Music/Society Modern Wrld (W6)

The Evolution of Erykah Badu: From Musician to Third Wave Feminist?

Author(s): Andrea Wilbon Hartman

Source: Race, Gender & Class , 2011, Vol. 18, No. 3/4, Race, Gender & Class 2011 Conference (2011), pp. 238-252

Published by: Jean Ait Belkhir, Race, Gender & Class Journal

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/43496846

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Race, Gender & Class: Volume 18, Number 3-4, 2011 (238-252)

Race, Gender & Class Website: www.rgc.uno.edu

7hE /EVOLUTION OF fkYKAH Awu:

/=fcOM /MUSICIAN TO

7tflRD WAVE /tMINIST?

Andrea Wilbon Hartman

Department of Sociology University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

Abstract: Today's popular music broadcasts themes of love and sexuality over radio waves, but unlike Bubblegum pop 's Britney Spears or Rap's Lii' Kim, Erykah Badu rivals images of scantily clad women typically seen in music videos defying myriad stereotypical messages directed at black women. The following paper, framed within the context of black feminist thought, attempts to further our understanding of how objectification is challenged within new spaces. Badu's life not only informs the music she creates, but she is comfortable in using her voice to creatively disseminate black consciousness and female empowerment - central notions to the third wave of feminism.

Keywords: race; gender; third wave feminism; black feminist thought; popular culture; neo-soul

Andrea Wilbon Hartman is currently a Doctoral Student in Sociology and McNair Fellow at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Her current research endeavors focus on the intersectionality of race, gender, and class and fall within the realm of the transnational scope of black identity in Africa, particularly in Liberia. Katrina's devastating effect on the city of New Orleans forced Hartman to temporarily relocate to New Y ork City, where she acquired a teaching assistantship position at Columbia University leading weekly discussion sections for a course called Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in Urban America. Upon returning to New Orleans, she engaged in a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded study called the Neighborhood Change Survey dedicated to understanding the social impacts of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. She has enjoyed teaching and researching and looks forward to continuing both endeavors after receiving her Ph.D.

Address: University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Department of Sociology, 57 Computing Applications Building, 605 E. Springfield Ave., Champaign, IL 6 1 820. Ph.: (217)333-1950. Email: [email protected]

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The Evolution of Erykah Badu 239

Music needs to communicate things other than dancing jigaboos. Louisiana Radio Listener FM 102.9

On show, every May "Love, Monday 1, 2007, Lust, - 1 was Friday and fortunate Lies," 2-6 pm a to show catch (CST) that Michael on aired FM Baisden's in 102.9 New Orleans and radio is show, "Love, Lust, and Lies," a show that aired in New Orleans every Monday - Friday 2-6 pm (CST) on FM 102.9 and is

currently broadcast daily on FM 106.7. It is a show designed to discuss a variety of topics ranging from AIDS in the black grandparent community, to how to live your dream, to discussing health related issues, and a host of other interesting and thought-provoking questions. The topic of today's show was a compelling discussion and critique of today's music industry. Questions like: Are the days long gone where music didn 't all sound the same and Where are the positive messages in music today were but a few of the questions that stimulated the day's discussion. Over the course of Baisden's four hours on air, a number of special guests, notably Eshe from the music group Arrested Development and the highly respected Cornel West, all weighed in on the issues at hand. The following is a brief account of their message.

According to Eshe [paraphrased]: We want better music.

The music industry is spitting out the same old stuff. It's the music industry that is running the lives of musicians. I [Eshe] have heard from artists that the music the industry demands from them is not the music the artists want to make. I hear of artists who must provide and care for their entire family. They have decided to break into the music industry by making the music the industry wants them to make. They think that later , they 'li be able to make the type of music they want to. The problem is that once the industry starts marketing you a certain way and with a certain sound ' it 's very hard to break out of that image. The problem is with capitalism because under capitalism, all things in society get mass- produced. Music is no exception. The mass-production of music creates an environment where very little thought is being put into the lyrics.

