Up until this point I’ve been pretty uptight about making sure that all of the bands that get written about in this column are from Brooklyn, or have at least one member who lives in Brooklyn, or are, at the very least, from New York, but I just can’t be bothered with any of that right now because since Erykah Badu released her But You Caint Use My Phone mixtape over Thanksgiving break, it’s all that I want to listen to. Location be damned.
If my facts are straight, Badu currently splits her time, residence wise, between Texas, and Fort Greene, which I actually just learned right now while Googling her name. I was under the impression that she just lived in Texas. I wonder how she chose Fort Greene out of all the different neighborhoods she could have chosen in Brooklyn. Well, I’m sure she had her reasons, and this is great news for me because now this particular column remains 100% legit. Giddy up!
You can (and absolutely should) stream Badu’s mixtape via Apple Music, but if you’re not into doing that for some reason, here is a track off of it to get you started.
One of the things I like best about the But You Caint Use My Phone mixtape, aside from literally every song on it (especially “Phone Down”) is that the whole chain of events leading up to it were participatory in this really fun way. In this age of streaming immediacy, anytime a fan is made to wait for something, it really does add to the experience. We don’t need to have everything all at once, right when we want it. Sometimes it’s more fun to want something than it is to get something. In this case though, I’m glad we got it, because, again, this whole situation is fire and if you don’t like it then I just don’t know about you. And because there’s no such thing as too much Badu, you can listen to her talk about what went into the album on The Breakfast Club:
Badu has a couple show dates coming up, and it can be assumed that more will be on the way. Keep track of her comings and goings HERE.