Baduizm

About

<b>100 Best Albums</b> In 1997, as a new cadre of socially consciou, hip-hop soul songwriters was emerging from the underground, <i>Baduizm</i> shifted the entire R&B landscape. A 25-year-old Texan with a preternaturally cool sense of groove and a jazz twang that conjured Billie Holliday with a joint simmering between her finger, Badu brought an approach to songwriting that simply <i>was</i> the sound of neo-soul. “<i>Baduizm</i> was designed to get you high,” she said at the time. “<i>Baduizm</i> is lighting my incense, lighting my candle, knowing the creator, knowing myself.” Her approach to spirituality in her music was down-to-earth—as was her style, with flowing dresses and an omnipresent head wrap. But her music was otherworldly, even as she sang conversationally about the concerns of the everywoman, whether working poverty and sociopolitical pressures or the dirty deeds of unworthy lover. Propelled by the slow groove of her rotating backing band, including bass legend Ron Carter and a little-known Philadelphia group called The Root, she channeled and then embodied a cultural shift towards Afrocentricism, creating a sonic throughline of Black musics like ’30s blues and ’70s jazz to soul on the precipice of a new millennium, all anchored by a deeply funky rhythm section. .

via Apple Music

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