NEW AMERYKAH, POLL 1 (4th World War)

a bit more coherent, even

The Healer, hands down. I love the album as a whole but there's something really entrancing about the repetitive mantra and Erykah's tone. After that, Amerykahn Promise and the bit at the end of Me about her mother where she's improvising with the trumpet.

"That Hump"

"The Healer" reminds me of those second or third tracks on Maxiquaye: it's eerie, displaced, ethereal in an almost metallic way, and sexy in a way you can't place.

My second pick would be "Soldier", with the bridge that keeps on going through several points that you expect it to end, getting denser and more jumbled all the while.

soldier! is like my favourite song this year. it's so good to walk the streets to. there's that little passage of ooh-a-ooh, hey, hey, uhha-rr, hey, hey, up there with like ain't no mountain high enough in abstract noise making terms.

"Healer" is just sublime.

I vote "whole album," but "The Cell" is otherworldly.

I also love the Obama intro to "Soldier."

fwiw, I don't think that's Obama

Shoot. I guess I fixated on the word "change" and assumed it was him. I don't recognize the speech and the clip's too short.

i vote whole album, too. HOW CAN I CHOOSE?

"That Hump" because of the Switch "I Call Your Name" 'sample'.

I really wish the tracks developed more, though. "The Cell" obviously has a sweet bass line, but the track just repeats the whole way through! I just wish the grooves went somewhere.

i chose telephone, but really this whole album is genius.

where's 'real thang'? it's not my favourite but it's just so righteous - i think it and 'honey', the most straightforwardly tuneful tracks on the album, work really well as bonus tracks. 'real thang' is endlessly quotable too - "got to balance your chakra, raise your octave to opera", "your double helix gon' triple", "shatter glasses like ella" and most of all the spoken ad libs: "sir, i think you better tell your soldiers that they need to - FALL BACK! cuz we comin' with a centrifugal force, it's about to get metaphysical y'all"

anyway it's between 'the cell', 'the healer' and 'soldier' for me, but more than any other album this year it just feels wrong to pinpoint particular favourites, it's such a cohesive work overall.

i dont have real thang on my copy!

holy shit. just found real thang. it's the b-side to "the healer" 12" righteous is right. DAMN. is this supposed to be off of part 2 or something? and when do we get return of the ankh anyway?

I think "Real Thang" (which I haven't heard) is only on socialist British pressings or some shit like that.

didn't she do that with i want you on worldwide underground?, too?
kinda makes me wish i hadn't waited to move to america before buying a copy.

"I Want You" is right in the middle of my American copy of WWU. Best song on the album, too.

ah o k. i haven't got that one yet, i'm not sure why i thought so. maybe there are other bonus tracks on uk one. such a perfect song:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1uxsc_erykah-badu-i-want-you_music

"That Hump"

― Put A Ring On It (The Brainwasher), Friday, October 24, 2008 10:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"the cell", but having to pick one is near impossible

haha 'real thang; is uk-only'?! i will upload tomorrow when not fall over drunx

UH HUH

i think i want to vote for "the healer" now

Twinkle- i love the eerieness of the production, the way her voice gets twisted all the way through the song and that verse about warlocks and witches with ill glitches.

Telephone

I don't know why, but nothing on the album has grabbed me yet -- I think my ears are so conditioned to track-only, singles listening that stuff just blows by if there's not a hook (i.e. I'd vote for "whole album" too). Looking for "Real Thang" now -- on the version I have there's a track just listed as "Bonus Track," but that appears to be "Honey"

this album is great... i voted for "soldier," though it was really a tie between it, "the healer" and "the cell"

Me was a close 2nd

'real thang'

Telephone

hip-hop
is bigger than religion

master teacher pt 2.

Right I just listened to this to decide. It's Me, The Cell or 2nd part of Master Teacher... or Telephone.. one of those anyway.

cell is way overrated. it sounds like something from 91.

I'm compelled to admit I prefer the tornadic first half of "master teacher," just to balance the scales.

cell nu amerykah pt. 1 is way overrated.
― titchyschneiderMk2

I think this is what you meant to write.

Plus, sounds like 1991 sounds like awesome.

yep

"The Cell" sounds like something from 1973, specifically, something by Stevie Wonder.

stevie wonder was using lightweight breakbeats and blanded out synths in 1973?

the whole album sounds like it wishes it lived back in 1973. is that good or bad? i dunno. but that doesn't mean i wouldn't take Call Me and Fresh (and Burnin') over this had ir been released then.

there are about 3 or 4 tracks tops that sound like they could have been made back then. even then, only amerykahn promise sounds *properly* retro, everything else in that old school soul/jazz/funk vein sounds like its been made recently.

The Cell has synths?

