Hovering over the last stage of pregnancy did not deter Erykah Badu from sauntering onto a New York stage in 1997, clad in Afrocentric apparel complete with Nefertitious headwrap, to commit one of her live performances to record.
It had only been a short eight months since the release of her debut offering, Baduizm, a truly remarkable piece of work that put the then 26 year-old newcomer on the burgeoning Nu-Soul radar and which had everyone unanimously pinning her down as Billie Holiday’s successor.
“Baduizm Live” bears the same hiphop-streaked, jazz-infused Neo-Classic soul traits as its studio counterpart, only the transposition into a live environment imparts to the songs na elegance and poise which, combined with their creator’s ethereal, caramel-soft, oozy vocals, all but reach perfection.
In her live renditions, the Dallas-born, spiritually aware soulstress treads an oxymoronic line between heart-wrenching vulnerability on statuesque slowburner “YeYo” and cocksure sassiness as when giving her live-in boyfriend the boot by reason of his remissness in living up to his end of the bargain on the excellent, bass-heavy “Tyrone”, the studio version of which closes proceedings.
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Although there is little here to excite jaded nerves owing to the sluggish pace of most of the songs, there is an element of surprise when the singer suddenly shifts from tea-sipping Lady Day soundalike to word-spewing girl-on-the-mike on the hiphop coda of “On & on”.
But it is with the abattoir soul of “Next Lifetime” that the whole affair reaches its zenith. It is the sonic equivalent of taking in the sunset on a balmy, summery late afternoon, as the fiery hues in an opalescent sky sprawl languidly into a dusky glow before giving way to a mantle of Stygian darkness. Delightful and ravishing from beginning to end.
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