Erykah Badu is an artist who continues to impress me.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, I haven’t followed r&b as closely as I probably
\nshould, so I won’t claim to have a superior knowledge of the scene
\nas it is today. But I do like what Badu is doing with her music.
\nMama’s Gun<\/i>, her second full-length outing (not including the
\ncloset-cleaner
\nHeartache<\/i>, released under her given name of Erykah Wright)
\nand first release since 1997’s
\nLive<\/i>, proves that the success Badu had was absolutely no
\nfluke.<\/p>\n
It’s easy now to sit back and hear how Badu influenced artists
\nlike Macy Gray, or how Badu is embodying all of the positive
\nqualities of r&b\/soul from the ’70s and early ’80s – things
\npeople either didn’t see or didn’t know to look for when
\nBaduizm<\/i> first hit the streets. But now, Badu is a more
\nmature artist, having gone through the end of a relationship and
\nhaving to deal with the success she faced right out of the gate.
\nThere’s pain in some of these songs, but there’s also hope – and
\nthe listener is taken on a spiritual re-awakening through
\nMama’s Gun<\/i>.<\/p>\n
One of the most moving tracks for me is “In Love With You,” a
\nduet with Stephen Marley (who sounds hauntingly like his late
\nfather) which captures the raw emotion between a man and a woman
\npowerfully and eloquently. Likewise, tracks such as “Kiss Me On My
\nNeck (Hesi)”, “Orange Moon” and “Time’s A Wastin” all demonstrate
\nthe pure mastery that Badu has with this material.<\/p>\n
A technique which doesn’t always work well – going from one song
\nto another with little or no segue – actually works to Badu’s
\nadvantage on
\nMama’s Gun<\/i>. She doesn’t do this for the entire album, though
\n– and by focusing her attention on tracks like “My Life,” “…&
\nOn” and “Cleva,” she helps to steer the focus of the listener to
\nsome of the more powerful performances on the disc.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to take away anything from the power of tracks like
\n“Green Eyes” (which touches on the ending of a long-time
\nrelationship) or “A.D. 2000” (anyone wanna bet she doesn’t take as
\nmuch grief as Bruce Springsteen did for singing a song about Amadou
\nDiallo?). Frankly, each listener will probably find their own
\nemotional center on
\nMama’s Gun<\/i>, and mine just happened to fall in the first
\nthird of the disc (as well as on “In Love With You”). Doesn’t mean
\nyou’re wrong if you’re more moved by “A.D. 2000”.<\/p>\n
Some people might have wondered what happened to Badu after the
\nsuccess of
\nBaduizm<\/i>.
\nMama’s Gun<\/i> is a disc that reminds people that Badu is still
\nhere, and that the time taken to re-energize her life’s batteries
\nproved to be time well spent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5971],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36962","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-erykah-badu","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36962"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36962"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}