Erykah Badu: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Aug. 15, 2018 | Felix Con­tr­eras — Some folks around the NPR Music office said they felt an almost spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion to Erykah Badu dur­ing her vis­it to the Tiny Desk. And that was before she and her band even played a sin­gle note. It came from the waft of earth­ly scents that fol­lowed in her wake, to the flow­ing dreads and clothes that hung on her like robes.

After her self-intro­duc­tion, which includ­ed a run­down of her spir­i­tu­al and cre­ative alias­es, Badu rolled into one of her ear­li­est musi­cal call­ing cards, “Rimshot.” It’s an ode to the sound the per­cus­sion­ist makes when a drum­stick is struck against the met­al edge of the snare drum. On this per­for­mance, as on her 1997 album Baduizm, it becomes a device to play with time — stretch­ing it, stop­ping it, sus­pend­ing it. Pro­pelled by jazz chords on the piano and the steady pulse of the acoustic bass, the play­ful per­for­mance unfold­ed in the tra­di­tion of the best bebop.

But the panoram­ic song “Green Eyes” is the cen­ter­piece of Badu’s Tiny Desk per­for­mance. It’s wide-rang­ing in scope and musi­cal arrange­ment and bril­liant­ly exe­cut­ed by the jazz and hip-hop musi­cians in her back­ing band. The sto­ry of heart­break is strik­ing enough, but her inter­pre­ta­tion show­cas­es her for­mi­da­ble vocal skills. By the time it was over, we were all just as emo­tion­al­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly spent as she was from the experience.

Erykah Badu is an artist for the ages. To old-school jazz fans like myself, names like Nina Simone, Bet­ty Carter and Shirley Horn come to mind as much as Bil­lie Hol­i­day because of Badu’s sin­gu­lar approach to a lyric. They all cut their own cre­ative path and left behind a lega­cy that you can iden­ti­fy with just one note. Erykah Badu is on that same path, and one day her name will be men­tioned along with the oth­er Elders who share her spir­it of musi­cal adventure.

Set List
“Rimshot”
“Green Eyes”

Musi­cians
Erykah Badu (lead vocals), RC Williams (Keys), Bray­lon Lacy (bass), Cleon Edwards (Drums), Frank Moka (Per­cus­sion), Ken­neth Whalum (Sax), Key­on Har­rold (Trum­pet), Dwayne Kerr (Flute)

Cred­its
Pro­duc­ers: Abby O’Neill, Mor­gan Noelle Smith; Cre­ative Direc­tor: Bob Boilen; Audio Engi­neer: Josh Rogosin; Video­g­ra­phers: Mor­gan Noelle Smith, Maia Stern, Kara Frame, Khun Minn Ohn, CJ Ric­u­lan; Pro­duc­tion Assis­tants: Cather­ine Zhang, Téa Mot­tolese; Pho­to: Mor­gan Noelle Smith/NPR.

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