Bowie talks about changes and turning to face the world. Facing the a world that has pegged you as the Earth Mama of Neo Soul, can’t be hard for Erykah Badu. She gave birth to Baduizm, nursed in a Live album, set down maternal foundations of love and loss in Mama’s Gun, let the child of Neo Soul leave the nest in Worldwide Underground, and to some is dealing with an identity crisis with New Amerykah Part One (4th World War).
Soul music loves it’s time machine and I wondered about this as I sat in my seat for the
Badu concert.
Opening for Zaki Ibrahim, a young, artist from Toronto. Zaki has been getting a lot of hype in Toronto, which is quite unusual for a Canadian artist, as Canadians only hype an artist after the rest of the world has told us that they are cool. Zaki took the stage and impressed me with her stage presence and material. Watching her travel across the stage I saw a confidence in her that was engaging and promising. Where she suffered was from a very bad job done by the sound engineer. Her voice was drowned out and most of her vocals were lost in the upper recesses of Massey Hall. I think that she will find her audience, but unfortunately I don’t think the Canadian music industry knows what to do with Zaki. I have this feeling that this Northern bird will fly off to greener more successful pastures.
After a long wait, the lights when down and the Badu began with darkness and the opening music from New Amerykah, a collage of sound bits and skits. Badu made her entrance in a Black amoeba style black dress that looked straight out of the film Mahogany and topped it off with a rather dainty black hat. Erykah and her backup singers started grooving in time to the funked up beat. The energy was high. This began a night of performance art. Badu fashioned herself as an sometimes aloof funked out fashionista from galaxy #9 with a message. The high point of the evening for me, was an amazing version of “Other side Of The Game” and “Time’s A Wasting”. Badu jumping into the audience and singing in the aisle was a treat, and the attempt at theatre of the absurd for the song “Green Eyes” was unusual and at times entertaining. I should have been jumping for joy and most of the time I was. Cheering for the chances that Badu seemed to have been taking. Proud of her for going against the grain to break away from the categorization of the Black female singer in Soul music today. There was no doubt that Badu wants to change what it means to be a Black female artist in music today. But I felt this uneasy feeling after the end of the show that I there was something lacking in the show that I was treated to.
The band were obviously well rehearsed, although The Roots play on dates in the US, but there seemed to be something lacking in their connection with the Badu on stage. They almost seemed so rehearsed that they didn’t seemed to know what to do when it seemed as if Erykah was throwing them curve ball. As for Badu, sometimes it seemed as if she was in her own bedroom, having fun with her computer samples. She attempted to stay in character as she played around with the laptop, but then after a while it seemed as if these gaps in the show kind of left space where I felt bored of watching her find what she was looking for.
For the song Green eyes, Badu used large pink exercise spheres as props and had the back up singers rather clumsily roll the balls back and forth on the small stage, and had others waving large swatches of fabric like waves behind. While I think her use of the balls communicated the meaning of the song, in some ways it seemed to be a bit gimmicky, and too obvious. Badu’s strength lies in her voice and there was no denying she has a wonderful voice and presence. But her need to experiment with performance art techniques seemed to take away from the music itself.
There is no need for her to stay stagnant in the earth mother persona to please her audience but for an artist to be successful in an artistic performance there is a need to constantly engage the audience in the performance itself. Even retired earth mothers know the importance of the call and response from the earth’s loins and how it is important in the function of the earth‘s growth.
I think that Badu is going somewhere with her constant changes of persona, and it does seem that she is having fun with it, but I wonder if she even knows what she wishes to accomplish with it. If The New AmErykah does not put an ending to the Earth Mama memories, then I think her next step should be to burn a head wrap during one of her concerts and put it on youtube. Then maybe the last of the cult of the Neo soul Bohos will move on and leave her alone.
*special thanks to Samuel Godfrey for the elevation ;)
Soul music loves it’s time machine and I wondered about this as I sat in my seat for the
Badu concert.
Opening for Zaki Ibrahim, a young, artist from Toronto. Zaki has been getting a lot of hype in Toronto, which is quite unusual for a Canadian artist, as Canadians only hype an artist after the rest of the world has told us that they are cool. Zaki took the stage and impressed me with her stage presence and material. Watching her travel across the stage I saw a confidence in her that was engaging and promising. Where she suffered was from a very bad job done by the sound engineer. Her voice was drowned out and most of her vocals were lost in the upper recesses of Massey Hall. I think that she will find her audience, but unfortunately I don’t think the Canadian music industry knows what to do with Zaki. I have this feeling that this Northern bird will fly off to greener more successful pastures.
After a long wait, the lights when down and the Badu began with darkness and the opening music from New Amerykah, a collage of sound bits and skits. Badu made her entrance in a Black amoeba style black dress that looked straight out of the film Mahogany and topped it off with a rather dainty black hat. Erykah and her backup singers started grooving in time to the funked up beat. The energy was high. This began a night of performance art. Badu fashioned herself as an sometimes aloof funked out fashionista from galaxy #9 with a message. The high point of the evening for me, was an amazing version of “Other side Of The Game” and “Time’s A Wasting”. Badu jumping into the audience and singing in the aisle was a treat, and the attempt at theatre of the absurd for the song “Green Eyes” was unusual and at times entertaining. I should have been jumping for joy and most of the time I was. Cheering for the chances that Badu seemed to have been taking. Proud of her for going against the grain to break away from the categorization of the Black female singer in Soul music today. There was no doubt that Badu wants to change what it means to be a Black female artist in music today. But I felt this uneasy feeling after the end of the show that I there was something lacking in the show that I was treated to.
The band were obviously well rehearsed, although The Roots play on dates in the US, but there seemed to be something lacking in their connection with the Badu on stage. They almost seemed so rehearsed that they didn’t seemed to know what to do when it seemed as if Erykah was throwing them curve ball. As for Badu, sometimes it seemed as if she was in her own bedroom, having fun with her computer samples. She attempted to stay in character as she played around with the laptop, but then after a while it seemed as if these gaps in the show kind of left space where I felt bored of watching her find what she was looking for.
For the song Green eyes, Badu used large pink exercise spheres as props and had the back up singers rather clumsily roll the balls back and forth on the small stage, and had others waving large swatches of fabric like waves behind. While I think her use of the balls communicated the meaning of the song, in some ways it seemed to be a bit gimmicky, and too obvious. Badu’s strength lies in her voice and there was no denying she has a wonderful voice and presence. But her need to experiment with performance art techniques seemed to take away from the music itself.
There is no need for her to stay stagnant in the earth mother persona to please her audience but for an artist to be successful in an artistic performance there is a need to constantly engage the audience in the performance itself. Even retired earth mothers know the importance of the call and response from the earth’s loins and how it is important in the function of the earth‘s growth.
I think that Badu is going somewhere with her constant changes of persona, and it does seem that she is having fun with it, but I wonder if she even knows what she wishes to accomplish with it. If The New AmErykah does not put an ending to the Earth Mama memories, then I think her next step should be to burn a head wrap during one of her concerts and put it on youtube. Then maybe the last of the cult of the Neo soul Bohos will move on and leave her alone.
*special thanks to Samuel Godfrey for the elevation ;)
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