Erykah Badu Essentials

Thanks to its silky hit “On & On,” Erykah Badu’s 1997 debut album Baduizm established her as a leading light of the neo-soul movement. But the Dallas-born singer-songwriter quickly transcended that fleeting scene. She displayed her affinity for jazzy hip-hop with a high-profile guest spot on 1999’s “You Got Me,” The Roots’ layered tale of soured romance. In 2000, her second album broadened her range with the Isaac Hayes co-write “Bag Lady” and the Dilla-helmed “Didn’t Cha Know.” Though Badu’s singing never became any less hypnotic, she began to assume more of a hand in co-producing her work, all while delving deeper into hip-hop culture. She teamed up with Common for 2002’s Grammy-winning “Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)” and gazed fondly back to 1970s funk and R&B on 2003’s aptly titled “Back in the Day.” Badu then returned with the politically outspoken New Amerykah, a duology of albums that also saw her call hip-hop bigger than religion and the government on the 2008 Madlib collab “The Healer” and wax romantic on 2010’s Wings-sampling “Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long.” Her experimental impulses are even more prominent on her 2015 mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone, for which she riffs on Drake’s “Hotline Bling” and taps her ex, André 3000, to rap on the spacey and dislocated “Hello.”