Cornel West, too, had several thought provoking points. He noted that we as a society must understand the impact of music. We need to have an appreciation for it. Unfortunately, the music that is being played on the radio is corrupting the minds of the young. West went on to discuss the major impact of music during slavery. Roughly, West commented [paraphrased]:

Music sustained dignified Africans to the New World. Although we didn t have a communal language, music was that driving force for preserving our sanity as well as our dignity. It was music that played a fundamental role in maintaining our integrity. Some brothers and sisters are

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240 Andrea Wilbon Hartman

preserving our collective dignity , but other brothers and sisters are just about money. We need to feel energetic and feel the gusto of our music; we must feel more positive and optimistic about it. Unfortunately , some of our music is not allowing us to do so. The goal of music ought to be to tell the truth , for music can give us strength to confront daily lives and give us the empowerment to climb out of despair. Music can bring us down , but to its credit, sometimes we need to feel down - our mother may have just died, music can help us through. We cannot bash hip-hop because there is great hip-hop out there. The trick is to find the courage to be true to oneself When asked how to overcome the money to be made in the industry, West responded, There 's a difference between success and greatness. Greatness comes in the form of the quality of service to others. Success should be a means to greatness, not an end in and of itself

The overarching theme of the day's show was that where we are musically might not be where we want to be; perhaps it is not where we should be, for caller after caller repeated the same sentiment: I don 7 like what 's being played on the radio these days. I want to hear more Jill Scott and more Macy Gray. Enter the talented Erykah Badu: an extremely popular black musician, a woman whose lyrics are not only empowering and intelligent, but also infectious. I began this paper by discussing the state of popular music because it is the backdrop from which Erykah Badu has emerged. She is a talented and innovative musician who, like West states, arguably preserves our collective self- worth and confidence. She is a representation of all things prideful, spiritual, and empowering and in light of Baisden's show, one wonders how to critique popular music from a place of love and reverence. Focusing on Badu's contributions to the music itself is one avenue by which to carry out this extraordinary task.

Who is Erykah Badu?

Just when we thought couldn 7 nobody be a black woman in pop music without being a breast-baring pop tart, a put-it-on-the-glass ho, or a gold- digging hoochie mama, here comes Badu...

Vibe Magazine

Since emerging onto the musical scene in 1997 with hit album, Baduizm , Erykah Badu has evolved into one of the most recognizable figures in the neo-soul movement. With songs like "On & On" and "Next Lifetime", it is not hard to see why audiences adore her. What is so captivating about Badu is how she grabs audiences' attention with a style that is indelibly on par with none other than Billie Holiday herself. Badu approaches the microphone with an air of confidence rarely seen in other musicians with her trademark headwrap style, incense infused aura, but with an intense sensuality that rivals images of scantily clad women we typically see in musical videos. Certainly some argue that super stars who push the limits of their sexuality in their music videos and concerts is transgressive, yet

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The Evolution of Erykah Badu 24 1

debate continues to ponder the question of whether this is truly transgressive or otherwise. In the midst of contentious debate, along comes Badu whose methods for broadcasting empowerment via alternative methods of self-pride and one-love are unmistakable and ultimately serve to disseminate notions of black consciousness and black feminism.

Badu fuses Soul, R&B, and Jazz and generates a new musical genre for contemporary listeners. The empowering and intelligent lyrics found in "Tyrone", "Penitentiary Philosophy", and "Green Eyes" serve to solidify her place as queen of the neo-soul movement and represents a style of music all too worthy of emulation. She performs her music with a sultry air, but with sincerity and dignity. She is different from much of the contemporary music being played on the radio and the videos shown on MTV, VH1, and BET because she performs with an air of sensuality and sexuality that keeps audiences yearning for more.

Erykah Badu was not always Erykah Badu - quite the contrary. Born Erica Abi Wright in Dallas, TX in 1971, the young Badu inherited the desire to perform from her mother, Köllen Wright who was an actress known for stunning theater performances. Despite the absence of her father, William "Toosie" Wright, Badu's mother raised her daughter to love and appreciate the musical tradition and exposed the young Badu to the artistic works of Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan (whom Badu credits with being her favorite musician), and Curtis Mayfield, but also Miles Davis, Theolonious Monk, and Bob Marley. What many of her fans do not know, however, is just how much of an influence hip-hop music has had on Badu. She was touched by the heightened levels of consciousness displayed by some hip-hop artists like Run DMC. Their song "Wake Up" served as a source of inspiration for Badu to create her own hip-hop group with her sister, Koryan. Then known as MC Apples, Badu and her sister performed at festivals, community center parks, playgrounds, and backyard parties. They were a lively duo whose routines consisted of not only rap lyrics, but also dance choreography to boot.

