what I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Joni Mitchell touches my spirit\u2019 … Badu in 1997.
Photograph: Paul Natkin\/WireImage<\/p>\n
Badu says she had her whole life to write Baduizm; for its follow-up, 2000\u2019s Mama\u2019s Gun, she only had three years, but everything in her life had changed. In 1997, she had a son, Seven, with Andr\u00e9 3000; the pair split a year later. \u201cI had a kid. I had a heartbreak. I had a new house. I had money. I could do things for my family members. The expectations were enormous, that I had for myself, but I didn\u2019t feel like I had enough time,\u201d she says. \u201cI had to learn, from Baduizm and Mama\u2019s Gun, to ignore the negative things and the positive things \u2013 people who are lifting you up, because you can feel so high that you don\u2019t want to learn anything any more.\u201d<\/p>\n
double quotation markThey\u2019re not giving out enough ass-whoopings no more!<\/p>\n
Eventually, Badu was able to re-centre herself by thinking about those artists who had been so formative for her \u2013 artists such as Joni Mitchell, who she returns to a couple of times throughout our conversation. \u201cShe touches my spirit \u2013 the simplicity of scaled-back voice and music, because her voice is a true instrument, with perfect pitch,\u201d she says. \u201cHer emotions are an instrument as well. I can hear the tears and laughter in the music, and because it\u2019s scaled down so beautifully. It\u2019s just a feeling that I have when I listen to her, or sing about her. Think about her. Talk about her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Badu became a doula \u201cby accident\u201d. Four years after having Seven, she promised to be with a friend during her birth. \u201cI didn\u2019t know her labour was going to be 52 hours \u2013 she soldiered through this thing, and after the 52nd hour, I realised I had not been to sleep. I felt fine. I was the support system, I was the restaurant, and I didn\u2019t have any fear,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThat\u2019s when I realised, I am the welcoming committee \u2013 my contract was with that baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018How do you stay friends with exes? Suck hard!\u2019 … Badu and Andr\u00e9 3000. Photograph: Mike Vitelli\/BFA.com\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Badu began studying and received her doula certification in 2006. From 2001 to 2023, she supported two mothers a year \u2013 because she tours eight months of the year, she was reluctant to take on any more \u2013 and coached them through their pregnancies, ensuring they had access to what she calls \u201cthe five doctors\u201d: sun, earth, nutrients, exercise and spirit. She has doula\u2019d for celebrity friends including, she tells me, Teyana Taylor and Summer Walker. And she is also an end-of-life doula, sitting \u201cat the bedsides of people who are passing, going the other way \u2013 I want to provide the exact same peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
I ask if being an end-of-life doula can be distressing, but she says the fact that it\u2019s not for her is why she does it. \u201cIt\u2019s another art for me,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel the same way when I\u2019m servicing people on stage, singing. That\u2019s doula work, too. I have the same thing in mind \u2013 I want the room to become one living, breathing organism.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there is a common thread that runs though many of the songs on Before the World Blows, it\u2019s gender politics: the ways in which men and women interact, screw each other over and take central roles in each other\u2019s lives. Badu has always been interested in this theme, but it feels different this time, as if she is an omniscient narrator, spreading wisdom to the world. \u201cSome of these songs are autobiographical, and some of them are messages I want to give to my daughters\u201d \u2013 she has two, Puma (born 2004) and Mars (2009) \u2013 \u201cor the daughters of the world, to the people of the world who have to go through these initiations, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Phones have become our pseudo-husband and wife\u2019 … Badu performing in 2026. Photograph: Astrida Valigorsky\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
I ask if she sees right now as a particularly fractious moment for heterosexual dating, and she looks at me quizzically. \u201cYour mama had trouble dating, and your grandma, and your great-grandma. You say more fractured \u2013 I think more transparent, maybe.\u201d Legs outstretched, bare toes occasionally tickling my thigh by accident, Badu puts forward her theory. \u201cI think we\u2019re so hyper-aware that we notice things that maybe the people before us didn\u2019t notice. The vocabulary we\u2019re using, the definitions that we can put on our inconsistencies and weirdness, narcissism, and the ADHD. The definitions are becoming bigger than who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
