erykah badu
I have her Tiny Desk Concert playing in the background as I write this btw. Mesmerized by her airy, lorelei-like timbres, I almost wanna put my head down and take a nap. I have my work cut out for me w/ this one, so here goes! Philly’s Fairy. Vagina Scent Candle Seller. Rumored Femme fatale. “A walking instrument” (S.O.T.A. by Sa Surreal). Erykah, pronounced urr·kuh is a human treasure chest. If you squint hard enough, she slick look like a music note in the face lmao. It’s that deep for me. I’m not sure if people truly understand the level she’s on, creatively. Anomalously rejecting the status quo, she dropped her first album Baduizm in 1997 containing the singles “On & On” and “Next Lifetime”. From what i’ve gathered, this pushed her to the vanguard of the Neo-soul movement. “Neo-Soul” is a mixture of soul & contemporary R&B, and was coined by Kedar Massenburg for marketing purposes. The Tiny Desk Concert is over and now I’m watching another one of her live performances. She just walked on stage and lit a fuc*ing candle. Lil shit like that that she does is why I love her as a performer. The fragmented emphasis on certain syllables, while remaining mounted to the beat’s deck. The swamp green eyes. The lyricism. Listening to her made me release some of the pressure I was putting on myself to make everything rhyme perfectly. It was like moving a log out the way of a dam’s opening. Jill Scott helped w/ that too. I remember having a moment in the shower while tryna come up with a line for Solfège and being like “nigga you know you can say what you want right?” While relatability is important for me, I love writing lines knowing people might not have a clue what i’m talking about. In that same song I say, “I was sent to be modern day’s Willem Roelofs”, who's a dutch painter lmao. I found that out searching for people with the first name “William” tryna rhyme it with the previous line. I identify w/ Erykah’s belief that music is spiritual. I meditated for many months looking inward for the right words to say, and still do. I sometimes feel like I’m being spoken through. Something tells me that she can relate. Her aura on stage is always so calm but erratic? In a good way tho! If incense was a person fr. I hope to replicate that feeling when performing. I want my audience to be as comfortable as possible, but intensly stimulated. That’s what I picture in my head when I’m meditating. Me standing there facing a crowd full of people simply wanting a “good time”, subconsciously absorbing the healing energy embedded in these songs. Music is a powerful thing. The things you recite/listen to over and over take effect on the way you think and feel. I’ve put this to the test personally, so it’s one of many reasons why lyrics are so important to me. Ion want you to have to run & turn my shit off when it come on around a kid, especially cause they gone listen anyway if interested enough. Artists literally plan their releases on full moons to harvest the energy released by the collective during them. This heightens the affects of the frequencies being emitted from the music. It's not just music and I know this. Erykah knows this.