What’s helped the singer maintain her relevance - namely, her uncompromising far-outness - through the years could also be why longtime fans occasionally have had trouble keeping up. Her 1997 breakout debut, “Baduizm,” remains her best-selling album, with 2.6 million copies sold. “New Amerykah Part One” landed on many music critics’ year-end lists and sold 360,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan - the lowest total of Badu’s career. The element of surprise is a true element for an artist, just like earth, wind, fire and water.” CHANGING IT UPĭue March 30, “New Amerykah Part Two” is Badu’s fifth studio album and first since 2008’s “New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War,” which found Badu riffing on politics, drawing from jazz, hip-hop and funk and sticking with mostly electronic production, to freer and freakier effect than on her 2003 release, “Worldwide Underground.” Because of the kind of artist I am, I don’t want to lose the boutiqueness or the exclusivity of the music. “I can say, ‘No pictures, no video,’ but everything is a video camera now.
“The Age of Aquarius is a whirlwind, baby,” Badu says. When she explains her reasoning behind this to Billboard, she has just returned home to Dallas, where she raises her children: 12-year-old son Seven Sirius, 5-year-old daughter Puma Sabti and 1-year-old Mars. Over candlelight, she unveiled each track like it was sacred text and threatened to toss the album altogether if it leaked before the official street date.īadu hasn’t performed any of the unreleased material live, either, instead performing catalog tracks and a take on Snoop Dogg’s raunchiest party anthem, “Ain’t No Fun,” on a string of recent West Coast dates. In December, she gathered with Universal Motown president Sylvia Rhone, Jay Electronica (her longtime boyfriend and the father of her third child, Mars Merkaba) and select journalists for an album listening party at New York’s Chung King Studios. “Jump in the Air” (now retitled “Jump Up in the Air and Stay There”) is no longer on “New Amerykah Part Two” because Badu is a woman of her word. “No one can say anything negative about it, because it’s just fun,” Badu says of the song. (Badu describes it as an “Erykahleidoscope.”) Wayne raps about going “nuts like a danish” and vanishing into thin air while Badu howls and ululates, beckoning the listener to “come fly with us” over a sample of Parliament Funkadelic’s “Hydraulic Pump.” Viral music videos don’t get any weirder - or really, more ingenious - than this. Intended as a cut from her upcoming “New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh” album, the duo’s collaboration leaked and subsequently was released as a Web-only track, accompanied by one acid trip of a music video, in which Wayne’s and Badu’s heads float and multiply. It’s a cosmic bummer that the syrup-soaked rapper and the future-funk diva hadn’t thought to pair up before Badu’s new single, “Jump in the Air.” While Badu hasn’t released a project since her 2015 mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone, she’ll be on tour in 2022 on the “Live From Badubotron” tour.NEW YORK (Billboard) - If Lil Wayne is from Mars, then Erykah Badu is the high priestess of Venus. A few years later, she released the albums New Amerykah Part One and New Amerykah Part Two, the latter of which contained the controversial single “Window Seat.” Her third album Worldwide Underground contained her second top 10 hit on the Hot 100: “Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop),” which peaked at No. 6, “Didn’t Cha Know?”, and “Cleva.” The album was certified Platinum by the RIAA with over one million copies sold.Īfter Aaliyah’s death, Badu went on to cement her status as a music icon and prove that she deserved the crown of being the Queen of Neo Soul. It spawned three singles: the groovy “Bag Lady,” which became her first top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at No. Badu released her second album Mama’s Gun in 2000, while Aaliyah was still alive.
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