Erykah Badu Calls On Her Own Power

Superbly current and A&R’d by her 18 year old son Seven, But You Caint Use My Phone arrives in true and required Erykah Badu fashion, with a huge load of deserved hype.

Any obsession with the 90’s is incomplete without bowing to the queen, and if there’s one thing you should know by now is that her light can never be outshone by the men in her life. When Erykah calls, they do come to her beck and call, because she is all woman, she knows her power and it’s not to be debated. I mean do you really underestimate the Erykah Badu effect to even go as far as grasp at her bagging features from Andre 3000 or Drake? The fact alone that Erykah Badu found no need to mention features in the track listing or even in the promotional round for the mixtape is testament to the fact that Erykah knows her own power.

Erykah is no side-chick, this is a leading lady with a legacy that stands her apart from the pack and she stands tall in the music echelon of the greats. So no we’re not going to focus on the guest features, we’re going to ask you to go listen to the entire mixtape – a concept projects of sorts, which grew from the seed of a remix and became a project in its own right.

In 11 days the BUCUMP mixtape was recorded, mixed and mastered by Zach Witness at Erykah’s Dallas home, with apparently each guest verse “recorded in person.” This is a series of numbers constructed and reconstructed into records with a take on those complex personal relationships that run through that relationship with our phones. Calling out that man with her biggest record ‘Tyrone’ to ringing up that ‘Hotline Bling‘ with a remix, to conceptually working a rework of Ushers ‘U Don’t Have To Call’, to a fly electro cut  ‘Dial’Afreaq’, and into ‘I’ll Call U Back’ giving it a post-Post Malone ‘saucin’ kinda flava. The tape completes on a high with the beautiful ‘Hello’ with Andre 3000, fuck a ballad, this is awesome thoughts to savour on a musical palette.

If we’re currently asking what exactly differentiates a mixtape from an album, then this project crosses any previous convention and conceptualises what taking one idea and experimenting with it can produce. Erykah Badu understands artistry and what being inspired inspires out of an artist to make something which justifies calling it exactly what it is a ‘mix’ tape.

Check out the tracks that appear individually on iTunes, go to Datpiff or wait one more week before its available widely to be streamed online – But You Cain’t Use My Phone…

Caint Use My Phone (Suite) – Erykah Badu
Hi – Erykah Badu
Cel U Lar Device – Erykah Badu
Phone Down – Erykah Badu
Mr. Telephone Man – Erykah Badu
U Use to Call Me – Erykah Badu
U Don’t Have to Call – Erykah Badu
Medley: What’s Yo Phone Number / Telephone (Ghost of Screw Mix) – Erykah Badu
Dial’Afreaq – Erykah Badu
I’ll Call U Back – Erykah Badu
Hello – Erykah Badu