Erykah Badu: C /D, S&D

roy hargrove's tone always sounds so weeded, which is appropriate

tru

that dude's niche is really adding those awesome blazed lines to r&b albums, not being a jazz trumpet hero or heading a record (the tracks w/d'angelo, badu, common, etc. on his own records are so terrible compared to the reverse).

man i love this album tho:

http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/images/local/250/79bf43d14163425496a6e34037ab8fca.jpg

"O My Seh Yeh"!!!

i was listening to this yesterday and was thinking that a lot of her 'conscious' rhetoric seems a bit too 'familiar'. like ive heard it a million times before ten years ago. its all that NWO-paranoia again but reworked.

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/NO.gif

im not saying its a corny rehash, just saying im not sure shes really changed her stance on anything since then. shes probably just been relistening to a lot of hip hop from back then - the healer lyrics really remind of me old essays people used to write about hip hop in say, rap-pages (lol) back in 1998/99.

i haven't heard that roy album. and i am actually interested in his new quintet album. actually.

So new album next month, no? Details are still pretty sketchy. Has me worried.

and she promised, at the end of 'honey'

holy fuck erykah live. mind. blown. coming on stage to 'a milli' ("where is erykah badu at?" an hour late is where erykah badu was at), 'the healer' was incredible, that version of 'appletree' which sounded like some sort of insane cybotron remix, and just how triumphant was 'soldier'...the woman is a fucking genius.

i got to meet her afterwards <3 <3 <3

sounds good. she's playing the blue balls festival in lucerne later this month - if only it had been happening when i'd been there, would've been extra surreal seeing her play somewhere like that

did you interview her?

show was brilliant. she is amazing.

no, about 15 journos/fans just got to sit with her for a while, ask questions and so on. she's really serene in person. um yeah, one of the most powerful shows i've been to i think. always astonished at how much she belts it out on stage - she's so understated on record, to hear a song like 'the healer' sung like that was mind-blowing.

ooh im jealous. i love erykah. wish she did more from mamas gun but i want you, danger and otherside of the game were amazing. i liked how amerykah promise sounded so fierce. also liked when she was tapping out beats on her drum machine!

'danger' - YES. one of my favourite erykah tracks, never heard it live before.

i was actually surprised she didn't do more from new amerykah - four tracks in it looked like she was going to play the whole thing in order. 'the cell' would have been incredible but i got no complaints really.

i didnt want her to do that much more from the new album. i think i enjoyed the last time i saw her a bit more just cos i love MG more than the new album, but she is still a really brilliant performer. even when she was talking about the occupation of countries etc, it was inspiring/interesting rather than soapbox-corny/preaching to the converted.

they should have had her at glasto.

ah well, i love NA more than MG (though obv huge love for both). agree about her political talk - also love that she brought that out right after a sequence of long-standing crowd favourites, just when the crowd was putty in her hands. she said some interesting stuff backstage - she was asked whether the obama campaign had got in touch with her or whether she'd accept an offer if they did, and she replied in the negative - she says she "doesn't know much about the system" (ie she distrusts everything about it) but obama's importance was in how he'd catalysed people as individuals to believe in whatever change they needed to effect in their own lives, personal and political.

o yeah brixton acad was a tad hot, don't you think!

its always too fucking hot. saw NERD the other week and felt quite disgusting.

i dont think obamas people get in touch with everyone thats donated a song - i doubt taz from sa-ra was asked personally! but he still did a song for it. i *almost8 did an eye roll when she talked about the system itself needing an overhaul but something about how she put it across was nicely cliche-free.

i really hope her other two albums come out this year. did anyone ask about those? is she trying to leave motown/universal?

her point was more about how the most significant impact of obama's presence and rhetoric of change has been to catalyse people as individuals, which will stand even if he doesn't become president or his presidency doesn't succeed politically.

word is that the next two albums are definitely on their way. don't think she's trying to leave anything.

