Erykah Badu: Master of Frequency

“The reason we’re so out of balance in society is because the male and female are so separate and far apart. That’s a very unlike us as a resilient African people. We can go far back in Africa and it was mixed up then, but if you go further and further back to Kemet you see the Ma’at balance; where the female is God and the male is also God. So if we really want to restore our world, spirit and our vitality we must go back to Ma’at.” Erykah Badu

Whether you think she’s obtuse, strange, unorthodox, odd or just plain weird, Erykah Badu’s music is an extension and reflection of her growth as a spiritual being. Once that realization occurs, hopefully there will be an acknowledgment that she’s no different from anyone else. If she’s in the classroom or behind the microphone, the new technologically savoy “Analogue Girl” has successfully injected herself into the internet world. Ms. Badu’s primary objective is to inspire and educate people by controlling and operating on the right frequencies. Her first installment of the four part sequence, New Amerykah: 4th World War, is the foundation of things to come.

It’s 1:30am, Erykah Badu has just finished her VH-1 special which was only two days after her concert in Nigeria, she’s exhausted; but evokes the energy to speak on music, art as a means of living, raising an African-American male, colors and what it means to be a “ControlfreaQ”.

Scheme: From the very first album there’s always been a three-year interval, from your previous album. From Worldwide Underground to New Amerykah a span of five years have passed. Was there any reason[s] for that change?
Erykah Badu: I don’t know, I don’t know why I took so much time in between. It had to do with the writers block in between, or what people call writers block. What I found out writers block for me was downloading time. Then I’m supposed to testify after I’ve learned a few things here and there. It didn’t seem like it took a long time [laughs], I guess time just moves.

Scheme: How important is time and space to you and your music?
Erykah Badu: Time and space is very important to me, it’s all about space and giving the music its space. The music comes first and that’s how I write lyrics. There has to be music when I’m writing a song and I’m finding the space in between.

Scheme: You describe this album as being a story. How does the music come to you and then come out of you?
Erykah Badu: I tour for a living, I’m a touring artist and I record on the side. Touring to me is like creating a moment, where recording is more like perfecting a moment. In the recording process I’m not as inspired to make an album as I am to singing live because singing live pays my bills, it’s my living. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the industry today with recording. My recording process goes like this, either I write a song on guitar, piano, create a song with another musician or get a track. After the track, I try to find the space for it, rarely do I have anything predestined.

Scheme: You worked with a dynamic, off-kilter line up of producers. What was it like working with them in the studio?
Erykah Badu: Well it didn’t work like that; I didn’t get to actually to be in the studio with each of them. They sent me songs over ichat or I would listen to old Dilla beats and choose a song from all of his beats or sync in with Madlib beats. Jay Electronica gave me a group of Madlib tracks that I took. So I would listen to the tracks and put together an album based on those tracks that I liked and pulled together from all theses different people. So this album was produced quite differently from any of the other ones I’ve done in the past where as I pulled together all the beats l liked. It was kind of like what an emcee would do, I tried to find the ones that hit me in the heart the most.

I split New Amerykah up into two parts, New Amerykah Part 1: 4th World War is the first. It’s called that because it was my perspective standing in one spot and I controlled my own paradigm shift of things around me. I watched everything move and form in America and from the time that I talked to you [audience] last this is what I’ve seen.

Scheme: From the outside looking in, Erykah Badu appears to be a complex person, but looking at how you see the world from within, is it really that complex or quite simple?
Erykah Badu: I don’t think I’m different than any other human being, I’m growing publicly and it’s difficult to grow publicly, there are 10,000 opinions. From what I get out of singing and the therapy I get to experience from uniting with people and giving them my perspective of what’s going on, I think it’s well worth the sacrifice of people judging it. They don’t bother me, I’m a big girl I can handle it.