While in high school, Badu confronted her mother by saying, "I want to change my name, you know, this ain't my name. This is a slave name" (Mclver, 2002:32). Her mother, although she loved the name Erica, encouraged Erica's self- discovery and encouraged her daughter to find deeper meaning in her name as opposed to changing it outright. A great degree of soul-searching led Erica to changing the spelling of her name from Erica to Erykah. "Kah," a word that denotes the inner-self or that which can do no wrong replaced "ca". The "y," a question of numerology, replaced the "i". In numerology, "y" is significant as the 25th letter in the alphabet; accordingly, 2 + 5 = 7. Seven, in numerological circles is considered a perfect number because it cannot be divided. It is a prime number, the number of God, and not too coincidentally, Seven is the name of her son (Mclver, 2002:33).

While attending college at Grambling University in Louisiana, her heightened self-awareness encouraged an even more thoughtful pursuit of deeper

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242 Andrea Wilbon Hartman

meaning in her name. While attending college, she began using the last name Badu - a word she believes truly evokes her appreciation for Jazz music. Changing her name was a spiritual quest to continue reinventing herself. She says, "My last name came from my singing style, which is derived from scat music.... When I started singing, that was the scat, the only one that I knew. And that was what I would do every night, and I was known as Erykah Badu. . .Badu is paying homage to scat music, bebop music. 'Badu' is one of the things I'm always singing in music... I had a whole song just singing that" (Mclver, 2002:34). The scats Badu has created in her music are continually found in her musical interludes. Her emergent singing style has thus continued to reflect her life spent as Erica Wright and back to that which served as a profound source of inspiration. As a child she was inspired by such a well-versed group of musicians and each has contributed a portion to her musical persona. She remains true to those roots today, for as she sings in "Appletree", "I don't walk around trying to be what I'm not and I don't waste my time trying to get what you got."

Beyond her transformation to Erykah , Badu's quest for self-awareness has been consistent from high school throughout her time at Grambling University and transforming her image continues to be an ongoing process. How she chooses to express herself undergoes change regularly, but her image of respect and positivity remains constant. She loves herself and encourages others to love themselves as well. To some, Badu is the epitome of a beautiful woman, with her dread locked style, her unique fashion sense, and the ornate jewelry she wears, all serve to compliment her in myriad ways. Her audiences have seen Badu transform her style from wearing stylish head wraps, to wearing long extensions, to being completely bald and her music videos showcase these transformations to the world. In the

music video for "Didn't Cha Know", we see Badu walking through a desert. She is wearing a tall head wrap where much of the fabric is dragging behind her as she continues walking. In her lyrics, she says, "I'm trying to decide which way to go. I think I made a wrong turn back there somewhere." Badu is lost and is trying to find her way in life. At the end of the video, she finds herself immersed in a pool of water, where she emerges with a baldhead and nude, to me, signifying rebirth.

Badu has admitted to wearing fake extensions under her head wraps and has received much criticism for it. Some audiences were disappointed; Badu was seen as a fake. Some were offended by seeing this rare black queen wear fake extensions because the whole time she was marketing herself as being true to African beauty and spirit. Yet Badu has been respected through all those changes because she shares those transformations with us through her music. Her response is that her hair is art; it is not everything she is. Other artists have made similar statements. Most notably, India Arie's "I Am Not My Hair" is a song that challenges her opposition to see that hair is another form of creativity; hair is not what determines a person's intelligence or integrity. There is more to Badu than her head wrap/no head wrap/fake extensions/bald head styles. She is much more concerned, like India Arie, with how people hear and appreciate her music (Essence Magazine). Regardless of how we physically perceive Badu, her contributions to

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The Evolution of Erykah Badu 243

modern-day feminist discourse and practices are of ultimate concern here.

