Baduizm — 1997

Background

Baduizm was released in 1997, Erykah Badu's debut album, arriving alongside D'Angelo's work as one of the foundational records of the neo-soul movement, blending jazz, soul and hip-hop influences into a sound built around Badu's distinctive, Billie Holiday-influenced vocal phrasing and a strong Afrocentric, spiritually conscious lyrical perspective.

Sound

'On & On' became the album's breakout single, built on a warm, understated groove that showcased Badu's unhurried, jazz-inflected vocal delivery immediately upon the record's release; 'Next Lifetime' and 'Otherside of the Game' both address relationships and personal circumstance with a lyrical directness and social consciousness that distinguished Badu's songwriting from much contemporaneous R&B.

Vocal style

Badu's phrasing throughout draws explicitly on jazz vocal tradition, bending and stretching syllables around the beat in a way that gave the record a loose, improvisational quality distinct from the more tightly arranged vocal styles common in mainstream R&B at the time. This jazz-inflected approach, paired with live instrumentation, positioned the album firmly within the same emerging neo-soul aesthetic that D'Angelo was developing simultaneously.

Legacy

Baduizm is widely regarded as one of the founding albums of neo-soul, establishing Erykah Badu as one of the movement's defining voices and earning a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Its blend of jazz phrasing, socially conscious lyricism and warm, live-instrumentation production has made it a foundational reference point for the neo-soul and alternative R&B artists who followed across the subsequent decades.