What happens when Dallas TX, and Brooklyn, NY join forces? You get a bomb collaborative musical showcase between Erykah Badu and yasiin bey.
Badu’s The Unfollow Me Tour featuring bey (formerly known as Mos Def) as special guest stopped in St. Louis at the Enterprise Center, Wednesday night (June 28).
It was a busy night in the city as the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis City SC both played home games and TLC and Shaggy’s “Hot Summer Nights Tour” featuring Sean Kingston and En Vogue made its way to Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in the county.
While there was an abundance of events happening across the area, that didn’t stop loyal fans and supporters from seeing these two soul and hip hop legends.
The fashions were all the rave. Guests wore head wraps tied as turbans, crystal necklaces were seen, beads attached to dreadlocks and braids, sky-high platform heels, and more. All the fashions and hairstyles were definitely Badu certified, and we’re sure the free-spirited Godmother of Neo-Soul would’ve been proud if she was able to see some of the threads and hairdos around the arena.
Badu, known for her own wave of fashion, didn’t disappoint in that department. She appeared on stage wearing a top hat, long neatly streamlined braids, a white long duster with a white puffy coat attached to the back of it, and a gray graphic t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up and tied in the front, accompanied by white rose Comme Des Garcon pants.
Badu’s visuals for her set were well in alignment that night with who she is. Images flashed of animated images of her that looked AI-generated. She was represented as Cleopatra as well Afrofuturistic figures, along with enlarged line art images of the sun, the moon, and African spirituality artifacts.
A Badu concert is an experience, certainly a one of a kind of spiritual awakening. The sounds of birds heavenly humming were heard throughout her set, which also highlighted tribal chants and the soothing wavelengths of sound bowls, and the peaceful echoes of rainforests.
Several concertgoers were first-time attendees of the Badu experience. Lots of screams were heard when she asked who was seeing her for the first time. She responded, “I love it!”
When she did a roll call to see who were all the generations in the house the ‘90s babies outnumbered everyone with the most screams. Makes sense for them to outnumber everyone as her debut album is dedicated to that demographic.
“I wrote Baduizm for the ‘90s babies byway of the ‘70s babies, and the ‘80s babies they heard that [expletive] and they thought that [expletive] was cold blooded too,” she said.
She wrote Baduizm while she was pregnant with her son Seven, whom she shares with Andre 3000. She said she communicated with him in primal wails and tribal moans.
“If you were a baby at that time, you may not understand the words, but you know what I was saying cause you could understand what I was feeling,” she told the ‘90s babies in the crowd. “I’ve been waiting for you to grow the [expletive] up so we can talk about it, glad you’re here.”
Her only rule for The Unfollow Me Tour was for people to mind their own business.
“Welcome to the Unfollow Me Tour,” she said. “Unfollow me, you can’t go where I’m going. You ain’t been where I’ve been. You can’t read my mind. Unfollow me. Follow your own heart. Follow your own way. Find your own path because that is the right one for you. Each step is the way.”
She joked about her background singers wearing what she called “hostoppers” sunglasses.
“They stop h**s from every direction, especially yo peripheral,” she said. “Wanna block a red h** one push of a button blocked. Purple h** boom blocked cause it aint none of yo damn business anyway. Never again do you have to say h** stop, I’m doing it for you.”
Badu was in her producing bag using some sort of beatmaking machine creating unique sounds and vocals. She played the guitar as well and showed us just how ethereal she is by placing her hands forward in the air and sparks appeared from them.
She performed a lot of the songs many of us know and love but “Tyrone” was the one that stole everyone’s heart during the performance. You could hear the song sung verbatim across the arena and lots of passion evoked from all the ladies singing it.
Bey also joined Badu on stage for a joint performance of them curating and improvising their own music. bey opened the show and thought the crowd was being too cool for school at first, but eventually they warmed up and he concluded the night with a gracious prayer.
Closing the tour, Badu joined a group of more than 40+ fans for a no phones allowed meet and greet. While Badu sat on the floor Indian style all the fans surrounded her in a circle seated on the floor. It was an up close and personal session where fans were allowed to ask Badu any question they wanted. A phone provided by Badu’s camp was passed around and fans asked their questions into the phone while it was recorded from a memo app.
Some of the questions were about why Badu loves St. Louis, her music spanning generations, and more.
It wasn’t a typical say hello and smile meet and greet captured on camera. It was more of Badu allowing her fans into her world and them getting to know her as an artist, but also seeing a glimpse of who Erica Wright is, (Badu’s given birth name).
