By Chris Nixon
Union-Tribune
May 24, 2007
After the heyday of Otis Redding's 1960s and James Brown's 1970s, the advent of synthesizers and the commercialization of R&B left the 1980s short of soul music with substance. Boyz II Men, Bell Biv DeVoe, Color Me Badd, Janet Jackson – even singers with real pipes like Whitney Houston were given bland, formulaic songs slathered with thin, shabby production. Salt-N-Pepa was cute and En Vogue had chops, but their songs were wrapped too tightly in pop packaging.
It was a grim time for soul. Funk and soul basically slept in a deep hibernation until the mid-1990s. That's when earnest young singers brought 1970s-centric soul back, filtered it through the beats and rhythms of rap and fed it back into the pop charts. One of those singers was a jazzy lass donning a head wrap named Erykah Badu.
From the opening, rumbling, stand-up bass notes of her 1997 debut “Baduizm,” soulstress Badu sings with the bittersweet melancholy of Billie Holiday, the sass of Ella Fitzgerald, the introspection of Nina Simone and the sexiness of Sade. Heavy company for sure, but Badu's respect for the old-school and funk and hip-hop flavor deserves heady comparisons.
DATEBOOK
Erykah Badu
8 p.m. tomorrow; Humphrey's Concerts by the Bay, 2241 Shelter Island Drive, San Diego; $75; (619) 523-1010
Dallas native Badu (born Erica Abi Wright) attended Grambling State University for a time before leaving to concentrate on her music career. “Baduizm” introduced the vocalist to the world, going triple-platinum worldwide. Badu pressed live instrumentation like piano and bass against hip-hop-inspired beats to create her signature sound: silky, serene and soulful. Lyrically, she exchanged dimestore lust (the R&B parlance of the time) for meaningful love and empty party-time slogans for spirituality. “Baduizm” remains a classic soul album, best heard front to back by candlelight.
Badu laid low for a few years before launching into the explosive “Mama's Gun.” In stark comparison to the hushed tones of her debut, her 2000 sophomore effort opened with the righteously funky “Penitentiary Philosophy.” Amid a tight funk/soul backdrop created by a crack band assembled by The Roots drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, Badu proved to the world she could bust some seriously powerful vocals.
In 2003, Badu rediscovered her smooth side with “Worldwide Underground.” Combining the hard funk of “Mama's Gun” and the cool ambience of “Baduizm,” the disc features guest spots by Lenny Kravitz, Dead Prez, Angie Stone, Roy Hargrove, Queen Latifah, Zap Mama and Bahamadia. The album went gold and produced little in the way of pop chart success, but found Badu expanding on the jazzy nu-soul genre she help create (check out the expansive “I Want You,” clocking in at 10 minutes-plus).
The 36-year-old Badu stepped away from the spotlight the past few years, raising two children: son Seven in 1997 with ex-boyfriend André 3000 of OutKast and daughter Puma in 2004 (the father is hip-hop MC The D.O.C.). Badu's Humphrey's show tomorrow is her first appearance in San Diego since 2003.
The word on the Web says she's writing and recording material for a new studio album. On her MySpace blog back in November, Badu says: “I'm so ready to be (through) with this album, I could just scream. But I'll save it for the vocal booth.”
Badu and her flawless band have been performing the new song “Your Mind” for the past four or five months. The tune starts as a slow soul simmer before rolling into a full-on funk boil.
Despite her most recent retreat from the public eye, her importance to modern soul and R&B still rings true. Badu – and artists such as Maxwell, D'Angelo and Lauryn Hill – led the way for the soul renaissance of the late 1990s, opening the door for Angie Stone, Jill Scott, India.Arie and, more recently, Joss Stone. With a new set of tunes on the way, Badu's sphere of influence is sure to spread to the next generation of soul singers.
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
