singer
Personal Information
Born Erica Wright in Dallas, Texas, ca. 1971; daughter of Kolleen Wright; changed first name to Erykah in high school; changed last name to Badu in college.
Education: Attended Grambling State University in Louisiana; studied theater.
Career
Hip-hop/soul/jazz vocalist, songwriter, producer, and video director. Performed with cousin Robert "Free" Bradford in duo Erykah Free, early 1990s; Erykah Free opened for touring rap acts, early 1990s; signed to Kedar Entertainment label, 1995; released Baduizm, debut CD, 1997; released Live! CD, 1997; appeared on soundtrack of film "Eve's Bayou," 1998.
Life's Work
Her trademark African head wraps helped inspire a vogue for African clothing in the late 1990s, and her music seemed to carry layers of African American experience, wrapped up and elegantly presented with the latest hip-hop beats. Erykah Badu was a breakout star of 1997, selling over two million copies of her debut album, Baduizm. An original artist, she composed and performed a fusion of soul, hip-hop, and jazz. Both romantic and a bit intellectual, Badu is steeped in African American spirituality, and exudes it in her personal presence. "Sometimes," she told People when the magazine named her one of 1998's "50 Most Beautiful People" of the year, "I do feel quite Queen Nefertiti-ish."
Born around 1971 in Dallas, Badu was the oldest of three children. She was raised by her mother Kolleen Wright and her grandmother on the city's rough south side. Badu told USA Today that she fell in love with the music of Stevie Wonder "at maybe age two." Her given name, which she has called her "slave" name," was Erica Wright. Badu respelled her first name in high school, and in college took the name Badu, which means "giver of truth and light" in Arabic.
Artistic Activities in Youth
Badu's unusual creativity was evident at a young age. She made her own clothes while in grade school, and her mother encouraged the drawings, poems, letters, and writings that filled her daughter's school notebooks. Badu performed in community theater in Dallas during her school years and majored in theater at Louisiana's Grambling State University before dropping out to pursue music. She has also had formal training as a dancer.
Badu and her cousin, Robert "Free" Bradford, formed a duo called Erykah Free and performed at progressive nightspots around Dallas. Initially, they struggled to find success in the music business and Badu had to take work as a waitress and as a hostess at Dallas's Steve Harvey comedy club. She remained determined and, by the early 1990s, Erykah Free was the opening act for some of the big hip-hop acts of the day, such as Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest, and Mobb Deep. Mixing abundant creativity and an astute understanding of the music business, "I learned that in order to be a successful entertainer, you have to be a really good businesswoman," she told Ebony.
Badu's big break occurred when R&B executive Kedar Massenburg, who also launched the career of D'Angelo, met Badu and noted the strength of her personality. "It wasn't so much the music, but more her presence and the way she commanded the audiences. They looked as though they were hypnotized," Massenburg told Essence magazine. Massenburg signed Badu, as a solo act, to his Kedar Entertainment label in 1995.
Single Distributed at Awards Program
Massenburg's next step was to pass out 1,000 copies of Badu's debut single, "On and On," at the 1996 Soul Train Music Awards. "And man, when I heard it banging out of somebody's car going down the street that same night, I knew I had something," he later told the Atlanta Constitution. Industry excitement over the innovative young newcomer grew, fueled by a video for "On and On" and the release of her Baduizm album in early 1997.
Baduizm was a sensation. Badu's virtuoso vocals reminded jazz listeners of the tragic vocalist Billie Holiday, not only because of a strong surface resemblance but also in the way Badu seemed deadly serious and mature beyond her years. The album's production used bass-heavy hip-hop beats in a way that, in 1997, was startling and new. These beats were brought down to a quiet level and provided subtle texture for the jazz instrument work (including a contribution from jazz bassist Ron Carter) and the varied poetic structures above them. Badu sang rather than rapped, but the hip-hop flavor of the music was unmistakable. The long opposition between R&B and hip-hop was beginning to dissolve, and Badu was out in front of the trend. She had followed rap since its inception and, as she told USA Today, "my music kind of fused into a soul/hip-hop understanding." The varied subjects of Badu's songwriting, which touched on relationships, spirituality, and social themes, helped her appeal to different audiences.
Badu's debut album shot to the top of the Billboard R&B chart, and eventually made it all the way to Number Two on the pop chart, benefitting from the surprising crossover success of the lyrically complex and oblique "On and On." Baduizm was reported to have sold 1.7 million copies in a span of three months. During the summer of 1997, Badu was in high demand as a concert performer. At her concerts, she burned sandalwood incense and discussed numerology with her audiences. "I like to take a salt bath before I appear in public, to create my own sense of calm," Badu told People. She released her Live! album in late 1997, which was recorded before an invited audience at a New York studio. Live! went platinum and nearly matched the stellar performance of her debut album.
Directed Music Videos
During 1998, Badu was a major presence at music awards programs. She took home two Grammy awards (one for Best Female Vocal for "On and On"), four Soul Train Awards, and an American Music Award. She continued to dazzle the music world with her many talents and directed the videos for her songs "Next Lifetime" and "Otherside of the Game." Live! also contained a hit single, "Tyrone," that was described by Ebony as "the Black women's anthem for dissing and dismissing do-wrong brothers." Badu sang on the soundtrack of the film "Eve's Bayou," and made a guest appearance on an album by the progressive hip-hop group the Roots.
Badu gave birth to a son, Seven Sirius, on November 18, 1997. The father was Andre (Dre) Benjamin of the rap group OutKast, with whom Badu had a long-distance relationship. She chose her son's name because it combined a divine number that could not be divided with the name of the brightest star in the firmament. Badu also announced plans to have six more children. "That's right, six more babies in five years," she told Ebony. "Time passes so fast. I just follow and have faith. I know that I make the right decisions." In 1999, Rolling Stone magazine selected Baduizm as one of the fifty greatest albums of the 1990s.
Awards
Two Grammy awards, four Soul Train Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, and one American Music Award in 1998, for Baduizm.
Works
Selected discography
- Baduizm, Kedar/Universal, 1997.
- Live!, Universal, 1998.
Further Reading
Books
- Graff, Gary, Josh Freedom du Lac, and Jim McFarlin, MusicHound R&B, Visible Ink, 1998.
- Larkin, Colin, ed., The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Muze U.K., 1998.
Periodicals- Atlanta Constitution, May 21, 1997, p. D9.
- Ebony, July 1998, p. 68.
- Essence, August 1997, p. 90.
- Jet, February 16, 1998, p. 60.
- Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1998, p. CAL 4.
- New York Times, July 8, 1997, p. C9.
- People, May 11, 1998,, p. 80.
- Rolling Stone, May 13, 1999, p. 76.
- USA Today, June 30, 1997, p. D6; March 2, 1998, p. D3.
— James M. Manheim
