United Sounds of Amerykah

by Chris Ryan

As you can see from the album art for her newest full-length, New Amerykah, Erykah Badu has a lot of things on her mind. And as you can see from her fabulous video for "Honey," what's on her mind is music.  So we decided to check out how she made this Amerykhan quilt and, more specifically, the diverse fabric of sounds woven through it.

The Soulquarian Factor
New Amerykah is powered by a series of fruitful collaborations between Badu and a dazzling stable of producers. Her previous efforts like Worldwide Underground had been largely overseen by the production collective the Soulquarians (made up of members of A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots and Tony Toni Tone!). Though that clique has gone into nominal hiatus since the tragic passing of Detroit production genius Jay Dee, their sound, and the sound of Dilla, hovers over this album.

Blunted in the Bombshelter
Madlib, who, aside from his own acclaimed output like the fabulous Beat Konducta albums, worked in tandem with Dilla on the Champion Sound album, pays implicit tribute to Dilla by sampling another Motown genius on "My People." Badu and the Californian crate-digger Madlib utilized former Temptations vocalist Eddie Kendricks' "My People ... Hold On." This same song was sampled by Dilla for his song "People" on his kaleidoscopic 2006 solo album, Donuts.

Beat Eulogy
Elsewhere on Amerykah, Badu pays explicit homage to Dilla on the moving "Telephone," which was tracked by Jay Dee's fellow Soulquarians Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of The Roots and sometime-Roots sideman James Poyser.

Back to the Future
The majority of production on Amerykah is supplied by the futuristic-soul combo (and onetime Detroit denziens), Sa-Ra Creative Partners. The trio (who released an acclaimed album of their own, The Hollywood Recordings) handle five songs on the album, bringing elements of both Jay Dee's stoned soul and some of the jazz-inflected house of Detroit club legend Moodymann.

Pay It Forward
Perhaps the best collaboration between Badu and Sa-Ra is the politically charged rollicking rant "Master Teacher." This song features a lovely turn from the Badu-influenced vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and frequent Madlib-collaborator Georgia Anne Muldrow.