"her point was more about how the most significant impact of obama's presence and rhetoric of change has been to catalyse people as individuals, which will stand even if he doesn't become president or his presidency doesn't succeed politically."

yeah i liked that part.

just remembered she didnt do next lifetime. :(

no The Cell, no Next Lifetime....WORST GIG EVER

erykah live from vh1 soulstage:

http://www.zshare.net/download/13987260bc0e496e/

http://www.imeem.com/okayplayer/video/JlZISmeE/okayplayer_erykah_badu_interview_on_okayplayertv_music_video/

check it around the 2.20 mark for amerykahn promise. so much better live. bit dissapointed shes got the same producers on part 2. i thought it was going to be less hip-hop sounding.

i'm pretty glad. part one got me into karriem riggins, and it sounded like there's gonna be enough guests on part two. her tentatively talking about andre 3000 makes it sound as if it isn't quite ready, though.

my brother's SLEEPing on my FLOOR bitch i could USE a little MORE is the line that is currently keeping on giving from that hump on new amerykah.

i'm just warning everyone, when i get my hands on some of her albums in the next month or two, i'm gonna be blabbering up a storm about it. just so you're prepared.

bit dissapointed shes got the same producers on part 2.

Not OTM at all. I've most definitely settled on NAP1 being her best album yet.

"I've most definitely settled on NAP1 being her best album yet."

the ilx consensus on erykah has always seemed a bit weird to me.

This board goes through goofy "female artist empowering" phases. First it was Missy Elliott, then it was M.I.A. and now it's Erykah Badu. All three are extremely overrated, even if Elliott and Badu are not entirely untalented.

yeah right

wherever there's a lot of praise, there's bound to be a certain level of annoyed doubt

mhmm

lol @ titchy and Vision

Surmounter, ok, but with these three, particularly w/ Erykah Badu, it became some kind of almost unchallenged superstitious belief in ILM. This kind of hyperbolic overpraising does not match their overall reputation outside this board.

okay i know what you mean, but i do think they are kind of aggrandized elsewhere as well.

yeah music critics love erykah not sure what vision is on abt?

HIS VISION MAN

Sure they are praised by others etc, but certainly not on the same level we see here, where their limitations usually go unmentioned. So it's about not being, for instance, a mere chorus of fawning Badu fanboys. In other words: giving her records the dignity of a sober assessment and *critical* praise, and having her music evaluated in the context of other/previous/better artists. The pro-Badu league here seems to be more socially than musically oriented sometimes.

but to some extent there's always going to be a glow surrounding any talented musician currently recording, no matter how evaluative it may or may not be.

badu has never been as praised as the other two, not on ilx or in the wider world. i can only explain the love the latest erykah album gets here as a result of this, like people werent really paying attention when MG came out.

You guys, it's not very hard; ILM tends to be about pop and indie. Badu hasn't been very pop since her debut and, arguably up until this last album, she's the wrong type of indie for most posters here to really lose their minds over her.

Surmounter, ok, but with these three, particularly w/ Erykah Badu, it became some kind of almost unchallenged superstitious belief in ILM. This kind of hyperbolic overpraising does not match their overall reputation outside this board

This is the kind of sensible nonsense easily cleared up by checking the Pazz & Jopp poll results and Metacritic ratings in the last six years for M.I.A. and Elliott.

vision's posts are perplexing in many ways, all of them dumb

Alfred Sotosyn, you make no sense. That exchange was not about whether Badu or Missy Elliott are talented (they are) or whether the critics have given them enough praise (they have), but how the fans of these two artists here in ILM, instead of being objective and balanced whey they talk about both, usually just repeat a certain obsequious, shallow party line about how great they are etc etc. Next time, trying paying attention to what's being said.

o_0

Next time, dip into the (voluminous) M.I.A. threads and pay attention to the level of discourse.

so you're annoyed by the fandom.

let me tell ya, fans have been annoying for decades, it's nothin new.

There won't be a next time about M.I.A. because 1) I think she's a fraud and 2)this is not really about her.

i mean look i cringe whenever i talk about kate bush but generally people grant me a little patience in my rapture