Erykah Badu likes chasing unreachable goals. Here’s why

A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: Before we started recording our interview with Erykah Badu, I did what I always do with guests — I reminded Badu about the game and how this isn’t going to be a “normal interview.” She responded: “I don’t do normal interviews.”

And it definitely wasn’t. She sees the world differently than most people. And I don’t mean to get all woo woo, but it’s like she’s inhabiting a different plane of existence. Things are more colorful there. Like a kaleidoscope of what is and what could be.

Her music is like that too. Badu’s breakout album, Baduizm, came out in 1997 and defied all the regular categories of music. To this day, her sound transcends genre. Jazz, pop, soul — yes, all of it or none of it. It doesn’t matter. Badu has never been about other people’s characterizations of her. She’s more expansive than that. She’s a deeply spiritual person who ushers people in and out of this world at the bedside of births and deaths. And she’s also an actor. You can see her now in the Netflix adaptation of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.

This Wild Card interview has been edited for length and clarity. Host Rachel Martin asks guests randomly-selected questions from a deck of cards. Tap play above to listen to the full podcast, or read an excerpt below.

Question 1: Is there a place that feels like home even though you haven’t lived there?

Erykah Badu: Yes. A space shuttle, for one, feels like home. 

Rachel Martin: Tell me why.

Badu: I could get used to it; just like the four walls. As long as I have a few activities, I’ll be alright. I just think about it all the time.

Martin: Do you?

Badu: Yeah [laughs]. A space shuttle for one? Yeah, that’d be great.

Martin: Oh, there’s not even any other astronauts on the space shuttle?

Badu: No. No, just me. For one.

Martin: Do you want to be going somewhere or do you want to just float around in space?

Badu: Just as long as they don’t open that door, I’m fine [laughs]. We can float, we can do whatever. We can roll, swim, you know, sail.

Martin: So do you like being alone?

Badu: Yes.

Martin: Were you blessed with that coming out of the womb? Or did you learn how to be alone?

Badu: I think I was blessed with it. I’ll say it because I’ve always really enjoyed it.

Martin: Was your mom OK with that? Or was she like, “Erykah, you need to go make some friends”?

Badu: Oh yeah. I had friends, for sure. Lots of them. But I still really enjoyed, mostly, being alone and going home and getting under the dining room table after school. And there was this long cloth over it. I had all my color books and crayons and snacks. And I just liked it. I was always making something or building something that was a secret.

Martin: Was music part of that?

Badu: Oh, yeah. Well, music was the background of everything in my life. It was the undertone. It was the hum of my universe as a child. There was a radio that was always on in the bathroom — a small radio. It was K104 FM radio [in Dallas]. It was R& B radio. And we knew all the songs, you know. Because they played them eight times a day. But music was always the undertone.

Question 2: Is there anything you long for?

Badu: Yes. I want to get my best work out of me, because it’s still in me. And I feel it. And something in me can’t let it go yet. I long for that moment that I’m able to let that go and give it to the world.

Martin: So you don’t feel that you’ve reached that apex yet, huh?

Badu: No. Not at all.

Martin: You strike me as the kind of person who, even if you put out this album [you’re working on], are you going to be satisfied?

Badu: I’d be satisfied with the album, yes. Each album is like a kid, you know? It goes through this whole birthing process and this whole gestation process and growing. So you don’t never want to let it go, really. So each album is very, very special. But I just, as an artist, I just want to do more every time. I appreciate what I have. But I want to do more. I want to contribute more.

Martin: But it’s reachable – it’s not an unreachable thing? It’s a reachable thing?

Badu: Perhaps. We’ll see. But see, if I say it’s reachable, then it’s too easy. I have to believe that it’s not reachable. And I’m the only one that can reach it.

Question 3: Do you think there’s more to reality than we can see or touch?

Martin: Well, I know the answer to this question.

Badu: No, you don’t.

Martin: OK. Alright. Do you think there’s more to reality than we can see or touch?

Badu: No.

Martin: What?!

Badu: [laughs] See, you thought you knew the answer. OK. Do I think there’s more to reality than we can see or touch? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Martin: You work as a doula, you also sit with people who are at the end of their life, and in those spaces, it’s hard to deny that there is more to life, to reality, than we can see or touch, because there’s an energy there that we can’t see or touch when life moves in and out of the world.

Badu: Yes. I mean, I don’t know — and I don’t have to know to be the welcoming committee as a doula — where they’re coming from. I just want to feel like your guide around the high school. And I’m a junior and you’re a freshman, you know, and this is what I know about the school. It’s what I want to share. I want to make sure that when you come to this place, the room is prepared for you. Because I believe if you have a start with easy breath, and love, and things you can smell that are beautiful and music that you can hear that’s beautiful and your parents united and — even though they have problems — they’re taking this day to come together for this most important ceremony: the day you came into this world. That’s important to me as a doula. And my contract is really with the baby, you know, the unborn baby. That’s my friend, yeah? And I keep in touch with them as they grow.

Martin: So if you’re the welcome committee for the baby, when you sit with people who are at the end of their life —

Badu: I’m the ushering committee. I’m not gonna profess that I know where they’re going or what kind of pathway or portal or vortex. I just want them to have the same experience going out. Easy breath, easy heart rate. I’ve left this realm or this place with something sweet to smell or to taste or to hear with love and I’m relaxed. And I suggest that there should be no fear. Let’s get to the point of no fear. Because you’re going to know something that we don’t know, but I believe that you’re going to need your easy breath.