Erykah Badu - Baduizm

Robert Christgau says Erykah Badu's debut album Baduizm is too bougie-boho for his tastes. I don't know what he actually means by that (that's a lie), but i do know A) i'm a big fan of all sorts of things Christgau hated on first pass, and B) calling your debut album "[name]izm" kind of forces us into deciding whether or not to join your ideological cult, so this should be fun. Grab your turban shaped helmet, we're time traveling back to 1997 for some sure to be delightful R&B/Neo-Soul. 

You all know me and how i'd normally balk at the just shy of an hour run time over two records, but it's kind of the orientation seminar for this Izm of Badu we've got ourselves into, and it was never intended to be released on vinyl in the first place, so i'd expect nothing less. I gotta say though, looking at the itinerary it seems well organized and there's every chance we'll stay on topic, or at least in the general vacinity of the topic. That topic, if you're just joining us, is what happens when Bottleism meets Baduizm, Bottleism being my own personal philosophy of "i dunno, let's uncork it and find out." Our primary concern is "what's Eykah got to say about that?" 

I have a vague recollection of Erykah Badu as a one-hit wonder by mainstream standards, but i do not for the brain death of me remember what that hit song actually was. Two good ways to find out though. First is just go to her wikipedia page and look for where it lists her biggest hits. Sometimes merely seeing the title is enough to fire up those unexercised neurons, but sometimes you have to go secondarily fire up the youtubulator and watch a few of the top search results. You'll know you've found it whan your brain says "oh yeah, that one, now i remember." 

Oh yeah, Next Lifetime, i remember that one. I think On & On was the pre-release single, but it's my brain we're working with here, so at least we know reincarnation is an integral component of Baduizm. Personally i'm not a fan of the idea that i might have to give this existence thing a second or 12th go round, but that's just me; once is plenty. 

Oooh, fascinating, this album is generally set alongside D'Angelo and Maxwell as proof there's quite a bit of money to be had by publishing Neo-Soul in album form, which begs the question "what is Neo-Soul?" 

Neo-Soul is the marketing term for 90s Soul Revival that distances itself from producer driven R&B in favor of eclectic and idiosyncratic live background music for serious, socially conscious lyricism. I suppose you could call it Album Oriented Alternative R&B, as opposed to Single Driven Mainstream Hip Hop based R&B. Neo-Soul is much less wordy, i'll give it that. 

Speaking of words, i implore you to just let any you don't immediately understand be relics best left back in the 90s and don't try to figure out what they're actually supposed to mean. Don't urban dictionary anything, you don't need all that terribleness in your brain. You do however have to understand Christgau's use of the bougie-boho oxymoron to dismiss this album. The other popular synonym is "champagne socialist," but the real sociopolitical essence here is the commodification of style in the Information Age, aka rich people buying their Bohemian lifestyle at the department store. Starbucks and Whole Foods and weekend trips to go "antiquing" and a couple of those Huey Lewis tracks nobody understood correctly should spring to mind. I can see why he's saying it, i just think he's wrong and this album is a legitimately intellectual look at the oxymoron that was the actual transition of the late 90s. 

There's no reason to beat around the bush here, Christgau is essentially using this album to say the entire Afrocentrism momevent is a marketing gimmick in the same way he would criticize gated community white teenagers for picking out which color Che Guevara t-shirt to wear today from their walk-in closets larger than most 1-bedroom apartments, or the same way i criticized Des'ree's knock-off Goop commercial of an album. But, there's a big difference. I came to that conclusion as a result of giving Des'ree her chance to speak, Christgau used it as an excuse to not have to bother actually listening to Erykah Badu's perspective about anything. Des'ree said "here's what utopia looks like," Erykah's saying "here a little slice of actual reality." Des'ree says "just rub this fancy mud on that gaping flesh wound and love yourself harder," Erykah rhetorically asks "where did the love go?," and then rhetorically answers "we stopped teaching our children actual love and wisdom, that's where." I think the Bottlean sysopsis of some of her arguments (in no particular order) will help clarify. 

- I'm not at all happy that my husband is a gangster/hustler/drug dealer, but he's educated, we have a house and there's food on the table, and i love him. It's complicated and i'm conflicted. 

- It's not ok for me to cheat on my husband just because i happen to have the hots for you at the moment. Then again, there was that time i got all dressed up to go see Wu Tang Clan only to have him cancel and go to the concert without me behind my back (we aren't going to wonder too much why her mom went to that same concert, we'll just let it be a metaphor for being caught out in the lie), so i can't beat myself up too brutally. 

- You need to pick your entire Afro, it looks silly when half is puffed up but half isn't. Clearly another metaphor, this one's airplane rules. Take care of yourself first so that you can be in a position to help others. Also, how do you expect to be taken serious when you look ridiculous? That's Erykah saying that, not me. I don't put any stock in hairstyles, they're all silly. 

- If you aren't interested in what i have to say, then i'm definitely not interested in having sex with you. Self explanatory, really. 

- i'm pretty tired of all the doom and gloom and apocalyptic fantasies, come back to here and now and let's celebrate life instead of constantly tearing each other down because we imagine the world's about to end. In case you haven't noticed, good chance 99% of us will wake up tomorrow, and the next day, and so on. 

- most people don't believe in God, but i (Erykah) think GOD is really just the fact that we exist at all, so maybe let's stop being afraid of each other and call each other by our actual names. Again, complicated metaphors, but totally relevant ones. 

I don't know about you, but i have no argue at all. These are all realistic sentiments sparked by complicated situations. This is a phenomenal album. Musically gorgeous, thematically on topic in terms of "this is what Erykah Badu is all about," and as far as joining the cult of "i am an autonomous human being and you need to meet me half way for our own mutual benefit," i'm all ears. 

Plus, look at that gorgeously productive and purposeful use of the gatefold. Lyrics on one side, production notes on the other. Names of all the people who participated and influenced the album, mention of New York author/playwright Courtney Long (who goes by the nom de plume Bless ji Jaja). If you want to be crass and only look at it as a product wrapped in a colorful fabric of image marketing fine, but at least give it proper credit as a really good one. 

The real truth is that this is a proper album, and a refreshing take on the standard Self-Titled Debut. Sure you can take any particular song by itself, but they lose a lot of their meaning when you do that because they all compliment each other as a completely coherent portrait of a real person, a person with an understatedly wicked/sarcastic sense of humor i might add. I'll leave that for you to suss out for yourself, but Baduizm is phenomenal. Don't check it out because they marketed her as a 90s Billie Holiday, check it out because it's an actual enjoyable listen, and because this new Motown repress is actual quality at a reasonable price. 

My point is this album definitely deserved the hype it got for its innovative conjoining of Hip Hop beats with sophisticated Soul, and definitely didn't deserve the "you're not a real Hippie" criticism it equally received at the time. Plenty of other terrible albums from that era to snark on, Baduizm is a real keeper.