Black Feminism and Badu

How Erykah Badu has come to define herself through her music is analyzable within the context of feminist thought, particularly black feminism. In her legendary text regarding black feminism, Patricia Hill Collins (2000) argues that the message one should take away from the black feminist perspective is that black women are conscious of their oppression. Further, because there is a dialectical relationship between oppression and activism, black women are credible producers of knowledge. According to Assata Zerai (2002), "black feminist thought is founded on an alternative epistemology that yields new methodologies for studying domination, resistance, and social transformation" (p. 29). It is an epistemology that allows for better analyses of women's roles in American society because from the standpoint of black women is a more detailed picture of how race, class, and gender intersect more readily accessible. And while both the first and second waves of feminist theory offer a unique lens through which to analyze Badu's contribution to popular culture, the discourse disseminated by the third wave of feminist theory perhaps offers the missing link for understanding the complexities through which Erykah Badu both challenges stereotypical notions of femininity and sexuality while simultaneously embracing them. Before examining the contributions of the third wave and its usefulness for understanding Badu, I first turn to its origins, the first and second waves of feminism.

In her book The Second Sex , Simone de Beauvoir (1952) presents the plight of "woman." Drawing upon feminist theorists, philosophers, legends, and myths, de Beauvoir generates discourse on the situation of woman and how woman has been defined through the male canon over the course of history. The subject of her work is the duality between man and woman where man, the essential, has cast woman, the inessential, in its shadows and "like any duality, [it] gives rise to conflict" (de Beauvoir 1952:49). To be considered a woman, women must "share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity" (de Beauvoir 1952:41). She asks the question what is a woman and simultaneously believes we should ask yet another question: who can be considered a woman.

According to de Beauvoir, to define women simply within the confines of the masculine gaze is just as inadequate as defining women based on their biological evidence. Woman is a dynamic process, not a fixed category. Therefore, her intention is to break with this illusion as she engages in dialogue with the central questions noted above in searching for what ultimately defines woman. She poses these questions to support her most famous claim that women become women and are not born women. Her assertions shore up the fact that women are socialized from a young age to conform to the cult of domesticity and to conform to middle class notions of femininity. However, women are haunted by social constructions of femininity, and as a result, in some cases, women opt to

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244 Andrea Wilbon Hartman

appropriate "masculine" behaviors so as to demand respect and equality (de Beauvoir, 1952:42). But if this is true, are women who appropriate that which is stereotypically masculine treated equally?

Karrine Steffans' autobiography, Confessions of a Video Vixen (2005), proves that women are not treated equally, especially those who appropriate stereotypically masculine behaviors. Confessions is the story of a young woman born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands who comes to have unlimited access to the lucrative music industry and the Hollywood lifestyle. After leaving her home in the Virgin Islands to start a new life with her son, she ends up involved in bed hopping and hob-knobbing with virtually anyone including Nas, Jay Z, Ja Rule, and others, who could potentially springboard her own career. In Steffans' relationships, she was cursed at and beaten when her sexuality created problems for the men her life. She experienced verbal and physical abuse to the point of risking death if she was too outspoken and was either beaten and/or kicked out of her home. Meanwhile, she was using the men in her life to create some economic freedom for herself. Although her sex appeal did make her some money by getting her video shoots, movie roles, etc., her celebrity was somewhat fleeting and ultimately reinforced her low self-esteem and is something she proclaims to be the source for why women become video girls in hip-hop music to begin with.

According to Shayne Lee in his eye opening text Erotic Revolutionaries : Black Women , Sexuality, and Popular Culture (2010), readers tend to denigrate Steffans' autobiography. Readers stigmatize her because she details her sexual exploits and refuses to obey the rules of what Evelyn Higginbotham (1992) calls "the politics of respectability". Steffans does not suppress her sexual appetite, nor does she downplay her sexuality to secure respectability, neither does she encourage others to do so. But, Steffans negates this stigmatization by arguing that women and men have been socialized incorrectly since birth. Whereas men engaging in sexual promiscuity are heralded, women engaging in comparable behaviors are often vilified. Lee goes on to acknowledge that male and female readers insult her for her sexual escapades because they have been socialized at a young age to believe that women should conform to middle class notions of femininity where women should be sexually reserved. Instead, Steffans boldly uses her sex appeal to make it in Hollywood, but at what price?

