Erykah Badu’s Birthday Bash Brought Together Generations of Talent

Erykah Badu is for everyone.

With her birthday approaching, the singer entered “the Level 53 Final boss” era, a tagline for her birthday bash concert on Saturday. But the prior week, she offered a deeply thoughtful explanation of why she’s for the people.

Badu is famously spiritual and draws from her African ancestry to make connections, becoming a guiding light for her fans. When DART announced an initiative to honor the Dallas legend with her very own Badu Bus, she was asked in a WFAA interview about the significance during Black History Month of having her face on a bus in the city where she grew up — a city where her ancestors couldn’t have taken a seat on the bus.

“That’s why I chose the seat at the front. Not only am I at the front, I am also at the back and in the middle,” she said in the video. “I represent every single human being in this city. Those who made mistakes, those who had to overcome tragedy. The happy, the sad, the rich, the poor. I represent all people.”

On a busy Saturday night in Deep Ellum, the Dallas faithful came to The Factory for her annual birthday bash, in what has become a tradition, to celebrate the fashion icon and the queen of neo-soul. The sold-out show promised a night of entertainment with hosts Bootz and Nayrok and performances by Rapsody, The Alchemist and Larry June.

The four-time Grammy winner’s birthday bashes have become a perennial occurrence in Dallas since at least 2013, when she celebrated with a concert at the Granada Theater. In the past, the lineups have been stacked with special guests and celebrity friends including Dave Chappelle, Jada Pinkett Smith and WILLOW, Marc Rebillet, André 3000, Yasiin Bey, Talib Kweli, Leon Bridges, Raekwon, Bun B, BigXThaPlug and more. At last year’s concert, Badu received the first-ever Key to Deep Ellum from the Deep Ellum Foundation. The event recognized the importance of her artistic inspiration to artists and creatives worldwide, as the historic neighborhood celebrated 150 years.

Between 20-minute sets that were well-paced, playful banter between the hosts about how many times they were hitting That Badu (her cannabis line in collaboration with Cookies) backstage, and a twerk contest, this was arguably the best night for first-time birthday bash goers — who seemed to fill up the majority of the room.

As soon as the venue doors opened, someone burned smudging sage to clear the space of bad energy. One of her merch items leaned into metaphysics humor: “I Got a Crystal Shoved Up My Ass At a Erykah Badu Concert & All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.” The tone was set from the beginning.

The concert felt like a festival jammed-pack into a four-hour block. The artists seemed to respect the fact they weren’t the star of the show, but gave their best. Rapsody teased the album she’s been working on for the past four years with her new single “Asteroids.” Widely considered one of the most lyrical MCs, she busted rhymes with no help of a backing track, and showed off her vocal range by using different voices and flows for her songs with BLK ODYSSY. The “Dear Rapsody, Where’s the Album?” campaign is starting strong.

The Alchemist is the best sampling hip-hop producer, and he showed why by blending in his beats with notable songs from Freddie Gibbs, the late MC Prodigy, Jadakiss and other artists from the label Griselda. Finally, Larry June showed he has the greatest, unflappable flow of the new school rappers, going through “89 Earthquake,” “60 Days” — as The Alchemist returned to rap — and the autobiographical “Smoothies in 1991.”

Badu thrives on anticipation. After a warm-up with Dos Negros — an eccentric project by her own drummer Frank Moka, with percussion and vocals that took the audience to another plane — Badu kept fans waiting some more when her band, lead by keys master RC Williams, appeared onstage, most of the members wearing white karate gis, slow-building versions of her cosmic tunes.

The crowd was taken into Badu's “final boss” dimension through various video clips showing Street Fighter II battles in the background, so as we made it through all the levels our M. Bison came up next.

As thunder clashed in the background, Badu came out wearing a tall black top hat and a black gi. She walked to the mic as a stomping noise clapped for each of her steps and announced herself.

“A superhero has entered the building,” she said. “Final boss. Level 53.” Here's where the endurance to defeat the final boss came into play. The excitement to see the birthday girl sustained fans’ energy as the real spacey spectacle began close to 11 p.m. A celestial soup of lasers, stars, psychedelic and abstract images mixed with those of calming waters and sexual African art.

Badu isn't just a legacy artist who performs her songs and moves on to the next. She's a world builder who encourages people to take a breath with her mid-concert, to mind their "own business,” to put their phones down and be in the moment. This was the case as fans came together through singalongs for "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip Hop)" and "Appletree," as well as with "Hello," where Badu shouted out 3 Stacks, who is featured on the song.

Aided by two MPCs, Badu surveyed the audience, ranging from '60s to '00s fans (this roll call showed most of the audience to be composed of millennials born in the ‘80s and ‘90s), to make a declaration about her game-changing 1997 debut Baduizm.

“I have to admit something to all of you. I wrote Baduizm for the '90s babies,” she said. “It's for everybody, but I was specifically writing it for my son Seven. I was pregnant with him. It was 1997. I was trying to communicate to him. I've been waiting patiently for y'all so we can talk about this shit!”

If you saw Badu on her Unfollow Me tour last year, the setlist might've felt familiar. But especially for first-time birthday bashers, this was a master class in giving new takes on classics and a demonstration of staying power. Badu’s voice shone always, whether through her pure control or primal screaming. She sipped tea between songs, pouring some out for those she's lost, including Dallas musician Daniel Jones and Tupac Shakur.

Some of the songs were extended for a true, grooved-out moment. "Time’s a Wastin" and "Window Seat" threw the constraints of time out of the crowd’s consciousness. After her "Otherside of the Game" performance, a fan called Badu out for lying when she tried to say good night. Badu had more tunes to perform, but she had to admit something first.

“I've been telling everybody I'm 53. But I'm really not 53. Do you want me to tell y'all how old I am for real? In real life, I am actually 56,” she said, as fans cheered.

All reports show Badu’s date of birth to be 1971. And she graduated from Dallas’ performing arts high school Booker T. Washington in 1989. Until we can scavenge for the truth, we’ll have to choose to take her (latest) word for her age or assume she was trolling the crowd. Whether facing the final boss, level 53 or the final boss, level 56, either are accomplishments in aging gracefully.

Badu changed some of the lyrics of "Me" to reflect her current life. Her three children stood with her inside a light-and-smoke-filled pyramid before bringing out a massively tall cake with an effigy of Badu at the top. Her middle child, daughter Puma, sang “Happy Birthday” as the crowd sang along. Soon after, balloons and confetti filled the whole space.

Badu could've celebrated all night. Instead, she spent the last minutes giving the stage to people for whom she's thankful: her cousin Robert “Rob Free” Bradford, the evening's hosts Bootz and Nayrok, Thundercat (who was watching from backstage) and Rapsody, who also stuck around to perform her and Badu's upcoming collaboration “3 a.m.” for the first time.

Other surprises included Thundercat performing “Them Changes” and Teezo Touchdown doing his part on Drake's For All the Dogs cut “7969 Santa.”

As a final send-off, Badu thanked the crowd for holding space for her. With her children watching, she dove into her hit “Didn’t Cha Know” and told the audience brighter days were ahead in “Believe in Yourself.”

Badu then brought her mom on stage and talked about evolution, and how each generation has a chance to be better than the last. She made a point that she was an improvement on her mother and brought her kids forward to say they were an improvement on her — this idea was easily paralleled by the musical example present throughout the night, with a multi-generational talent lineup as a musical evolution of Baduizm and works of The Soulquarians, the collective Badu was a part of with D’Angelo, Questlove and J. Dilla.

“I love you so much, Dallas. I’m five generations," Badu said. "I’ll never move."