Erykah Badu Wants To Perform From Home In Bed: Claims She’s Probably The Laziest Artist In Dallas
Erykah Badu Wants To Perform From Home In Bed: Claims She’s Probably The Laziest Artist In Dallas
Handling the 2020 quarantine amidst the COVID-19 pandemic has been different for everyone, but for singer Erykah Badu, it has enlightened her on how much she loves being at home.
Erykah Badu opened up in an interview with The New York Times and revealed she “didn’t miss” performing at live shows and touring.
She continued,
“I’ve always wanted to perform from my bed at home. I’m the laziest artist probably in Dallas. I never wanted to do the packing and going through the car and luggage and the hotel and, ‘What’s the password? What’s the internet?’ You get tired after years and years of doing it, you know?”
Erykah Badu, who typically spends 8 months out of the year on the road, added,
“I enjoyed the moment when the audience and the artist become one living, breathing organism, when the band and I are locked in. I miss that synergy and energy between me and the audience. But I found a new way to express that, and it doesn’t take its place. It just evolved it to another place.”
The “new way” that Badu is cultivating is Badu World Market, an online site dedicated to music, merchandise, and live streams via concerts from what she calls “Quarantine Concert Series” which also keeps her musician and engineers on payroll.
In a separate interview earlier this year, she stated,
“I couldn’t just put a phone up on a tripod and do a livestream on one of the social platforms, because that would just feed me: I had to figure out a way to keep morale up for all [of my] musicians and techs and engineers and keep all of us employed.”
Though Erykah Badu has built a loyal fanbase of R&B, neo-soul and unicorn lovers, she admits
“A little piece of me dies every time I have to leave my home.”
Perhaps to achieve the best of both worlds, Badu is putting effort into her Badu World company, ideally monetizing concerts from her home.
In May 2020, she alluded to charging her fans for live stream performances when she reposted an article put out on Facebook announcing the new feature.
A fan who challenged the idea amid the rough financial crisis in America caused Badu to respond, admitting,
“I’m unemployed too. I’m just not b****in about it. I created a way for my folks. But if you’d rather give your money to iTunes for my music keep in mind we only get fkn pennies. And yes I am happy… broke or rich.”
In building her new company, Badu says,
“I’m building a new machine. I may face a few obstacles. But I’m not even thinking in those terms. I’m not in a rush — I don’t think it’s a race because I don’t think that there’s anyone else who’s doing exactly what I’m doing. I’m willing to study and learn how this thing works because I definitely want to be in this game. People are used to seeing Erykah Badu, the brand. But they’re going to have to start getting used to seeing Badu World, the company, because that’s what I’m building.”
Will you be signing up to watch the Quarantine Concert Series with Erykah Badu? Tell us in the comments!