Lee offers a much more complex view of Steffans' tales than do most readers. Lee argues that Steffans' book is a "seamless blend of caution and seduction [and] is the key to understanding much of its criticism, as well as its dynamism" (2010:35). Her book indeed serves as a cautionary seductive tale - it is a warning to other young women who have found themselves in similar circumstances, but one filled with tales of seduction. Her memoirs have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and she hopes that her book will help women create a more positive outlook on their own personal lives.

Steffans' autobiography shows how the interlocking systems of oppression

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The Evolution of Erykah Badu 245

of racism, sexism, patriarchy, and heterosexism can "converge to trap women into lives of bondage" (Zerai, 2002:20). But according to Lee, Steffans is an example of how women are trapped by gendered double standards that are all too common in today's culture and for that reason, Steffans' autobiography is a valuable piece of work. It has sparked contentious debate regarding acceptable means of behavior for women and has so powerfully exposed these gendered double standards. It has provided a unique instance by which to juxtapose Badu and Badu's contemporaries.

Badu is undoubtedly a woman, not simply because she has the "biological evidence," but because she compels us to think of her as a woman who is constantly undergoing dynamic transitional processes with her womanhood. Whereas Steffans is a woman who has chosen to express her femininity through overt displays of sexuality, Badu challenges the notion that femininity, sexuality, and womanhood is enacted by a singular method and gives credence to the notion that sexuality is more complex. De Beauvoir's piece provides us with useful tools for understanding why some women like Steffans express their sexuality in said ways. Some women have chosen to rebel against the stereotypical notions of femininity and others opt not to. De Beauvoir's Marxist and existentialist leanings come through in her work as she questions how women can be more authentically human and be true to oneself, but she was criticized because her quest for a more liberal subjecthood for women was not universally applicable to all women. Since the writings of de Beauvoir, feminist theory has evolved to where priority is given to the plurality of women's voices.

When the second wave of feminism arose, the voices of men and women of diverse backgrounds were prioritized, particularly those of various class backgrounds. Second wave feminists argued that the term "woman" was not universally applicable to all women. The second wave questioned de Beauvoir's aim for a more liberal subjecthood for women based on the fact that the women's movement had virtual lines of inclusion and exclusion where "not all women have

felt themselves to be included, or included on equal terms, in the call to sisterhood" (Lovell, 1996:299). Patricia Hill Collins has led the charge against the universal application of the term "woman" and has been a pioneer of the outsider- within perspective. This perspective pertains to black women as being important and valuable producers of knowledge because it is the key ingredient for dissecting that dialectical relationship between oppression and activism particularly for black women because black women are inherently conscious of their oppression beginning at a young age and actively resist on a daily basis.

According to Collins (2000), we cannot ignore the intersections of race, gender, and class. Racism has many gendered forms, particularly in the media where white women are used as the standard of beauty. Women of color are often stereotyped as jezebels (exotic sex objects) and welfare queens. White women, Collins says, must adhere to the cult of true womanhood and "true" women were

those who possessed piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Elite white women and those of the emerging middle class were encouraged to aspire to these

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246 Andrea Wilbon Hartman

virtues. African American women encounter a different set of controlling images and these negative stereotypes are fundamental to the oppression of black women. To Collins, it symbolizes the suppression of black feminist thought, of Black women's ideas, and Black women's intellectual activism.

Surfing the Third Wave

The third wave of feminism arose in the 1990s, building upon feminist theories of the 1970s (Lovell, 1996). By Catherine Orr's (1997) account, it sprang from a diverse group of women who allied themselves with one another on issues of race and sexuality, particularly since the United States' model of feminism has historically obscured the role of race in organizing efforts (Springer, 2002), making black women reluctant to participate in the feminist movement or to call themselves feminists (Collins, 2000). With the emergence of the third wave came a variety of methods by which to disseminate gender equality, i.e. through punk music, cyberspace, in addition to classrooms and at the street-level (Orr, 1997:29). As Springer (2002) notes, "younger black women are joining the dialogue [of black third wave feminism] through their activism, music, and writing" (p. 1059). While the second and third waves converge over the notion that women have typically led the fight for gender equity, some argue that the third wave distinctly different from the second.

