Erykah Badu is answering a phone call: her new eyeglasses are ready, and the frames are available for collection when she has time.
“I figured you’d probably been busy,” the guy from the optician’s shop says.
He’s right. Badu hosted the Soul Train Music Awards this week in Las Vegas, and has been promoting upcoming projects.
“I’ve had this on for about two months,” Badu says of the outfit she’s wearing – shiny black overalls, sky-high top hat and a chambray button-up with a wooden bow tie that reads “HELLO”. “It was the last thing I had on at Soul Train, [and] I haven’t had a break since then.”
Badu is sharing material from her new mixtape, But You Caint Use My Phone, titled after a line from her 1997 single, Tyrone.
The 44-year-old soul diva speaks about the hosting major music events, her new music and platinum-selling rapper Drake, whose Hotline Bling single she remixed and released in October.
You returned to host the Soul Train Music Awards on Sunday after your last turn in 1998. How was your experience this year?
It was really fun. And this time around they made me an associate producer, so I had an opportunity to write my material, which I think is really cool – to see my things crystallise; my words and my sense of humour, which is pretty unique and self-serving.
That's the under-appreciated aspect of your career, how you're just more than a singer.
I’m known for the singing. No one knows that I direct all my videos and write all of the treatments. No one knows that I do all of my own artwork. No one knows that, you know, this is me. I pick my clothes out. So I think that it’s a good time to start exposing my art to the air.
Tell us about the mixtape?
It's really awesome. I first did a remake of Drake's Hotline Bling, because I thought it was an awesome song. I actually did it for Big Mike's birthday. Big Mike's my tour manager. That's his favourite song, as well as a lot of other people's, too. And it came out good. And I just stayed in that studio, in the bedroom, and I just kept writing songs, making songs. And about 10 days later, I had this mixtape.
We've heard you love Drake. Why is that?
He's a genius. He's a talented actor. He's a brilliant comedian. He's a talented songwriter. He's a talented singer. He's an exquisite, extraordinary producer. He's a great person. He invited me to Canada to listen to [2011 album] Take Care. You know, [I'm] just really proud to see his evolution. He's one of the few artists I can say is really evolving each time he appears. And that's inspiring to me. And that's my challenge.
