News: Erykah Badu Channels ODB For Dilla

 

Interesting note about the upcoming Erykah Badu album New Amerykah pt. 1 The Breakdown (or whatever it’s called this week).

”Telephone” - last track of the album inspired by a story Dilla’s mother told Badu. Evidently during his final days, Dilla would float in and out of coherence, having very real conversations with people no one else could see. One of these people, as Dilla told his mother, was ODB. Dirty was telling Dilla that when he gets to the other side not to get on the red bus, though it was inviting. The white bus would be the one to pick him up. Great, beautiful song. Lyric: “Telephone! It’s Old Dirty. He wants to give you directions home.” Only Badu could make ODB sound like a visionary guide through the afterlife. When people say funerals are celebrations of an individual’s life (as they fight back tears and look anything but celebratory), this song makes you believe it. The track closes with the uplifting words “Celebrate tonight” repeated.

~ by remixedesign on February 27, 2008.