The third wave recognizes that society is unique politically, economically, technologically, and culturally in comparison to the second wave generation. But while some argue that the differences between the second and third waves are merely about generational differences, others argue that the third wave represents a further increase in the variation of attitudes toward gender equity - specifically the interconnectedness of gender equity with antiracist attitudes (Springer 2002) - and represents an increase in the number of individuals who are willing to partake in feminist activism. This is because, as Gloria Steinem (1995) points out in the forward of To Be Real : Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism , individuals coming of age in today's society are so often confronted with a wide range of feminisms, having been exposed to it through images in popular culture via television, the internet, music videos, books, or whether it is from teachers, parents, etc. (xviii).

In this arguably postmodern world, we are bombarded daily with images of sex, eroticism, and that which is sexually provocative. To return to Lee's assertions, because we are bombarded with sex on a daily basis is indicative of the fact that we are living in an epoch where new spaces of sexual agency are and should be cultivated. He points to the likes of Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, Jill Scott, Kelis, and others to argue that these black women use their sexuality to carve out a space where they demand agency and insist that controlling their self-sexual representations is in fact empowering. Lee goes on to argue that this sex-positive trajectory can potentially liberate the black feminist perspective from only looking

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The Evolution of Erykah Badu 247

at these female superstars from a victimized standpoint (Lee, 2010:128). In the context of this paper, it is interesting to explore Erykah Badu's uniqueness. Badu is unique because she brings her own version of third wave black feminism into mainstream popular culture. Through looking at her lyrics and music videos, it can become clearer how she uses the neo-soul genre to broadcast themes of empowerment to listeners with sensual and, at times, sexual methods. In the space of black feminism, black consciousness, and the neo-soul movement, women like Badu feel comfortable and compelled to use their music, voices, and creativity to resist objectification and openly defy the controlling images directed at black women.

Today's music broadcasts themes of love and sexuality over radio waves. What is compelling about Badu is that her lyrics "highlight friendship, sisterhood, love, and solidarity" (Davis, 1998:45). Her empowering nature comes through her outspokenness in her songs. More importantly, by Angela Davis' standards, Badu's songs prove that "feminist traditions are not only written, they are oral" (Davis, 1998:xix). She upholds the tenets of feminism by challenging mainstream demands, objectification, and hypersexualization of women in a new context while simultaneously retaining her own sexiness and sensual appeal. Her lyrics challenge listeners to grapple with emotional pains and the emotional baggage that come our way on a daily basis. In "Bag Lady" Badu is calling for all her listeners to defy and to resist the standards that society imposes upon women - the same standards video vixens, one could argue, are constantly trying to conform to. In one portion of her music video, we see five women all reading books. The book titles are: 1) Real Skinny, Real Fast , 2) Quick Thick Hair, 3) Sober Now, 4) Get Over Him Yesterday , and 5) Instant Beauty. Her message is that if we try to keep conforming to society's standards, it will weigh us down, and "hurt our backs, dragging all them bags like that". We can never truly reach society's standards because they are based on stereotypical notions of beauty that are unattainable. There are pressures to be skinny and having "good hair" combined with the notions of what can be considered beautiful. Badu is stating that it is not important and cherishes the idea that the only thing we need to "hold on to, is you".

Many of Badu's songs showcase the transcendence of stereotypical messages directed at black women and simultaneously shows a profound appreciation for the history of black political life. Her lyrics in "On & On" encourage listeners to demand more from relationships, sexual or otherwise as she says, "I'm feeling kinda hungry... Don't feed me yours 'cause your food does not endure". It is as if Badu is saying that the standards men and women are supposed to follow are not suitable and should be actively resisted. Too, "On & On" highlights and emphasizes black collective life in the south. "It highlights the specificity, difference, and particularity of the black experience" (Emerson, 2002:125). In the making of this video, Badu's body is hardly accentuated. She wears a long sleeve shirt, ankle-length skirt, and work boots, which is completely different from the typical daisy duke shorts that are complemented by only a bra top vis-à-vis Britney Spears, Janet Jackson, Lii' Kim, Foxxy Brown, and countless

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248 Andrea Wilbon Hartman

others (Emerson, 2002). In the video, Badu finds beauty in average, ordinary household items. She wears a green patterned tablecloth to a "juke joint" and performs to her crowd, while still wearing her work boots. It is as if she is delivering the message that beauty comes from within, while simultaneously helping us pay tribute to our collective emersion "from an emphatically southern black context that affirms the validity of the black experience" (Emerson, 2002:125).

