It may be mating season, but the hens are instead ensconced in their book club. (Currently, Mansfield Park.) Following are their retorts to unworthy rooster suitors.
Ximena: A living of ten thousand a year and the finest carriages to your estate could not overcome a manner so uncivil. Besides which these attentions cannot have merit, your having so recently made my acquaintance as to be utterly ill-equipped to discern my character.
Betsy: Without wishing to insult you, I am nonetheless obliged to bring forth the unsuitability of the connexion, as I should never entertain the entreaties of a man of inferior birth.
Marianne: While in grateful receipt of the knowledge that your examination of my hindquarterly regions has yielded so favourable a result, I speak not from modest delicacy but rather with stern purpose in saying these attentions shall in no manner further the cause to which I can only but attribute your initial addresses toward myself.
IT WOULD have been nice if Erykah Badu made just the album I wanted. It would have had all the philosophical depth of New AmErykah Part One and all the yarn-spinning and sensuality of Mama's Gun and even better grooves than Worldwide Underground and would have taught me everything I need to know.
But it doesn't work that way. Badu made the album she needed to make, and it's on me to love it or leave it. Being a proper fan is probably good training for all kinds of other relationships.
I know I've no right to write music reviews. I'm not qualified. I don't understand music, even though I consume it in gobs. So people say New AmErykah Part Two is more acoustically au naturel whereas Part One was more pre-fabby, and I believe them, because* it sounds that way, now that they mention it. But I'd never have thought that up. I share my day job with a pro violist and find her world of wooden objects foreign and fascinating. I'm flattered to use the same mouse as such magic hands. Writing is not cool like that.
*This phraseology is meant to be Colbertish.
What I can tell you, experientially, is that Part Two is emotional journey while Part One was bombastic blaxpoitation soundtrack. But it makes leisurely tracks across sophisticated emotional terrain, far from the rawness of my perennial favorite Badu song, "I Want You." For those in need of review, the archetypically Baduizt prescriptions therein contained for the affliction of being sprung on some dude:
1. pray til early May
2. fast for thirty days
3. get a good book and get all in it
4. try a little yoga for a minute
5. turn the sauna up to hotter
and, 6. drink a whole jar of holy water (an entire jar!)
Badu appears to be done drinking holy water. On Part Two, she sounds cozy and requited. Which must be nice. This album doesn't have a natural single, a "Honey" or a "Danger." So "Window Seat" is the one getting tossed out for broad consumption, which is kinda random. It's not the awesomest song ever, but I object to criticism that it's a throwback to the Baduizm days. Nothing on that ankhdafied proto-Badu album was as cool as:
So, out my mind I'm tusslin
Back and forth tween here and hustlin
I don't wanna time travel no more
I want to be here
I'm thinkin
On this porch I'm rockin
Back and forth like Lightnin' Hopkins
If anybody speak to Scotty tell him beam me up
When New AmErykah Part Three comes out (oh yeah: there's a Part Three; you know it), I might as well just turn immediately to whatever track exceeds the ten-minute mark, because those weird, ambivalent, endless jams always become my favorites.
On Part Two, the weird, ambivalent, endless jam niche is filled by "Out My Mind, Just In Time." Throughout the whole ten minutes she never decides whether she is crazy or not, which--I don't know about you, but that's how I go through each day. It does that signature Badu trick of seeming like one track ends and another begins--the mood, the music, the gist of the lyrics may all change; silence may even occur--but no! Still the same song. And when you really listen to one of these smushies it's not just a cute ploy; the parts are rightfully of the same song. It's like with semi-colons; surely these are two necessarily-tethered independent clauses, not separate sentences in need of punctuational chastening.
Another good smush, should you need one, comes on Part One's "Master Teacher." That song also abets my theory that there is a Badu song suited for any mindstate. "Master Teacher" is for insomnia: I have longed to stay awake/Beautiful world I'm tryna find.
