Sunday, February 03, 2013

Erykah Badu
"Mama's Gun" (CD)

Ms. Badu is probably best known for performing with the biggest head of hair.  Who cares if it isn't really her own hair that's sculpted into a six-foot afro?

'Mama's Gun,' her sophomore album, was released in 2000 after being recorded in New York's Electric Lady Studios. Drumming sound particularly bad-a**? That's the Roots' ?uestlove creating a particularly thumpy groove.

It's groovy, it's jazzy, it's a window into black musical pop culture at the point when some important divisions were happening.  Mainstream hip-hop was going in a new (lesser) direction and, much like today, real talent was being driven underground, known by those who knew and traded around like unofficial currency.  Hipster before it was hipster. How hipster.

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