Badu is unique in this respect because unlike other female musicians who are in music videos, Badu is typically fully dressed. To return to her music video for "Didn't Cha Know", Badu wears what appears to be layer upon layer of clothing, showing virtually no skin, except the skin on her face. In addition to noting that Badu is quite a contrast to the above female musicians Emerson also notes that these musicians present themselves as "eye candy", put there simply for the male gaze and for male desire echoing de Beauvoir. But here I return to a point Shayne Lee makes in Erotic Revolutionaries. Lee states that black artists like Beyoncé, Tina Turner, LiP Kim, Janet Jackson, etc. are simply "embracing] more proactive scripts for female sexuality" effectively challenging the "feminist moralism [that] leads many women to conform to middle-class codes of decorum" (Lee, 2010:22). Contrary to LiP Kim, Janet Jackson, etc., Badu tends to be fully clothed and has typically been so over the course of her career. But, we should not ignore her newer and more controversial music video for "Window Seat" where she

is seen walking the streets of Dallas fully clothed at one moment and in the next moment is fully nude. This goes to show, as Lee acknowledges, that both sexuality and the methods by which to disseminate empowerment are indeed complex. Erykah Badu is a multifaceted black woman whose intelligent rhetoric gives her much more agency, authenticity, and legitimacy, ultimately garnering her much more respect and quite a bit of autonomy in this male driven industry, even if she does appear nude in a music video or two. These notions ultimately led Emerson to conclude that although objectification and exploitation remains in numerous music videos, there are musicians out there in the public eye who contest these controlling images via being sexually provocative, which Badu inevitably does.

While resisting society's standards of beauty are common fodder for her lyrics, love found and love lost are recurring themes as well. In her hit song "Tyrone", we see Badu refusing to be subservient to the man in her life, demanding more respect, and finally refusing to cater to him any longer, which one could argue Karrine Steffans painstakingly does in her relationships. Badu sings, "every time we go somewhere I gotta reach down in my purse, to pay your way and your homeboys way, and sometimes your cousins way. . .they don't never have to pay". Her song is about having found love but finally refusing to be taken advantage of. She tells her partner to call his friend, Tyrone, to help him move out of her place. Badu tells her significant other, "you need to call Tyrone, but you can't use my phone". Badu is demanding respect and for these reasons "Tyrone" has become an anthem for many women.

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The Evolution of Erykah Badu 249

As it should be clearer now, Badu is truly a powerhouse in her personal quest for eternal womanhood. Whether she is dressing like a 1940s pin-up doll or a hip-hop artist with gold teeth, Addidas sweatpants, and shell toes, she is still a woman. Badu's relation to the music industry is unique. She immerses herself as much as possible in every aspect of the recording process. Whereas it is common for beginning musicians to conform to the music industry's standards and their tastes, as Eshe noted, in Badu's world, Badu is clearly in charge in this male driven industry. She does not hesitate to assert herself and refuses to cater to time constrictions and production schedules. "Erykah Badu is stubborn. She records when she gets good and ready, thumbs her nose at deadlines, and consistently produces music that satisfies her own cravings" (Vibe Magazine, 2003). She feels that her creativity is not to be manipulated nor forced. For example, Baduizm came out in 1997, but her next album, Mama's Gun , did not premier until 2000. This time frame saw Badu transition from performing on stage with the "mile- high head wrap" style to now wearing a 70s Afro wig inspired by Angela Davis (Ebony Magazine).

What is interesting to note is that on some level, by wearing an Afro wig, one can argue that Badu is drawing upon the legacy of Angela Davis' activism and the depth of her political consciousness and is another point of divergence between Badu and her musical counterparts. Davis, a former Black Panther and Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles, is a dominant figure when it comes to black consciousness and how it relates to gender equity. Davis has written several texts that deal with the intersectionality of race, gender, and class and is a major influence to third wave feminist philosophy. Equally profound, however, is just as Badu draws upon the 60s and 70s black power movement in her music, Angela Davis draws from musical traditions - Blues and Jazz - to inform black consciousness.

