September 12th, 2003

Singer/songwriter Erykah Badu’s third studio album Worldwide Underground
is a collection of songs firmly rooted in soul without being nostalgic,
recalling a time when ceilings where higher and folk weren’t afraid to
let the music play. “I wasn’t thinking airplay,” says Erykah. “I wasn’t
thinking singles, I just wanted to groove, and groove for a long time.”

Since her 1997, 5x platinum-selling debut, Baduizm, Erykah Badu has been
prodigious and determinedly original. Brilliant writer, producer and
visionary with pendulum timing, the four-time Grammy winning artist
introduced herself as a southern girl with an old soul. Later that year,
she gave fans around the world a taste of her dynamic live performances
when she released the double-platinum set Erykah Badu Live which
contained the run-a-way hit “Tyrone.” Her new millennium follow up, the
2x platinum-certified Mama’s Gun, was an exciting progression; raw,
moody and emotional. Though Erykah considers the sleeper album an
“incomplete thought,” Mama’s Gun was evidence that in the wreckage of
contemporary music, there was an artist among us, a woman who was
confident but vulnerable.


Badu summarizes Worldwide Underground as “the struggle on a good day.”
Here, she is surer, braver, directed, focused; a touch lighter, having
exorcised her inner bag lady. Relaxed and having fun. This time around
Badu is producing the album along with her production team, Freakquency,
consisting of long-time collaborator James Poyser, Rashad “Ringo” Smith
and RC Williams. The eight-jam EP rides on water in a funk-bottom boat.
The brevity is refreshing.

Worldwide Underground was created out of Erykah’s “Frustrated Artist
Tour,” the worldwide road show said artist went on last year to gain
inspiration for the album and tempt the muse. Let her tell it, “I named
it that because I was so frustrated because I could not think of
anything to write. So finally I decided to go on a tour. Just do clubs.
Go back to the essence of the underground. The people, the fans brought
the energy I needed to create ‘Worldwide Underground.’”

And so, from all over the world, those who heard the call gathered in
the name of support of said frustrated artist who traveled by bus all
through the US and across Europe. “I’m on the bus in Germany, in
Switzerland, in Amsterdam, Finland and Italy. I’m everywhere on the
bus,” she recalls. It was on that proverbial road, that Erykah picked up
Zap Mama (Marie Daulne), who eventually joined the tour-”as an
instrument” Badu emphasizes-and who appears with the blessed Caron
Wheeler on Worldwide Underground’s “Bump It,” a sensual, layered song
about turning stuff up, playing your own music loud. The song concludes
with a beautiful breakdown of Badu, Daulne, and Wheeler uttering,
scatting and speaking in tongues. “Bump It” and the breezy, buzzed “Woo”
(cowbells give the song a Go-Go feel) were created onstage and developed
after shows on the tour bus during all night jam sessions.