SOUL SESSIONS Vol. 8

Seven's Heaven

It’s been slightly over 7,500 days since Y2K’s fabled false alarm.  Midway through 1999 many inside and outside of the tech world felt things would implode once the December 31, clock struck midnight.  The Y2K saga had many shook with myths ranging from computer glitches to world calamities.  Some estimated that the pending global destruction would be somewhere in the [nice] neighborhood of $300-$500 billion.  According to an excerpt in The Guardian, the panic reached epic proportions when a Scottish air traffic controller called an emergency room warning that their radar system failed.  Cooler heads prevailed when it was revealed that all flights in Europe were either cancelled or grounded, all due to the anticipated fear that the midnight millennium bug would cause utter chaos.

The PC panic actually started a few decades earlier, in 1956, when computer programmers attempted to save space by omitting the century “identifier” from most of their software set-up.  In short (insert geek news) the date January 1900 read 01/00 (in PC lingo). The programmer’s “short cut” made perfect sense when every event was scheduled in the same century.  But in 1997, a real life problem arose when a woman named Mary Bandar—who was born in July 1888—received a quizzical invitation from the school board.  The letter suggested that Mary should get ready for her first day of grammar school because her birth date (in PC lingo) read: 07/88…, thus making her 4-years-old in 1992.  Mary was actually 104-years-old or three centuries younger than police brutality—in BLM lingo.  

Spoiler alert: January 1, 2000, came and went without much of a brew ha-ha.  And, aside from the Mets/Yankees Subway Series, the official start of this new digital century was almost as uneventful as baseball itself. 

Things remained pretty humdrum until November 2000 rolled in…, That’s when a 29-year-old analog girl, from Dallas, Texas, plastic-wrapped a vinyl bomb that lit up the digital airwaves.   This record shook-up the music world so much that someone stupidly attempted to change the name of the genre (more on that in a second). 

Erica Abi Wright set the music world ablaze with her sophomore smash Mama’s Gun.  

Erykah Badu I Mama’s Gun I Motown-Puppy Love I November 2000

There are some that argue (…, o.k., I will argue…) that this 72-minute magnum opus is one of the best music pearls in the last 25 years, —perhaps longer.  You won’t get much of a quarrel from (then) Motown music mogul, Kedar Massenburg, who is credited with coining the corny phrase, Neo Soul.  

Kedar Massenburg & India Arie

Massenburg felt that Badu’s “new” vinyl direction needed its own launching pad.  He also felt that people needed a label to attach this refreshing brand of music.  You have my permission to underline the word brand. 

The term Neo Soul was (and still is) much more about marketing than the long-standing vibe that has been cemented in culture for centuries.  Nevertheless, history and a few pinned-striped suits will (probably) decide just how long or effective the term will be ignored.

Inside the famed Electric Lady Studio

In 1999, through the early 2000’s, Electric Lady Studios, which is located in Greenwich Village, N.Y., was the storage hub of this bubbling soul music ingredient.  The mythical music studio was the 3-year Incubator that housed the Bag Lady’s majestic masterpiece.  

Oddly enough, there were very loud whispers that, despite the enormous imprint of Mama's Gun, the LP wasn’t even the best dish cooked at the Electric Lady Studios.  As fate would have it, while Badu was rotating your favorite emcee(s); her soon-to-be-Boo, Common was penning one of Hip Hop's strokes of genius, Like Water For Chocolate. The 3-year studio sleepover also included D’Angelo’s sophomore pearl, Voodoo which dropped earlier in the year.  And, not to be undone, the Pre-Fallon Root’s crew completed the cypher, unleashing Things Fall Apart -- all under the same roof at the same time. 

