As a group of 30 fans and media gathered into Erykah Badu’s dressing room at Washington, D.C’s DAR Constitution Hall for a meet and greet; she gave insight on life to those in their teens and allowed many others to express their views on society and ask her questions about her love life and music. As a very spiritual woman with rituals that allow her to feel at peace in a political and discerning society she has been opening her arms to many through her music and style. She gives her thoughts on selling sex to sell units when you aren’t an independent artist. She said she has found him, but who and what?
Finding A Husband⦠“Him who?”
Love of Your Life, Not Music⦠“Oh, I have found him, several times. It was him every time. Its him right now. I make sure that I am always behaved and I give 100 percent. I love my men and we are all still best friends and in turn have all evolved. I also come from a family of women who are all matriarch. None of them have married and I probably won’t. It’s just the way my family is and our upbringing. We know how to hold it down with our without men. I do have someone special now though.”
Women Selling Sex vs. Selling Sex To Sell Records⦠“It’s okay, I think its fine. Sex is beautiful, but sex shouldn’t be the only thing. The reason why you get a record deal and a contract to sell units is based on your ability and if sex has to be one of those tactics, use it tastefully. It’s all about how you sell it in your image. We are just dependent on sex so much in the US that It’s not a bad thing because we are human beings and personally I love it; I love to feel it, experience it, share it and there is nothing wrong with that. There is a difference in exploiting ourselves and us [women] in the music and we need to focus on more things that we are.”
Saving Black Radio⦠“Play the artists that want to be heard. What I understand for the group sitting here with me tonight is that we aren’t fans of the programmed music that plays daily. The more important issue is freeing Black music and the artist. They tend to put us in these genres or categories. I will say they really only play me in contemporary, adult, 37 and over. I know my music is good and anything they’re going to play in rotation people are going to love it. No matter what they play, it’s going to get programmed in our heads. I found myself singing “Come on rude boy, boy, won’t you get it up⦠eh, eh, eh”. No, really I know it because I have heard it a million times. Thank God they have satellite and online radio for the diversity, but for the general public that listens to public radio, it’s programmed. I do feel it is a window of opportunity for someone to start a campaign to help out and do it intelligently and make it make sense and we’ll support you. I get tired of hearing the same six songs every day. I want to hear something else on public radio. I want to hear some with substance and some without it because I want a variety. Shoot, I want to shake it fast and I want to learn some math.”
Listening Outside of the Box⦠“I guess not being a part of what we call groupthink. People are afraid to go against the groupthink. It’s a horrible fear that we have inside of us. It is a term coined by Irving Janice in 1972, a philosopher in sociology, he noticed a wide variety of groups in religion, educational systems, and social life had it. He studied that an individual is petrified and would be afraid to go against the group and in turn experience rejection.”
—— By: Interview By Imani Pope-Johns
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