Erykah Badu: C /D, S&D

I think I remember Badu getting decent coverage in MOJO late 90s, substantial live reviews etc

How it is possible to come to the conclusion that Anita Baker is "ridiculous", whatever you think of the music? JFC

i feel like the schism we're talking about still exists -- a lot of great ballad-driven 'upscale' R&B coming out these days (Marsha Ambrosius, Toni Braxton & Babyface, etc.) but a lot of critics and music people only care about the hip hop-ish stuff like Ty Dolla $ign etc

gets no better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjn8QZmyPlk

Condescending to young black female singers is the easiest thing in the world, and because their forbears aren't mythologized like Nirvana or the Clash, white kids don't grow up appreciating them.

This one did, fwiw.

it's not just critics, though; when I was a teen in the late 80s/early 90s Anita Baker songs, Sade, "Piano in the Dark", and so on, were mainstays on top 40 radio. a few years later, "On & On", "Killing Me Softly", and so on. nowadays if I want to hear e.g. "Hurt You" I can't hear it on pop radio. I know there are a zillion threads about this but as a non-critic I want to hear this music like I used to, without delving into specific genre radio etc.

Yeah, it's a little sad that I've had to be plugged into ILM to discover artists like Teedra Moses who could've easily made their mark on the charts twenty years ago.

I can't resist quoting from that Petredis review:

"Her attention has shifted from barricades to boudoir."

And comparing neo-soul to Ocean Colour Scene, Cast, and other nobodies that constituted the "second wave" of Britpop.

this inspired me to listen to new amerykah pt 2 which i'd kinda forgotten to check out...anyway....check out her "related artist" tab on Spotify....one of these things is not like the other

http://s7.postimg.org/halp41icr/baduspotify.jpg

Tho I think the first Nu AmErykah is the better album, I think I'm listening to pt. 2 way more often than pt. 1 these days truth be told.

DJP, 100% not surprised that it was chaki who said it! posted because it's always weird to go back to old ilx shit and see how often sentiments like that go unchecked, or little-checked

there's difft levels of 'indefensible shit we said in days bygone' but I still cannot entirely credit chaki with that, my god

xp: there were like 5 ppl upthread, including myself, who were all "shut up, chaki"?

i know, it just seems like now it would be a huge pile on!

also possibly a separate clusterfuck thread!

i feel like also the numbers were smaller then, so a few posts did actually denote a pile-on

the tenor of the discussion here has certainly changed over the past ten years ye

i remember just a few years ago, when i was image-bombing the "would smash" threads, a moderator went to my personal facebook and used a picture of me to replace the pictures i had posted, making it hilariously look like people were being grossed out by my face and body! i feel like that might not happen in this current atmosphere, and i am really thankful for that, too. :)

yea ws threads in general seem frowned upon these days, right? maybe not the vintage one, which seemed like it had a friendlier spirit anyways

idk. it is embarrassing to think about now.

there are still a lot of gross threads like that getting bumped often enough
eg fitness chicks

n-e-way love erykah & jill scott, always have

"We wanted a video that spoke to Badu's eclecticism. Those album covers represent all the influences that she embodies."[6] Albums covers that were recreated in the video are those of:[5]

Rufus featuring Chaka Khan (1975) by Rufus
Blue (2006) by Diana Ross
Maggot Brain (1971) by Funkadelic
Paid in Full (1987) by Eric B. & Rakim
Honey (1975) by Ohio Players
Perfect Angel (1975) by Minnie Riperton
Chameleon (1976) by Labelle
3 Feet High and Rising (1989) by De La Soul
Let It Be (1970) by The Beatles
Illmatic (1994) by Nas
Physical (1981) by Olivia Newton-John
Nightclubbing (1981) by Grace Jones
Head to the Sky (1973) by Earth, Wind & Fire

i really love that Physical is one of the records.

haha yes!

they are all great records tbf

theres a good moment in chappelles block party movie where iirc erykah does a kind of eye roll while jill scott is on stage...

erykah and jill scott forming like volition during that heavy psych version of You Got Me is perhaps my favourite music movie moment of all time.

i remember some posters getting mocked for objecting to the WS threads at the time, just saying

on topic, these posts are otm

i feel like the schism we're talking about still exists -- a lot of great ballad-driven 'upscale' R&B coming out these days (Marsha Ambrosius, Toni Braxton & Babyface, etc.) but a lot of critics and music people only care about the hip hop-ish stuff like Ty Dolla $ign etc

― some dude, Tuesday, October 7, 2014 12:43 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Condescending to young black female singers is the easiest thing in the world, and because their forbears aren't mythologized like Nirvana or the Clash, white kids don't grow up appreciating them.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, October 7, 2014 1:07 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and fyi that toni braxton & babyface album some dude mentions is one of the albums of the year, just wonderful stuff

I should check that out. For the longest time, I dismissed Babyface because I don't really care for him as a performer until I realized (somewhat recently) that he'd had a hand in the bulk of the '80s/'90s R&B that I loved.

theres a good moment in chappelles block party movie where iirc erykah does a kind of eye roll while jill scott is on stage...

