Blood and Booty: So, What Exactly Was Erykah Badu Trying to Say In Her New Video?

June 4th, 2012 - By Charing Ball

Source: rollingstone.com

So have you all seen the new Erykah Badu/Flaming Lips video? You haven’t? Well, I can describe it for you in just one word: Um….

For a more detailed description, the video, which was directed by George Salisbury, features Badu crooning to the remake of Roberta Flacks’ version of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” while her fully naked younger sister Nayrok frolicks about in bathtubs full of glitter, then blood, then some substance with a white and thick consistency. I’m just going to come right out and call it semen (seriously, that’s what it looked like). Anyway, the entire video is shot in one sequence repeated three times, with Badu singing, often times butt naked in a tub, while her younger sister gives us full on boobs, then butt and for the finale, a full frontal shot. Did I mention that this was a music video?

Oh, if you were wondering, the Flaming Lips were in the video too-albeit fully clothed. They stood around, beating fur covered snarl drums, twirling aluminum foil and made ugly ecstasy faces into the camera. For a song called “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” ironically, we only get to see Nayrok’s face and that isn’t until the end, when she is dripping the ambiguous white stuff all over it. Try getting that visual out of your head?

The video has been mostly removed from YouTube and scrubbed from much of the Internet, with the exception of a few sites being smart enough to actually download the clip and save it to their own domains. However, if you haven’t seen it yet, know that it’s more audacious than the “Window Seat” video. And it is probably more abstract and eclectic than anything that Badu has ever attached her name too. It’s clear that Badu is seeking to translate her flare for the multifarious into other realms of art but, the video is a serious head scratcher. It is probably the most “WTF” Badu video I have ever seen. And we are talking about Erykah Badu here, so you know that’s saying a bunch.  I’d like to say that I could get past all the naked booty to find a deeper meaning, but I kept coming back to the same conclusion: I just watched a video of a naked woman covered in glitter, blood and semen.  So has Badu finally gone off the deep end?

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  • Ifuaskme2

    I liked it. I don’t think she was saying anything, just using color. Or maybe she’s saying when they meet its like birth, when they copulate they see stars. Hey, works for me. Big deal. Loved the remake

  • lipstick

    Seems to me she was using all the ingredients to cast a love spell aka put roots on the one she admires.

  • http://twitter.com/HOLLIEwudSayTht Hollie Charles

    The video was extremely strange to me… but could it be that she was trying to make a satire out of the glamorization (the glitter) of the sex (the semen) and violence (the blood) in the media? idk… just trying to make some sense here lol

  • TAMMIE

    I completely agree – so gross! If there was any deeper meaning to be had; it was not grasped due to the nudity (scrubbing my eyes) and the viscous fluid shots. On the other hand; as per usual – Erkyah sounded beautiful.

  • Courtney

    I have read somewhere that she is studying to be a midwife. So my quess is that it has something to do with ummm I don’t want to get to graphic but something to do with menstruation and conceiving.

  • miss d

    I’d like to think I’m artsy, but some thangs are too deep for me. This is one of them, lol. I still love Erykah and I think shes very talented.

  • MLS2698

    Ok. Saw the video, read the authors view on the visuals/lyrics, how it sums up meeting a person for the first time. How special it is for two people to come together. And with all this supposed deepness, all you can be is a baby mama in the end. Wow, that was so enlightening! Say no to drugs, and other white stuff in bathtubs.

  • msniamah1985

    Yeah my first inclination was some Illuminati stuff. I watched the video in the middle of reading this article before I read your conclusion and my thought was also some type of creation of life, all that glitters aint gold type of stuff. But with the Devil being so closely related to music all of the questionable stuff I just avoid. No need to watche this video again….ever. Kudos to her baby sis if she wants to roll around in semen and blood and glitter.

  • Ms. Bluse

    It seems like Erykah Badu and Brian McKnight are suffering from the same disease…Tryingtostayrelevantitis. They are going out of their way to get attention. Any attention and it is only making them seem childish and insecure. Dang, why don’t they just stick to making good, quality music?

  • http://twitter.com/KanuMarie Marie Kanu

    gross

  • That Girl Mind Be Gone

    Public nudity is just a ploy to make people take notice. I have one of Badu’s Cd’s, and I really like some of her songs ( was just listening in my car today). But there must be a thin line between art and insanity.

  • Chrissy Ann

    There are no words of this vid you described it perfectly in one word at the beginning “Um…….”

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