Erykah Badu has been a doula for about 20 years, and was preparing for her first multiple birth of twins with mother Summer Walker when Vogue’s Chioma Nnadi connected with the certified Reiki master in her South-Dallas childhood home.
Walker gave birth in early January, with a major family team that also included Badu and her daughter Puma, featured in these images lensed for Vogue by Jamie Hawkesworth [IG].
Alex Harrington styles the photo shoot for The Second Coming of Erykah Badu, showcasing the four-time Grammy winner wearing a metallic Marni x Erykah Badu coat on the cover and other unique fashion artworks from their new co-designed collection. Supporting designers include Hermès, Loewe, Prada [worn by both Badu and Puma] Yohji Yamamoto and more./ Hair by Jawara; makeup by Melanesia Hunter
Marni’s creative director Francesco Risso found himself mesmerized by Badu’s fashion-exploration process as he talks the capsule collection made in partnership with the singer.
Risso, a longtime admirer, invited the singer to be his date at the 2022 Met Gala. When she accepted, Risso created a glorious Technicolor dreamcoat, “a throwback to a patchwork dress that Badu designed herself and wore to the Grammys in 1999. The updated version was comprised of hundreds of swatches of fabrics from the Marni archives, and proved to be the perfect springboard for their collaboration.”
“I was blown away seeing her playing with clothes, just jumbling everything up. It’s just so innate. With her, it’s not just about making music. She’s iconic because what comes with her is a lifestyle, it’s a complete world,” Rizzo explains with deep admiration for his design partner.
A Cosmic Shamanic Priestess
Those of us who know Erykah Badu indeed consider her to be a shamanic priestess of a higher order. Both her interview and video tour of her private spaces confirm that the spiritual persona suits her. In multiple aspects, Erykah Badu has always been lighter than air . . . ethereal and spiritual but also possessed of ancient wisdom.
Nnadi writes that [at 5’ tall] Badu was an old soul when she dropped her genre-defining 1997 album ‘Baduizm’, representing a countermovement to commercial R&B. The singer-songwriter-musician was “cosmically aligned with the future, with a haunting, blues-inflected voice often compared to Billie Holiday’s.”
Cosmic alignment is key to Erykah Badu’s life, and her living environment manifests itself with habits that range from wearing little bells around her ankles to regularly meditating in the sauna off her bedroom. Aligned in both the ancient and modern worlds, Badu also directed Alexa to play wind chimes during her Vogue interview.
If you remember the diminutive high priestess in her headwraps from her early days, then you can relate to longtime friend and collaborator, DJ and producer Questlove, who first saw Badu at the 1996 Soul Train Awards in Los Angeles.
“She had on the tallest turban I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says. “It was like she was hiding a three-year-old standing on her head, that’s how tall her headwrap was. I was just transfixed.”
The singer remembers the look being as relevant as the music. “I remember being among an elite group of young people who were really embracing what it meant to be an African here, generationally,” Badu says. “We embraced locs and ’fros and our natural state, our fabrics and jewelry. It was a beautiful time.”
Wokeness and Beyond
In 2008, the icon helped popularize the phrase “stay woke” with “Master Teacher,” a song on her fourth studio album, ‘New Amerykah Part One’. It would be years before young progressives embraced the word, which is now derided by conservatives like Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
Badu understands that her enduring influence is philosophical and esoteric. “I feel I’ve poked this hole in the dam. It’s this little hole and all this water is seeping through. Now all the people who have the same energy are able to experience what I experience,” she says. “It’s a rebirthing process, and I feel like I’m a midwife.”
In fact, what Badu refers to is not a woke mob, as Republicans call us. We are readers of history, everyday philosophers who ask questions and cross-check the answers for accuracy and context, and we are willing to step back with some detachment — knowing the vastness of other people’s experiences that we do not understand. We are willing to have our own beliefs shattered like mirrors, as we collectively pick up the pieces of truth and move to reassemble them in a more just society.
I am intrigued with a new factoid discovered only this week, in AOC’s new writing about psychedelics and psilocybin. Remember, I told you that Gucci’s ‘Go Ask Alice’ was one of several inputs that sent me in search of a deep inquiry and update on this transformative time in global history. AOC has just begun this journey, but we are rolling.
Writing Unraveling the Mysteries of Psilocybin Mushrooms: An Exploration of Their Uses and Benefits, I learned that psilocybin depresses the part of the brain associated with the ego. That discovery is absolutely fascinating to me, especially with today’s Vogue excursion into the world of Erykah Badu. Timing is everything. ~ Anne