All of the Electric Lady competition didn’t eclipse Maria Mexico from becoming the face of the Neo Soul movement – even though she had plenty of artists worthy of her window seat.  The likes of: Jill Scott, Donnie, India Arie, Ledisi, Jon B., Maxwell, Somi, Jaguar Wright, Le Nubian, Beady Belle, Musiq Soulchild, Angie Stone, Meshell Ndegeocello, Lauryn Hill and Floetry were all smoking the streets as well.  Editor’s note: most of them hated the term Neo Soul – luckily for Kedar the check cleared long before that assessment became commonplace. 

No one detested the term more than Downtown Loretta Brown.  Badu often stated “there is nothing new about soul music.”  She continued: “that term is mainly embraced by lazy thinkers.”  You have my permission to hit subscribe with the "A-Men" button.  The fact of the matter is…, there are thousands of soul singers that built this platform that every black household should have. However, if you are new to this soul mixer, welcome abaard..., Mama’s Gun is the perfect taster.  And, right from the start the head wrapped musical, midwife feeds this starving new Amerykah:

“Penitentiary Philosophy”

Ahmir “QuestLove” Thompson pokes his funky drummer fingertips on the LP’s 6- minute live band opener.  Lyrically the single fits nicely but, the The Bar-Kays-like rhythm was probably best suited for Badu’s follow-up, Worldwide Underground.

“Didn't Cha Know?”

Like great cinema the plot just got thicker.  Didn’t Cha Know had many artists checking the exits, pondering..., would it make more sense to let the dust settle before dropping a project (now) when Mama's Gun still had the street corners smoking?  This bongo-rockin’, drop-your-draws-in-your-jeep vibe is nothing short of breath-taking. It almost seemed criminal that Badu handpicked the prolific producer, J. Dilla to run the point on this one.  And Dilla didn't disappoint—he rarely did.  Jay Dee turned up the soul temperature on this classic.  In fact it was so high that Dilla nearly burned down his freedom. The 4-minute flame was an unauthorized sample of Tarika Blue’s Dreamflower, who naturally sued.  So..., while the two Soulquarian were getting the Mama’s Gun party laoded, the legal party settled out of court.

Erykah Badu & Andre 3k

“My Life”

Badu and Dilla linked right back up, this time they sprinkled-in multi-instrumentalist, James Poyser to compliment this retro 90’s Hip Hop & soul dish. Dilla, apparently learned a valuable legal lesson, as he got his “licensed to ill”—sampling, the Beastie Boys’ joint, Paul Revere.  My Life later became a remix with Common—whom apparently sprung out of the friend zone.  You have my permission to underline sprung.

“Cleva”

The head-nodding party took a very jazzy turn when…, you guessed it…, Team Dilla, Badu, and Poyser summoned the majestic Roy Ayers.   Much of Badu’s work has been neatly wrapped in RAMP’s jazzy blueprinted soul.  RAMP (which is an acronym for “Roy Ayers Music Productions”) was formed by Roy Ayers in 1976 – further underscoring how old Neo Soul is.

“Orange Moon”

This song plays like a movie score.  The Heavenly track is a beautiful ode to Seven, Erykah's first born, with Atlanta’s rapper’s delight, Andre 3000. The metaphors are too numerous to unpack, but the most obvious is Badu, who plays the Moon while her son Seven plays the Sun.  It’s one of the most remarkable singles in Erykah’s catalog. 

Badu & reggae star, Stephen Marley

“In Love With You” feat. Stephen Marley

You may want to tighten the headboard for this one.  The hypnotic, Himalayan-built Badu, curls-up with one of Jamaica’s most noted sperm spreading families and unleashed the dopest duet in both culture’s recent memory.  Stephen’s effortless see-sawing footsie with Badu makes you feel like Andre MUST have been out of town.  This rock-skipping single sways like you are in a satin hammock.  You won’t need the liner notes for this one.  Nah…, this magical 5-minute guitar ride is hugged by a simple melody & an effervescent hook – (only) pausing long enough for you to wonder how long it took them to untangle their hair.  

The organic, analog beat is so spellbinding, you will all but forget when this Soul Session started, the world was about to end & the “new” soul was just getting started.   

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Ray Lewis