In Blues Legacies and Black Feminism (1998), Davis' goal is to investigate ways in which the lives of Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday shaped the production of their music and in turn, how their music shaped black consciousness. Particularly in regards to interpersonal relationships, Davis reveals how love, sexuality, and problems arising in heterosexual relationships were common themes in Rainey, Smith, and Holiday's music. Davis ponders how these particular women created and used Blues and Jazz music during their careers to express physical and sexual freedom as a substitute for the economic instability in the years following emancipation that imposed its will upon black working class lives.

Superimposing Davis' arguments onto contemporary music reveals at least two distinct patterns. First, the physical and sexual freedoms alluded to in Rainey, Smith, and Holiday's music is found in contemporary society. Both generations use physical and sexual freedom as a major component in their music. Second, the sexual freedom presented in contemporary music is also a method for acquiring economic freedom as we have seen in the case of Karrine Steffans. Her book is a

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250 Andrea Wilbon Hartman

powerful account of women's presence in this industry and is rather remarkable book if you credit her with transgressing the gender boundary whereby she flipped the gender script. By appropriating what men typically do in this industry, she was able to make money for herself. Steffans' assertion over the course of the book is that male hip-hop artists take advantage of women by objectifying them and capitalizing off their sexuality by treating them as pornographic objects. The question that looms is why can 't women do the samel Why can't women use their sexuality to make money for themselves? Steffans sleeps with a number of men in order to get her face in movies and music videos. The million dollar question, however, is, at what point are we being transgressive and at what point are we participating in our own objectification?

Conclusion

The music industry is full contradictory themes. It reflects the ambivalence in the black female community regarding relating to others and connecting black womanhood and sexuality (Emerson, 2002). Unlike Britney Spears's Bubble Gum Pop and quite different from Rap's Lii' Kim or Foxxy Brown who are scantily clad in most if not all their music videos and concerts, Badu amazes audiences with her own brand of sensuality and sexuality. She resists overly relying upon stereotypical portrayals of femininity and sexuality, while accessing them at times. Instead of portraying that which is stereotypical of women in music videos, Badu approaches her art with a level of creativity and social and political consciousness typically underutilized by popular musicians. As such, she brings a heightened level of credibility to the black experience as she disseminates new constructions of what it means to be a black feminist with a finely tuned eye toward black consciousness.

Badu represents black consciousness and broadcasts many of the powerful messages found in the third wave of feminism. In fact, in my opinion, Badu makes strides in propagating her belief system by doing so. Not only is she race- conscious, but she is gender-conscious as well. She never seems ambivalent about herself as a black woman and never appears to be grappling with how to negotiate her personal womanhood, like many others do. She asserts her own provocative nature without falling into the typical stereotype of the black jezebel or sapphire (Douglas, 1999), which many argue undermines the idea of black womanhood (Collins, 2000).

Badu has toured around the world like most other musicians, but as Michael Baisden stated on air, even though artists are traveling around the world, most artists are not letting their art transcend and impact their personal lives. The lessons that traveling artists could learn are not often allowed to enter into their music or their daily lives really. Baisden wants empowering messages and heightened levels of consciousness put back into the music and Erykah Badu has been doing so. Her heightened level of consciousness comes through as she

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The Evolution of Erykah Badu 251

recognizes this and comments on the historic marginalization of black women and men and entices her audiences to recognize and be more aware of the same. She broadcasts notions of empowerment through her lyrics and videos and they appeal to her conscious fans. We want to be deep like Erykah Badu because she encourages us to enlighten ourselves and be true to ourselves.

Baisden's show ended with a discussion of the future of popular music. He says that we need to take music to the next level because music is supposed to transcend. In fact, "whether it is Negro spirituals during slavery, protest songs during the civil rights movement, or catchy tunes from the Spice Girls during the 1990s girl power movement, music is often on the cusp of political and social change" (Lee, 20 1 0: 1 0). But because there is so much violence in popular music some musicians, like Eshe, do not feel compelled to listen to the radio any longer. The industry, unfortunately, is not looking for the light, so to speak. Although there is much negativity in music there are increasing spaces of positivity, empowerment, and consciousness, combined with sensuality and sexuality and that is showcased by Erykah Badu.

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