Badu's Growing Pains.

• Author: Lewis, Andrea

Ewrykah who? Badu hat? Those questions were in many mouths back in 1997 when Erykah Badu came out of nowhere and started blowing up the airwaves with her debut album, Baduizm. Who was this woman wearing a headdress who talked in cipher, and was dialed into heavy rotation on MTV, local hip-hop stations, and smoothie jazz outlets? No one knew, but Badu was the word on everybody's tip.

Baduizm was an irresistibly slick mix of '70s soul, jazz, and hip-hop, wrapped around Erykah Badu's distinctive high vocals. Fueled by the criss-crossover energy of the hit "On & On," the album offered one intriguing hook after the other.

It wasn't long before Badu was scarfing up Grammy and Soul Train awards while basking in critical acclaim from just about every media quarter.

"Badu has emerged as the missing link in R&B's evolutionary path, connecting the hip-hop-dominated '90s to the soul, jazz, and blues of decades past," wrote MTV Online. "Her triumph lies not only in her skill and talent as a singer and songwriter, but, perhaps more importantly, in her ability to recontextualize the emotional soul of Aretha Franklin and the plaintive jazz/blues of Billie Holiday."

In spite of those heady comparisons, there were plenty of folks out there who were expecting Badu's career to play out like a musical version of Comet Hale-Bopp: a bright light appearing in our skies for a brief period, then never to be seen again in this lifetime.

The release of Badu's newest album, Mama's Gun, has some doubters groovin' their heads in a positive nod, while others remain unpersuaded.

Born Erica Wright in 1972, the Dallas native became Badu after she decided to dump her "slave name." Erica became Erykah, and Badu grew out of a phrase she kept repeating while scat singing. During the next few years, Badu spent some time at Grambling State University in Louisiana. She also steamed milk and brewed lattes in a Dallas coffee-house, and later taught drama and dance at the South Dallas Cultural Center.

Eventually, she and her cousin Robert "Free" Bradford formed a hip-hop group called Erykah Free, which started to garner some positive attention in the Dallas area and beyond. A casual 1994 meeting with Tim Grace of Legacy Records led to a demo and gigs opening for acts like A Tribe Called Quest, Method Man, Arrested Development, and D'Angelo. It wasn't long before Erykah was signed to the new Kedar Entertainment label.

Live was released in late 1997, and it is comprised of concert...