Artist: Erykah Badu
Erykah Badu and I clearly have similar taste in music, as the song she seems most inspired by for her latest mixtape, But You Caint Use My Phone, seems to be Drake's 2015 hit, "Hotline Bling." Yet, she moves beyond mere tribute and into a far more sophisticated realm of reinterpretation. Phones and communication is the name of the game for her latest, with every song revolving around the topic in some capacity. In fact, the first track, "Caint Use My Phone (Suite)" is made entirely of dial tones and rings, all crafted into an idea that's revisited various times throughout the album. Even more, "Hotline Bling" functions as a bit of an overture, with the song revisited over the span of the run time, and even covered in the track, "Cel U Lar Device."
Erykah's sultry voice adorns every syllable of every song with charm, and her lyrics impart leagues of wit ( "Dial'Afreaq" is composed of a fictional answering machine message made of jokes and references to the whole of the album). Not only a product of R&B and Hip Hop, But You Caint Use My Phone is a meta-textual dive into musical textures of a wide array of sounds. It's brilliant.
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