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Home · Celebrity

Think You Know Erykah Badu? Let's See!

Erykah Badu is getting ready to host the Soul Train Awards this Sunday. The singer, one of music's irreplaceable gems, is also an associate producer of the show. We love how with all the fame and living her life in the public eye, the proud Dallas native manages to stay mysterious. How well do you know about the green-eyed soul sista? From her days as an MC to how she really felt while filming the video for "Window Seat," we've pulled together 9 things you should know if you call yourself an Erykah Badu fan.

By Dominique Hobdy · Updated October 27, 2020
01
She Was Originally Known as ‘MC Apples’

In the early 90s, Badu’s ambition was to be a rapper known as ‘MC Apples.’ She was one-half of a rap group called Erykah Free with her cousin. At 14 she tried her hand at freestyle-rapping for local Dallas radio station, KNON. “We were even better than a lot of the guy groups” she once told Rolling Stone. “Shoot I’m always going to be a freestyle fool. Rap is like the jazz of Billie Holiday’s day.”

Ray Tamarra/Getty Images
02
Talent Runs in Her Family

Erykah’s mother Kolleen Maria Wright acted in local stage productions as a means to support her family. Badu began performing professionally beside her mother at the age of 4. Her sister Nayrok is one of her backup singer. Badu starred opposite Charlize Theron in 1999’s The Cider House Rules.

Stephan Vaughan Miramax Films
03
She Once Opened a Show for Notorious B.I.G.

Back in her emcee days Badu opened up a Dallas show for Notorious B.I.G in 1994 where she performed the song “On and On” for the first time. She would go on to open for rap acts like A Tribe Called Quest, Mobb Deep and the Wu-Tang Clan. 

Mark Sullivan/WireImage
04
She’s a practicing doula

Badu is a former spokesperson for the International Center for Traditional Childbearing. In addition to being a doula, “I’m an herbalist, I grow my own herbs. I’m a sound therapist, which I do onstage. I do iridology, reiki, color therapy, chakra balancing, energy cleanings and pendulum readings,” she told ESSENCE in her August 2015 cover story.

05
‘Tyrone’ Was Completely Improvised

The no-good-man anthem was completely freestyled! Erykah and her band began playng music during a soundcheck and she borrowed tales from her aunts “…who were always telling some man about himself,” she recalled. “I recorded it live in D.C and next thing I know I heard it live on the radio,” she said. Talk about authentic. 

Johnny Nunez/WireImage
06
She Studied Quantum Physics in College

Talk about brains and beauty. Badu attended Grambling University, a historically Black college, where she majored in theatre and minored in Quantum Physics. She left college to follow her dreams of being a singer.

kevin Mazur/ GettyImages
07
She Has traced her lineage to Cameroon

In 2014, Badu had her DNA tested and her lineage was traced to the West African country of Cameroon. She has since stayed close to the Cameroonian community in Texas. “I talk to them often. They told me that [my lineage] of Cameroonians traveled from Egypt down to Mali, and then down to the huge grass field of Cameroon,” she told ESSENCE in her August 2015 cover story.

“I’m a part of a people called Bamileke, which means “grass field.” They couldn’t trace me to a particular tribe, but they know I’m from the grass field.”

Robin Marchant/ Getty
08
She Was Pertrified While Filming ‘Window Seat’

As brave as she appears to the rest of us, the Grammy winner says she was ‘petrified’ while filming the video for her controversial “Window Seat” video in which she disrobes in downtown Dallas. But it wasn’t for the reasons you may think. Badu was worried about her body being negatively critiqued. “I was holding in my stomach so tight, I wasn’t even singing,” she said. “With each walk I tightened my calf…It’s amazing what you think about. I wasn’t thinking about getting arrested or the police or nothing!”

Roger Kisby/Getty Images
09
She Launched Her Own Music Label

In 2005, Erykah Badu launched her own label Control FreaQ with the goal of freeing “the slaves and the slave masters” by allowing signed artists to own their own masters in a 10-year conversion deal. Her first big project was developing hip hop artist Jay Electronica.

Steve Granitz/WireImage

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