The best part of "Out My Mind" comes at one of its about-face seams. She shifts from delicately-sprouting optimism to:
MaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAn
Fuck this shit
Fuck this shit
That bit totally played in my head when I had to sit full days at the reception desk. (The pro violist skipped town for a spell.)
On the opposite end of two spectra--length, seriousness--comes the album's comic miniature track, "You Loving Me," which, in typical Erykah expectation-thwartation fashion, is not a lovey song at all. In its entirety, it goes:
[Badu sounds]
You lovin me, and I'm drivin your Benz
You lovin me, and I'm spendin your ends
You lovin me, and I'm drinkin your gin
You lovin me, and I'm fuckin your friends
[repeat]
You lovin me
[mutters That's terrible isn't it, and chuckles]
Erykah would never do those mean things! Why did she think that up? It's so needless and silly and catchy.
And yes, there's a collab with Lil Wayne because Badu does hear my prayers. It's a romp. He kinda sounds like he's freestyling. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I know he doesn't write shit cause he ain got time.
DON'T WORRY. I am going to talk about the nekkid video. Of course I'm gonna talk about the nekkid video. Badu has generously offered for us all to make of it what we will. So to me it's about unlayering. Which, in turn, is about performance.
Speakinawhich, I saw her perform at Oakland's renewed Fox Theater back in February. Seeing Badu live was not the easy adulative experience I'd anticipated. Goapele, who opened for her, is slick and unconscionably beautiful, and while she is a fairy godmother in her own right,* she seemed like a feeble pop star compared to Badu. Goapele gave us what we wanted. Erykah was making some obscure demand and promising to make it worth our while, like the mean teacher who actually has high hopes for you.
*I hate this phrase. Its use pertaining to the wife of an impressive man should be banned.
She started out inaccessibly weird and excessively clothed and inversed both ways as the night wore on, so when I watched the nekkid video, the theme was already familiar. The show's chailight came when she was down to just glitter pants and purple t-shirt. She led a sing-along to "Ain't No Fun," that classic West Coast posse cut which posits that if the homies cannot partake of the lady you are enjoying that enjoyment is curtailed, and I've never felt so elated singing Cause you gave me all your puss-ay/And you even licked my balls.
Who knew misogyny could be so efficiently undercut by mockery? But then co-optation of the oppressor is a fine tradition. It's why gay people took 'queer' and black people took the 'n' word. (Also why I took 'Cleb,' but long story.) Winking co-optation succeeds where rants fail. During the part that goes, And if you can't fuck that day baby/Just lay back, and open ya mouth, Badu tipped her head back and opened her mouth and aimed her mic there. It was hilario.
Onstage and in the "Window Seat" video, Badu's protective opener armor is peacoat, hoodie up, lots of articles. (It's like Game says: My mind fucked up, so I cover it with a Raider hood.) She sheds that protection in layers, with determination and care. Art demands self-exposure, but overexposure might kill you. The video evokes the work and risk of trodding one's individual path. She walks with unmistakable purpose. When I listen to "Window Seat" while walking home along Lake Merritt, I may or may not walk thusly myself. And may or may not loose my hair from its tyrannical clip in dramatic fashion at some pivotal moment.Badu specializes in what they call 'brave vulnerability,' a thankless specialty. If it weren't bad enough to have your soul all naked, you also get demeaned as a pussified emotionalist. This strikes me as the opposite of, say, intellectualism, war and sports--pursuits that garner such ready respect.
NOT THAT that's why she did the Dallas stripdown. She did it because she heard that her #1 stan said this:
My only problem with [the song "Me"] is the part when she says "my ass and legs have gotten thick." If you have seen any recent pictures of stick figure Badu, you'll understand why this is offensive to those of us in the thick community.
Erykah: I am so sorry. Point taken. Your boomboom might mine own exceed in size. The thick community welcomes you.
xoxo,
Cleb
