Indeed, Erykah Badu was in fine spirits yesterday afternoon at the grand opening of the Dallas Kidrobot store, greeting fans, signing autographs, posing for pictures, checking out the merchandise and, for a few minutes, even offering the store's first customers an exclusive listen to an unfinished track that will appear on her next release, New Amerykah, Pt. 2: Return of the Ankh. But that, too, came with some customization: The song, entitled "Can't Take Me Away" and based around a sample from Junior M.A.F.I.A.'s "Get Money," was edited on Wednesday night to apply to the store's flagship Munny doll.
"We're calling this one 'Get Munny,'" Badu said with a laugh. "I just edited the song to say 'Get Munny' like a hundred times."
Still, even this tweaked track offers some hope for the fans patiently awaiting the delayed release of the follow-up to last year's highly praised New Amerykah Pt. 1: 4th World War--a delay Badu's well-aware of, but not worried about.
"Well, I had a project named Mars," she said, again with a laugh, referring to her six-month-old baby girl. The good news, though, for those eager to hear the new fruits of Badu's musical labor? The tracks are all already written; the album's just getting tweaked at this point.
"I'm recording a little now, and I only have one song fully mixed," Badu explained. "But the process goes pretty quickly. I'm mixing it now, and I'm adding on the last layer of it. I do my music like a Subway sandwich. We're on the last layer right now, with the sauce and the top bun."
And, Badu said, there's an official release date for the album already on the books, too--although that information can't yet be publicly released.
Still, Badu said, the album should be worth its wait.
"Oh, I've got some surprises for y'all," she said teasingly when discussing the disc's contents. "I'm super excited about it. And I'd tell you if I wasn't. You know I would."
