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Erykah Badu -
here
is perhaps one story that
explains Erykah Badu’s
cyclical outlook on her new
album, New Amerykah
Part Two: Return Of The Ankh,
and it involves a visit to
a Santeria priest in Cuba
in 1999. Dressed for the occasion,
Badu wore an all-white dress
and, despite the humid weather,
her signature towering head
wrap. As she sat on the dusty
sidewalk waiting to enter
the house of Ifa, a young
man who could best be described
as curious looking barreled
down next to her, popped open
a can of beer, lit a cigarette,
and began making small talk
to another guy who Badu assumed
was also waiting for a reading.
Soon
after, the house door opened
and a charming old lady welcomed
her; the young man, dressed
in white cut-off denim shorts
and a faded American sportswear
jersey, followed them into
the house.
Uncertain
of his reason for being there,
Badu became reserved and uncomfortable
with the idea of someone else
sitting in on her reading.And
then it dawned on her: This
young man was the priest.
He came from a long line of
respected priests. He didn’t
have to wear fancy garments,
or signal his faith with outward
expressions. He just was.
From that moment on, Badu’s
head wrap came off —
both figuratively and literally.
When
Badu says “return of
the ankh,” she doesn’t
mean she’s returning
to wearing the head wrap or
any other accessory that evokes
1997’s Baduizm
epoch. She means much more.
The return of the ankh is
the return of a feeling, what
makes her creative, what makes
her passionate, what makes
her Badu.
Born
Erica Wright on February 26,
1971 in Dallas, Texas, Erykah
Badu inherited a taste for
music from her mother Kolleen
Wright, who introduced her
to multiple genres of music
(Joni Mitchell, Parliament-Funkadelic,
Pink Floyd, Phoebe Snow, Chaka
Khan). At the tender age of
four, Badu began singing and
dancing in productions at
the local Dallas Theatre Centre.
It wasn’t until her acting
debut in the Martin Luther
King Jr. Recreational Center’s
musical production of “Really
Rosie,” directed by her
godmother Gwen Hargrove, that
Badu realized she was a natural
performer. “I played
Alligator,” Badu says,
“and at 6 years old,
I got my first standing ovation.
I knew I wanted to bring people
to their feet from that point
on.
Badu
stayed true to her artistic
leanings and enrolled at Booker
T. Washington High School
for the Performing Arts in
the late ’80s. Tomboyish
and a bit of a class clown,
Badu devoted most of her time
to perfecting her dance form,
studying the techniques of
Martha Graham and Katherine
Dunham, as well as practicing
ballet, tap, and modern dance.
Badu also sharpened her Hip-Hop
skills, freestyling on the
Dallas radio station 90.9
FM KNON under the name Apples
the Alchemist until she eventually
changed the spelling of her
name from “Erica Wright”
to “Erykah Badu,”
“kah” being Kemetic
(Egyptian) for a human’s
vital energy or “inner-self”
and “ba-du” after
her favorite jazz scat-sound.
But later, Badu would discover
that her chosen name holds
a far deeper meaning.
Badu
enrolled at Grambling State
University, where she majored
in theater and minored in
Quantum Physics. She left
in 1993 to pursue music full-time.
During the day, she taught
drama and dance at the South
Dallas Cultural Center and
worked as a coffeehouse waitress.
At night, she recorded and
performed songs like “Appletree,”
produced by her cousin Robert
“Free” Bradford.
In 1994, her 19-song demo
caught the attention of aspiring
record executive Kedar Massenburg
by way of the SXSW music festival.
