Mr. Charles Mingus gives us two ears full of heavy music strong enough to last a long, long time. Young brother acoustic piano phenom Ahmed Sirour seranades us with serious remixes and soothing instrumentals. We close with 18 (you know she can go on and on) remixes of Erykah Badu. Enjoy your summer.
Erykah’s sound is distinctive not just in tone and timbre but also because of the drum in her throat. Her cadence and approach to phrasing is instantly identifiable, which means regardless of the surrounding sound-bed her vocals generate an emotional momentum of their own. It’s not just clever hooks or easy to hum melodies. Erykah’s music is a force field that encourages dreaming and experimentation. While listening to her one hears all kinds of possibilities far beyond the specifics of the original recording. The force is so strong with Badu that the attraction is as definite and unavoidable as the earth’s gravity. Rappers fiend to spit over her beats, to have her voice wash over their flow. And don’t even talk about music producers with their favorite software and sound equipment—those cats drool for the opportunity to tweak a Badu cut. If you need evidence, simply go to the Soundcloud or Bandcamp web sites and search for Erykah, you’ll get pages and pages, and pages of Badu re-do’s. Over the last year or so there have been literally hundreds of versions of “On & On” and maybe because I’m not an aspirant rapper I have not been bitten by the bug that causes someone to think they can come up with a killer verse to use on “Window Seat.” That’s it. Listen to the Badu Re-do Mixtape. I rest my case. P.S. we also have hotlinks for three other Badu remix mixtapes. Get 'em while the getting is good. —kalamu ya salaam