Erykah Badu
New Amerykah: Part One (Fourth World War) (Motown)
ESSENTIAL "The Cell"
Since her seminal neo-soul debut in 1997, Erykah Badu has gotten looser and weirder - simultaneously harder to listen to and more worthy of our attention. Her new album, the first of two planned releases this year, is a left-field funkadelic workout filled with woozy chants, hazy incantations, and obscure spoken-word rants. No wonder the first single, "Honey," is tacked on as a hidden bonus track. That sweet, languid groove bears little resemblance to the rest of this mysterious and richly rewarding album. Social politics are front and center - on the dark, urgent lead track, "Amerykahn Promise"; "Soldier," a haunting paean to perseverance made of beats and flutes; and jungly, bleeping "My People," which morphs from an electro-organic rave into a crackling succession of taped soliloquies. Most of the songs have dramatic mid-stream personality shifts; the sweeping utopian dream of "Master Teacher" flows on a bumpy, dissonant current into smooth waters, where sickly synths are replaced by warm electric keys. Eccentric hip-hop producers Shafiq and Taz Arnold of the Sa-Ra collective, as well as like-minded peers Madlib, 9th Wonder, and vets from Badu's previous albums "Baduizm" and "Mama's Gun" bring a plethora of trippy-boho trappings to the album. From the wild, ominous hard-bop of "The Cell" to space-age chaos of "Twinkle" to shimmying, shimmering "Me," there's never a dull moment - but more than a few bewildering ones. [Joan Anderman]
