Album Review: Erykah Badu - But You Cain't Use My Phone
Erykah Badu just released a mixtape about the telephone.
Let’s just let that sink in for a second as we begin to
dissect the curiosities found within the short, self-contained, high concept
album But You Cain’t Use My Phone.
I don’t quite recall when Badu got “weird.” Like, she was
just that neo-soul singer with the headwrap around 20 years ago, cooing “On and
On” on “MTV Jams,” but with each subsequent release (there have been four of
them since 2000) she’s become less and less concerned with accessibility,
instead opting to make dense and difficult “artistic” albums.
We may have reached peak Badu last year when she crashed a
TV news report (twice) and busked in Times Square—but now she’s back to making
music, choosing to release her first new music in five years in the form of a
mixtape. About telephones.
The whole thing started with her seemingly released out of
nowhere cover of Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” following that up with the likeminded
“Phone Down,” which is one of the more focused, yet lyrically stunted, tracks
on But You Can’t Use My Phone.
Taken as a whole But
You Cain’t Use My Phone asks a lot of its listeners by testing their
patience with her artistic and wandering aesthetic—there’s an extended
mid-section of her “Hotline Bling” cover, here titled “Cel U Lar Device,” where
you listen to the dialing options of a Badu hotline (the joke isn’t very
funny.) There’s also a post-“Fitter, Happier” Text Edit readback track called
“Dial’Afreaq,” which has its moments, but overall, is the kind of track that
skipping ahead is made for.
For as focused on one form of technology as But You Cain’t Use My Phone is, it sure
as shit lacks focus—one a few of the tracks arrive in the form of actual songs;
some seem like segues, or unfinished sketches, and other show up as throwaway
guest verses with no additional context, like two from a Drake sound alike
(apparently the man himself wasn’t available?)
As catchy as “Phone Down” and “Cel U Lar Device” can be, the
real crowning achievement is saved for the very end, with a surprising guest
feature from none other than Andre 3000, on the mixtape’s closing track
“Hello.” For someone who has been out of the game as long as he has, his
lyrical dexterity is still incredibly impressive as he relentlessly and
breathlessly asks: “I don’t know, I don’t
know, Will this bitch click over for me? I mean, will this woman click over for
me? Over for me? Is it over for me? Over for me?”
Overall, as strange as But
You Cain’t Use My Phone can be, it’s still a relatively fun, laid back
listen—combining Badu’s R&B wheelhouse with elements of modern trap
influenced hip-hop. And the inclusion of an Andre 3000 performance, buried at
the tail end of it all, seems like a reward for the listener making it through
Badu’s esoteric, self-indulgent collection of ideas.
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