Scheme: With the track “the Healer”, you basically talk about hip-hop being bigger than any and everything. Do you still believe that music has the power to move and unite a people the way Senator Barack Obama is with his words?
Erykah Badu: Of course, I know it; I’m a witness of it. When we heard Self-Destruction in ’89, everyone turned in his or her fat gold chains for those black leather medallions. When we heard Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On we all became conscious, when we heard I’m Black and I’m Proud by James Brown everybody began to wear naturals or John Lenin’s Imagine, everyone started to imagine at that time and it was kind of like the soundtrack for our world. I’ve never underestimated the audience’s ability to grow and change. Forever and ever that frequency and vibration will always run through us and really be a part of our DNA and a part of what we’re made of. That’s why when you hear songs that you heard when you were a child you can resurrect a smell, taste or an emotion because it evokes so many things, everything is sound and vibration.

Scheme: February 26th is Saviors’ Day, what exactly does that mean?
Erykah Badu: For the Nation of Islam, it’s a very important holiday, because it’s a celebration of the Savior or the one who brought the information. The one is Elijah Muhammad, and they call him the Savior. Minister Farrakhan changed Saviors’ with an the apostrophe at the end of Saviors’ Day meaning more than one. That’s what 4th World War is all about, war with self and the challenges we face with self.

“I find that no matter what the title of their God is, people bow their heads to the kick and the snare everywhere I go, thus “the Healer”.”

Scheme: What’s it been like raising an African-American male in today’s society There is only so much you can protect him from knowing eventually he will be exposed to possible any and everything.
Erykah Badu: My son Seven is ten years old now, so he’s pretty much about to go through a Rites of Passage. He’s trading in his child eyes for man eyes. I don’t want him to learn from a fearful point of view because there’s some scary shit going on. I want him to feel safe and informed and protected, because he is. He’s one of the people that’s going to be responsible to push, change, mold and be able to create a new world for tomorrow through his thoughts and his dreams. So we teach him to not allow anyone to infiltrate his dreams. We teach him that he’s a spiritual being first, a human being second, boy or girl third and Black, White or Asian fourth. When you’re coming from that point of a view as a child, you’ve developed the traits and characteristics you need to be a good leader. It’s very important that he’s around productive males and just productive human beings period.

Scheme: How important is color to you?
Erykah Badu: You’re asking some very interesting questions, color is very important to me, color is a part of therapy for us. Each color carries its on vibration, from white lights to complete blackness. When we see a rainbow in the sky those colors are in a specific order, from red to purple and those are the ones we see with the naked eye. Those colors match up with the frequencies with the main seven chakras in the body. Each chakra in the body coordinates to a color, stone, aroma, musical note and a set of origins that are governed by their color. For example red is the root chakra; red governs how you see life through your tribes’ eye. That’s the first thing you learn when you’re born, you learn to see life through a tribes point of view, whether it’s your church group, race, crew or your gang. Whatever the group is doing that’s how you learn to see. Red is the vibration that brings out the best in that frequency. Next is orange, which is the next step to growth and maturity and that’s called the lower abdomen. That’s the frequency of how we vibrate on a one on one basis. Soon as you move from your tribe you move to a one on one perspective with people. You take from your tribal beliefs and learn from someone else’s tribal beliefs. The stone that governs that chakra is cornelian, the musical note is b, the scent is petulie and all these things wake up and heighten that frequency vibration. That’s the importance of color, the colors that you wear the colors that you see. When you see a certain color it triggers a certain thing in your mind.

“I am a control-freaq and I hope that everyone that comes through my label is a control-freaq, there’s nothing freaky about controlling your own image.”

Scheme: I asked that question is because sometimes there are photos of you and people may think that you’re trying to make a fashion statement and in reality that’s how you may feel that day.
Erykah Badu: Well, it’s so weird what I’m attracted to aesthetically and it’s usually what I need. That goes along with the saying, “To thy own self be true.” I’ve learned that what I desire is not separated from the will of the Most High. When I’m listening to myself and my tastes and the stuff I think is fresh, it’s because I need that for my body, for me, for my surroundings, my aurora, my energy and my movement. I just don’t like things for nothing.

