Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)

In 2000, Erykah Badu claimed to be an "analog girl

in a digital world," and her disconnection from the tech age has never seemed

more pronounced. The full-length album continues its long death rattle, thanks

to the age of iTunes and 99-cent single-servings, but Badu apparently didn't

get the telegram: New Amerykah is an ambitious prog-soul disc built on the

quaint notion that fans will be interested in the whole thing. "Honey," the 9th

Wonder-produced single, is a funky, hooky trifle, but it's tacked on as a bonus

track. To get dessert, listeners first have to swallow Amerykah's spacey, meandering 10-song

cycle. The frayed beats—produced by a who's-who of outré hip-hop (Madlib,

Sa-Ra)—bleep, burp, and hum. The lyrics to "The Cell" and "Master

Teacher" brim with preachy, pan-spiritual mumbo-jumbo, making some songs feel

like they're better for fans than they are to fans. But on repeated listens,

the pretense sounds more like earthy sincerity. Badu is vulnerable on the warm,

autobiographical "Me" and the elegiac "Telephone," a tribute to the late J

Dilla, and her Billie Holiday-lite vocals are as charming as ever. It's a

challenging, even frustrating listen, but Amerykah stakes out Badu's place

between vinyl crackle and tape hiss among things to be fond of, no matter how

outmoded they become.