In contrast, the explosive entrance to the album, Penitentiary Philosophy, is a ball of gutsy, jazz-infused energy complete with ?uestlove's frantic drumming. One of my favourite tracks, Didn't Cha Know, is Badu at her most raw ("Trying to decide/ Which way to go/ Think I took a wrong turn up there somewhere"), capturing those moments of being lost, of losing your sense of logic. This was light years ahead of any R&B I'd heard. The funk-filled breakdowns, disjointed beats, smooth piano and deeply soulful vocals blew my mind. Every track had the power to make you feel something Green Eyes is punctuated with faux confidence In Love With You is a simple declaration of love Orange Moon provides a disjointed, stripped-back tale of emerging from darkness. I was becoming a woman and the lyrics on Mama's Gun suddenly felt like they spoke directly to me. It wasn't until university, though, that my love affair with Erykah deepened. I began to realise that Badu brought a welcome alternative to the hackneyed version of feminism played out in the mainstream by the likes of the Spice Girls. It was before I had ever been kissed on the neck (or anywhere for that matter), before I had felt the sting of green eyes and before I'd ever had my heart broken.īut I stuck with it. However, being a late bloomer (at that time I was still wearing fake Chinese tattoos and livin' la vida loca) I still didn't quite understand Mama's Gun.
Badu jumped straight out from the screen – a dazzle of multicoloured headscarves bearing a message of sisterhood unlike anything I'd heard before. I was at a friend's house where I would go to tape hours of MTV on to VHS. I still remember watching the video to the first release from it, Bag Lady.
On Mama's Gun Badu represented the woman I wanted to be – a woman with something to say who could be weird and funny and clever and sexy at the same time. For me, though, there will only ever be one Erykah album that matters. Hip-hop purists may cite Badu's 1997 debut, Baduizm, as her best and that's hardly surprising – it was, after all, the one that defined neo-soul and announced this then 26-year-old singer's talent to the world.
A s a grown woman, I probably shouldn't still have posters on my bedroom wall but I make an exception for Erykah Badu.