Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Pt One:The 4th World
By Colin Jenkinns

Erykah Badu has always been a little different from the conventional R&B artist. She has always pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable in R&B music. But it seems that with this album, she has abandoned making traditional R&B music altogether. She has experimented on with sounds from 60s and 70s on long jams sessions. The traditional verse chorus verse was used sparingly.

Erykah Is certainly not afraid to take risks. The CD opens with “Amerykan Promise” which is a funky track full of vocal samples and a male speaker representing America. “Me” is a very strong track, very mellow, sounds like a sample from the 70s, with plenty of horns. The lyrics are also straight forward and personal, not metaphoric. Erykah sings about the struggle to be herself in America. “Honey,” a funky love song also follows a musical format easy to understand. “Master Teacher” could easily be a Hip Hop track, 9 minutes long it changes style and tempo mid way through the track.

In “Kiss me” she longs for somebody to walk behind her and kiss her on her neck. The track is mid tempo and funky with plenty of percussion. The aforementioned tracks are some of the outstanding ones. This Album clearly breaks from convention and has some other good songs in it. But it also has some rather disjointed and hard to figure out tracks. Still it’s definitely worth acquiring.