The epithet “Queen of Neo-Soul,” though well-meant, was a weight upon her shoulders that constricted her artistry and self-expression (as she explained to the New York Times in March 2008). In the wake of Worldwide Underground, she embarked on the Frustrated Artist tour, whose name could not have been more apposite. She had never been the kind of artist to churn out an album every year (it had been three years between each of her albums, discounting her live album from 1997), so with children to raise and life to be fully lived, the music always came at her own pace. Consequently, it marks the onset of a new phase in her career where the self-confessed “analogue girl in a digital world” (from “…& On” featured on her 2000 album Mama’s Gun) ventured out into the 1s and 0s of 21st Century musical production techniques without sacrificing the fully-rounded artistry of her previous efforts.Īt the root of the brilliance contained within New Amerykah Part One is an extended period of writer’s block that followed Worldwide Underground (2003). All I know is that you’ve got to get mad.Įrykah Badu’s fourth studio album New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) was released in early 2008 but the circumstances, subject matter and processes that shaped the album were entirely different from those that had come before it.
I don’t know what to do about the recession and the inflation and the crime in the street. I don’t have to tell you things aren’t good.
0 kommentar(er)
