Badu respelled her first name in high school, and in college took the name Badu, which means “giver of truth and light ” in Arabic. ”Her given name, which she has called her “slave ” name, ” was Erica Wright.

Badu told USA Today that she fell in love with the music of Stevie Wonder “at maybe age two. She was raised by her mother Kolleen Wright and her grandmother on the city ’s rough south side. ”īorn around 1971 in Dallas, Badu was the oldest of three children. “Sometimes, ” she told People when the magazine named her one of 1998 ’s “50 Most Beautiful People ”of the year, “I do feel quite Queen Nefertiti-ish.

Both romantic and a bit intellectual, Badu is steeped in African American spirituality, and exudes it in her personal presence.

An original artist, she composed and performed a fusion of soul, hip-hop, and jazz. Erykah Badu was a breakout star of 1997, selling over two million copies of her debut album, Baduizm. Her trademark African head wraps helped inspire a vogue for African clothing in the late 1990s, and her music seemed to carry layers of African American experience, wrapped up and elegantly presented with the latest hip-hop beats.

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