Erykah Badu, high priestess of next level/future blackness, just dropped one of the year’s best pop culture artifacts, her new mixtape But You Cain’t Use My Phone. It’s a concept project thematically centered on the act of calling your lover (past, current, maybe future once again) with its title being a witty reference to her hit “Tyrone.” But what it’s really about is the thorny content of those conversations. Issues of trust and lust co-mingle. Layers of communication are peeled back and dissected with Badu’s trademark poetic bite, insights and cleva’ness.
Closing track “Hello,” which blew up overnight, last night, is an inspired cover/reimagining of Todd Rundgren’s classic of the same name. Its soulfully hazy, spacey, mellow vibe allows Badu to drizzle her sultry vocals over the groove, while Andre 3000, Badu’s former beau and father of her son Seven, is in beast mode: “Okay, challenge: Leave your phone unlocked and right side up / walk out the room without throwing your bitch off-balance / It’s either on or off, ain’t no in-between when it’s valid…
But what’s so great about the track is the way it allows the two to explain something of their past relationship without giving away anything truly personal, and then mapping out what would seem to be the way they’ve since approached life and love/lovers. The track ends with the two crooning: “It’s important to me that you know you are free / ‘cause I never want to make you change for me / Don’t change…”
The words are Rundgren’s, but coming from two of pop’s most unconventional, idiosyncratic artists, they vibrate with the power of the most intimate confession.
Featured image is Erykah Badu for Givenchy. Photographed by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott
