Variety has issued its annual Women's Impact Report, highlighting women who have made an impression at all levels of entertainment. Just like last year, the list includes executive powerhouses, household-name performers, and lesser-known talents. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been spotlighting some of the women whom I find particularly noteworthy. Today, I'm wrapping up my series with a look at singer Erykah Badu.
Like Marketa Irglova, whom I also featured, Badu made Variety's report in the Defying Convention category. The paper's profile of her tells the story of a singer who first seemed destined to be a traditional R&B star but soon started showing signs of being anything but mainstream. As the profile tells it, she all but faded away completely (save for one Frustrated Artist Tour) before bursting back onto the scene in February with an album that seemed to get everyone talking.
New Amerykah, Pt. 1 (4th World War) shot Badu back into the spotlight, debuting on the Billboard charts at No. 2. It's far from straightforward, a compilation of words and sounds and imagery — much of which Badu recorded and mixed herself using Apple's GarageBand. That nontraditional process not only created but also inspired her music, so to hear more about Badu — and watch a video for her single "Honey" — read more.
In an interview with Apple, Badu explained her process this way:
The music inspires me. I listen to the music, I’m in it, I hear it, and I begin to hum a melody. As I’m humming a melody, I begin to find a rhythm for the melody. There has to be space between the kick and the snare for what I’m saying. It’s all about finding a space where I belong. Soon that humming and rhythm breaks into syllables and I just find words that match the syllables of the melody. It somehow all makes sense.
And when it all makes sense — like on New Amerykah — it can be just as fun to listen to her music as it was for her to make it. Here's the video for "Honey," an ode to records and the people who collect them, which Badu also directed:
well i have to agree that badu is anything but your typical r&B artist. i've listened to her albums in the past and there's a quality there that you can't really describe with words that makes you stop and listen to it. i'm not one of those music fanatics that says that the music speaks to me and reaches my core - but i can say that her music will affect you and you'll find yourself thinking about the rhythms