That scrutiny means we\u2019re stealing from ourselves, she says. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t give us room to create or laugh or be free. It\u2019s hard to find somebody that is accepting you completely because we don\u2019t accept ourselves completely any more. When I was young, you didn\u2019t get the grace of being defined as something. You just got an ass-whooping! And when all you need is an ass-whooping, everybody can straighten up. They\u2019re not giving out enough ass-whoopings no more. We\u2019re pardoning behaviour by defining it, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Black Box, the album\u2019s final track, is a wild odyssey about phone addiction, and a worthy addition to her canon of phone songs she started with But You Caint Use My Phone. Social media is a constant bugbear for Badu \u2013 she loves using it, and is prolific on Instagram, but hates how tied she is to her phone. \u201cIt\u2019s the first thing we reach for in the morning \u2013 it has become our pseudo-husband and wife \u2013 and one thing I do know is that the first thing we do in the morning that gives us dopamine is what we will reach for all day long,\u201d she says. \u201cIf we\u2019re able to bypass the phone and go outside and get air and nutrients and all that, that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to keep running back to all day. But we pick this up first. I wanted to speak to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
With daughters Mars (left) and Puma (right) in 2017. Photograph: Leon Bennett\/Getty Images for BET<\/p>\n
Badu\u2019s children are 17, 22 and 28 \u2013 and she sees how they don\u2019t have the same freedom she did, growing up without social media. Everyone is \u201cvibrating at a higher rate\u201d now, she says. \u201cI noticed that it was different when I tried to show my daughters Fred Flintstone \u2013 that cartoon is hilarious to me, and they couldn\u2019t resonate with it because it just doesn\u2019t vibrate at the same rate they do.\u201d Even so, she and her daughters, Mars and Puma, still have things in common. \u201cMars put me on to Faye Webster and Beabadoobee. Mars went backwards and got me listening to Abba! Puma loves musical theatre and Broadway, so she has me listening to Chicago or operas. We share an aux cord in the house, so I don\u2019t have a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
They all love Steve Lacy, too: Badu took her daughters to see him perform in Dallas a few years ago, and this year, they make reciprocal guest appearances on each other\u2019s albums. \u201cWe had stuff in common, and mostly sent memes to each other starting out. That\u2019s how you know if you rock with somebody \u2013 you have a similar sense of humour,\u201d she says. \u201cYou kind of don\u2019t have the same music taste, either, if you don\u2019t have the same sense of humour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the World Blows includes an interlude by Jay Electronica, the elusive rapper she dated for many years, and the father of Mars. Badu has tended to remain close with her exes \u2013 Andr\u00e9 3000 contributed a rare, memorable guest verse to But You Caint Use My Phone \u2013 so I ask if she has any advice for maintaining ties with former lovers. \u201cYou just gotta suck hard. That\u2019s it,\u201d she says, bursting into laughter, her voice rising above a whisper for the first time in our conversation. \u201cThey were my friends first, and I think that\u2019s what makes a difference. Watch that be the headline \u2013 Erykah remains friends with her exes because she sucks hard!\u201d<\/p>\n
Our time is up; Badu gently swings her legs off the couch and stands up. She shuffles over to me and leans in, peering deeply into my eyes. I\u2019m a little scared that she might drop some kind of bombshell \u2013 the time and place of my death, for example, or that I was a terrible interviewer \u2013 but instead, she just mutters: \u201cYou pretty as fuck!\u201d Before I can even respond, she\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n
Before the World Blows is out now on Control Freaq\/Young<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erykah Badu needs the lights down low. The singer, producer, actor and registered doula shuffles into a private…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-874307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}