MP3 Exclusives New Arrivals   Alt-Country Alternative Blues Electronic Jambands Jazz Metal Pop Punk R&B Rap/Hip Hop Reggae Rock   Top Downloads Features Archive Contests Control Panel MUSICBLITZ Alert!   METALBLITZ REGGAEBLITZ BLUESBLITZ Musician's Friend   Alt-Country Alternative Blues Electronic Jambands Jazz Hip Hop Metal Pop Punk R&B Reggae Rock   Getting Started Free Players	Welcome !      Erykah Badu Though she’s released just two studio albums, Erykah Badu has emerged as one of the most important and influential musicians of the past half-decade. Part of it’s timing -- Badu had the good fortune to debut alongside a crop of talented performers like D’Angelo and Maxwell, who were also spreading the retro-soul message. And part of it’s simply skill: the Dallas singer has wowed critics with her poetic lyrics, larger-than-life persona and a set of cool pipes that have earned her more than a few comparisons to jazz great Billie Holiday. Born Erica Wright in Dallas, she spent time in the theater with her thespian mother and attended a special high school for budding artists. She changed her “slave name” and formed her first rap group as a teen, but after dropping out of Grambling a few credits shy of graduation, she got serious about music, coming back to Dallas and forming the group Erykah Free with her cousin, Robert “Free” Bradford. The group opened shows for hip-hop acts like Arrested Development and A Tribe Called Quest, finally catching the ear of D’Angelo’s manager, Kedar Massenburg, who was ready to start his own label. He signed Badu -- without Bradford, a situation that caused lingering bitterness. But that wasn’t going to stop Badu, whose 1997 debut Baduizm spun off a hit single, “On and On,” and stacks of rave reviews for the headwrapped, incense-burning vocalist. She smoked on that summer’s Smokin’ Grooves tour, and late that year released Live, an in-concert album that featured the goofin’-on-men hit “Tyrone.” Badu also directed two of her own videos, a prelude to appearances on the soap One Life To Live and in the ’99 flick The Cider House Rules. Other than showing up on albums by artists like Busta Rhymes, however, Badu kept a lower profile musically. She’d hooked up with kindred spirits in Philly, the Soulquarians (featuring members of The Roots, with whom she turned in a Grammy-winning collaboration), who helped her deliver her long-awaited second studio outing, Mama’s Gun, in November 2000.     Erykah Badu Didn't Cha Know LiquidAudio R&B When Erykah’s butterfly-floatin’ like this, who cares if she stings like a bee too? Mesemerizing, melt-in-your ear modern soul from one of the masters! Erykah Badu My Life LiquidAudio R&B Not as straight-up Baaad as your average Badu track, the jazzy, low-key “My Life” could use a lifesaver.
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