View 4 Images

“Erykah Badu is on her way,” one of her backing vocalists informs us at ten minutes to ten. Which begs the question of where exactly she’s coming from; by now, she’s already missed her advertised stage time of 8:30pm by over an hour, and her eight-piece band, who took the stage at 9:35pm, have been gamely keeping up an increasingly aimless improvised jam for fifteen minutes.

There are rumblings of discontent up in the circle, thoughts already turning to getting up for work in the morning, and the chants of “Badu” from the standing floor have faded.

Then, one minute before ten, a figure emerges wearing an enormous domed hat; it can only be Badu, as recognisable for her thoroughly eccentric fashion sense as the smoky vocals that made her the first lady of neo-soul back in th

See Full Page