The wobbly bassline and finger snaps in "The Healer" set an incredibly nice vibe in the room everytime i put this on, so I'm going with that. I must say, I don't really like the first track, though. I think it's a little too aggressive sounding, and seems out of place with the rest of the album.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

i am pretty cool with these results, aside from "Honey" getting shafted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLKkkOoszAA

Did we ever poll the second? We should. (Or both together, even.)

And there are so many easter eggs, lyrically and sonically! I always discover something new when I listen to it. It's a complex motherfucking work. Just about a week ago, I first noticed that "My People" ends with the words "Good morning. Did you have a Dream?" And I capitilize Dream intentionally, because whether she was referring to the American (Amerykahn?) Dream or, I think more likely, MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, she intends to load the word with more meaning than its M-W definition would indicate.

― mr. mayan end times guy (The Reverend), Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:07 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah absolutely - i get annoyed when people overuse adjectives like "meaningful" but it absolutely applies to new amerykah in the sense that every word, note, inflection, every last detail in the arrangement is there for a reason, and even the most minute element of it can spark off these chains of thought just like yours

― lex pretend, Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:12 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, even things in the sequencing. It's no accident that "Me" is followed by "My People". She's already claimed her people as her in the former song. "I salute you [insert your name here] because you are me". It's also no mistake that she goes from grown folks acting all niggerish and not taking responsibility for their kids in "The Cell" to lamenting how those same kids "don't know their language...don't know their god" in "Twinkle" to the epiphany of "wait....what if there were no niggers, only master teachers?"

― mr. mayan end times guy (The Reverend), Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:23 PM Bookmark

Wait, but that's the Dream she has! You even have Curtis Mayfield playing herald for her with the sample of him at the beginning of "Master Teacher" repeating "dreams..." over and over.

*still learning things about this album*

This is still my favorite album of my lifetime, bout to put it on for the third time in a row.

She's playing NYE in Oakland with The Coup I believe.

rev otm

That Hump

second verse is the best vocal performance of her career imo

Only smoked a joint or two betwixt me and you.

that hump makes me sob tbh

always feel like whiney is going to pop up and take me to task for ^ that sentiment, but it's true

i just got to find a way
of liiiiiving
check tooo check
just tryin to pay my rent and i can feel it
coming down around me and this children
;_;

can i just posit the brother on her floor as the punctum here

my brother's sleeping on my floor
a bitch could use a little moooooore

otm

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That Hump 1

recount

Thanks to some dude, I've relistened to her catalog in the last three days and am gone baby gone all over again.

This was polled way too early.

Master Teacher has always been my favourite.

i'd've voted soldier. this is the album that keeps on giving

I can't even with these two albums. Parts 1 and 2 are collectively our Songs in the Key of Life.

Every song on this album is great, I've been feeling That Hump lately (no pun intended)

That Hump is the best

"me" is my jam, love that tune so much

"The Cell" is mine.

I had no idea until Al's rundown that Master Teacher had spawned a popular hashtag

Did we ever poll the second? We should. (Or both together, even.)
― dead-trius (Eric H.), Friday, February 17, 2012 4:08 PM (3 years ago)

Nu AmErykah, Poll 1 + 2 (4th World War + Return of the Ankh)

I had no idea until Al's rundown that Master Teacher had spawned a popular hashtag

― the saer returns (Drugs A. Money), Friday, March 6, 2015 7:36 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

stay woke, dawg

for the "That Hump" fans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMpSpWeYRPA

Thank you, Paul McCartney for writing "Arrow Through Me" so Badu could pilfer it.

xp Lol I always thought that that "day and night, night and day..." part in That Hump was a callback to Didnt Cha Know

No votes for honey is insane, song's pure joy

What a perfect album this is. Can't believe it has already been 10 years!

damn I just realized "Twinkle" uses the drum pattern from "Sucker MCs"

this album is thirteen years old (!)

HOW DOES IT STILL SOUND SO CONTEMPORARY???

She should make another album

fr.

and since we're on the subject of things that will never happen: the world needs that erykah / andre3000 duets album more than ever at this point.

"me" is my jam, love that tune so much

― marcos, Friday, March 6, 2015 9:23 AM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is what i wdve voted for

i don't think we'll ever hear the badu/andre3000 album but I think we could definitely hear a new album from her at some point

I still think her Tiny Desk show is one of the greatest things I've seen in years - the only real competition is other online shows she's done - and I do wish she'd press it up on vinyl and sell it me

you speak truth, stevie. good man.

+1 for "Me"

Best album ever recorded.

nothing long form since the phone ep, right?

Which itself is like 8 years old now too, right?

OK, I guess only 6. Point is, every year without a new Badu album feels like an eternity.

WILL THEY EVER FIND THE VACCINE??