I remembered that as an approving eyeroll. Like a "can you believe she's this good" eyeroll.

totally!

i feel like the schism we're talking about still exists -- a lot of great ballad-driven 'upscale' R&B coming out these days (Marsha Ambrosius, Toni Braxton & Babyface, etc.) but a lot of critics and music people only care about the hip hop-ish stuff like Ty Dolla $ign etc

― some dude, Tuesday, October 7, 2014 12:43 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't disagree with the former examples but the latter is your personal axe grinding, If he's getting critical attention it's basically from ilx ppl or a reflection of his pretty significant mainstream pop success. I mean he wrote one of the year's biggest songs, came up with the biggest producer in hip hop, and collaborates with a huge cross section of artists. Are you really surprised he's gotten more attention than artists without top 40 singles? And the notion that he gets blanket critical respect is pretty distorted too, fader cover or no it's not like his tapes have gotten blanket praise from critics, most of whom haven't been afraid to mention misogyny or criticize his reliance on guest artists

A better example of popular r&b with critical acclaim is Beyoncé or frank ocean

(Never mind that Ty is a producer/songwriter/singer, which gives him a level of auteur status none of those artists have but I don't even think that's translated to much crit love regardless)

I see where D-40 has hung his hat now that Gucci is in jail

A lot of what's happening itt is, I think, insurgent critical perspectives have become institutional ones in a way they hadn't been. We now live in an era where Aaliyah is on the cover of wax poetics... I remember saying I liked Aaliyah in college and having r&b heads tell me I was crazy.

I see where D-40 has hung his hat now that Gucci is in jail

― 💪😈⚠️ (DJP), Tuesday, October 7, 2014 1:32 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There are like 40 different artists this fka twigs fanboard has tried to say I was obsessed w over the past few years it is weird

How many bat for lashes stans tried to clown me for saying Gucci was an important artist that haven't pulled out "Daniel" in four years

anyway to get back on topic there was a rockist angle to a lot of the ways that ppl argued for neo soul at the time—return to 'soulfulness' obsession w/ the past fetishization of 'organic' sounds... at some level the critique was right. it's funny to hear:

back in the mid-late 90s, i think most critics here, would have been like 'its not real R&B' or futuristic enough (cos yknow, R&B and black music is only good for that). like when simon reynolds drew a binary rza (boring, trad, staid, etc) in the late 90s and what timbo and missy were doing.

― StillAdvance, Tuesday, October 7, 2014 4:52 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like, i was coming to this board from the opposite side, and this focus on futurism etc was new to me and refreshing (not talking about chaki's post, obv)—the idea of listening to R&B from this pop POV was alien to most music writing I'd ever read ... you ask the average R&B critic what was good and they'd be like oh the classisist stuff ("cos yknow, R&B and black music is only good for that"). its a relentless chase for an authenticity that doesn't exist.

i don't doubt there are stereotypes at play whenever people are endorsing or dissing any partic R&B style (esp when they do it like THAT). But it's funny to watch this discussion yo-yo like this.

by 'the critique was right' i am certainly not talking about chaki's post nb

actually, i have to admit, back in the late 90s i was also on the 'neo soul is what more R&B artists should be making! why are people thinking timbaland is better than dangelo and erykah badu?! why doesnt k-ci make a whole record like if you think youre lonely now?!?!'. that wasnt so much rockist (and to put everything down as rockist actually just feeds rockism) as hip-hopist, that idea that 'real' musicians = 'real' R&B/soul (real basically meaning old/60s/70s) like what you heard on old samples etc. but in fairness, a lot of baduizm and brown sugar werent just revivalism, they sounded like the 90s. there were no samplers being used on 70s records. ali shaheed made brown sugar sound like a hip hop record. the idea that it was just like a black american britpop doesnt quite work as it always sounded of the time (voodoo and mamas gun came later, and were much more traditional, but who cares). so yeah, relentless chase for a non existent authenticity sounds about right. but hey, playing music tribes can be fun.

erykah busking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsQY8lqFScM

She's posted a soul mix over on mixcloud a couple days back here.

just came here to say that return of the ankh is amazing and is just making me feel really good right now, i love this album so much

We're not officially in the longest wait between Badu albums since the beginning.

not NOW

thx for the heads up daylight

We're now officially in the longest wait between Badu albums since the beginning.

:(

she's touring tho

I thought she was just doing DJ tours

nah full live show at the warfield coming up soon, shakey!

waaaaaht

I kinda hate that place but that's tempting