Scheme: You’ve traveled all over the world, what are the commonalities that you’ve seen in people in general?
Erykah Badu: I’ve been almost everywhere and lately I’ve noticed that people worship in different ways but what they have in common is the need to worship. The need to become centered, the need to bow their heads, the need to love and be loved and to be connected with a higher source. I find that no matter what the title of their God is, people bow their heads to the kick and the snare everywhere I go, thus “the Healer”. Palestine, Australia, Benin, Nigeria everybody has that in common.

Scheme: When I traveled to Africa for the first time, I felt like I took my first breath. For you, what’s it like when you travel to any part of Africa?
Erykah Badu: Part of my roots are straight African, my features, my bone structure so therefore my DNA calls out for home. The first time I went to Africa, I wound up with emotions and tears and felt I was home. The air, the warmth, I don’t know, I just felt like I was home. That’s the center of creation and it’s almost like going into your center. At one point, all of those continents was one thing. There were no fifty-four nations of Africa, there was one Africa and it was surrounded by everything else. Same way I feel when I drink some kind of green juice or Spirileena or chlorophyll because that’s the very first life chlorophyll [bionic bacteria]. When the sun met the water and life began to grow, I’m drinking my ancestors so it feels like that when I go back to the continent and the people are you. It doesn’t matter if you’re White, Asian or Black when you go back you’re looking at you.

Scheme: Talk a little bit about Control FreaQ Records and why decided to entitle it that?
Erykah Badu: I dreamt up Control FreaQ Records years ago, but I actually decided to let it materialize when I met Jay Electronica. I was motivated by another artist to move so quickly and push the label along, that’s the spark that I needed. He was so talented, peculiarly intelligent and such an extraordinary human being. I felt like I wanted to be a part of whatever this guy has to do in the world. I created a label based on my feelings towards him as a human being and a talented emcee and producer.

I named it Control FreaQ Records because the name of my production company was already called Frequency and I’m someone who knows the power of frequency. Control FreaQ is a play on words F-R-E-A-K and our motto is, “controlling the frequency of the planet through sound.” I am a control-freaQ and I hope that everyone that comes through my label is a controlfreaQ, there’s nothing freaky about controlling your own image. Control FreaQ Records additional motto is, “freeing the slaves and the slave masters”. Coincidently when you record on tape and then turn it into a record, you call it a master, and when you copy it on to a reel you call it a slave. So our motto is freeing the slaves and the slave’s masters [laughs]. When I say freeing them what I mean is, there’s a ten to fifteen year conversion that means that the master converts back over to the artist depending on the contract that the artists sign. That means they belong to them [artists] so they don’t end up like a Roy Ayers or a Miles Davis, who don’t own their masters, so the record companies sell it over and over again but they get nothing from it. So that’s freedom to me and that’s music and that’s the way it should be done. People give me advice and say your not going to make any money like that, but I guess that’s how I found out that I’m not about the money only. I am about the money, money is very important to us because it gives us choices especially to poor children and not just Black children, but poor Whites, Asians, Hispanics poor people period. When we can afford food, money and shelter then we can begin to think about those other therapeutic and mentally spiritual things like yoga and creating atmospheres that can lift our lost spirits.

Scheme: Is there a difference between Erica Wright and Erykah Badu?
Erykah Badu: It’s just a paradigm shift that you would have to do; we’re the same people with different roles. It’s as close to a Pisces as you can get. Erykah Badu is a very determined, all purpose, queen and grown woman. Erica Wright is a child learning to move through life and they both co-exist at the same time.

Scheme: If there were no music, who and what would you be?
Erykah Badu: A teacher, I was a teacher before the music and I enjoy that very much. Teaching young children, discipline, creativity, emotion, music, spirituality, mathematic signs and mostly art as a means of living.