almost three weeks after its debut, Erykah Badu and Jill Scott’s infamous verzuz battle still has a lot of the world reeling in it’s warming effects…or maybe just me. the quarantine-born battle between hip-hop and r&b heavyweights is the brainchild of swizz beatz and timbaland. in their episode, jill scott and erykah badu took to instagram to pause the world with many of their most popular and hand-selected songs. one could feel the intentionality in their playlists, conversation, and curated +homegrown dj booths. yet what remains in my psyche are reminders of how neo-soul, particularly from these two, created a microcosm of mainstream blackness.
in august of 2009, I made the decision to loc my hair and grow them out. i’d been admiring women with locs for some time. so when a break-up with my high school sweetheart happened the summer after my 1st year of college, it was time to step fully into my curiosity. while sitting through my starter Locs, i recalled how my loctician spoke to me about energy, consciousness, metaphysics. she affirmed me constantly with specific, decolonized words of encouragement. i sat through odes to my skin, forehead size, and hair texture, all full of african ancestry, though not exactly places of personal reverence within me at the time. i listened to how beautiful and powerful i was. i was urged to prepare myself for a “different type of man” because “short natural hair is for grown-ups”. i laugh reflecting on it now, but many of her affirmations have come and are still coming true in my life. at the time, i was looking to the bible and church for upliftment so this was new, but not unfamiliar. the language was not lost on me, having grown up listening to the Last Poets & Nina Simone on vinyl in my grandfather’s basement but the timing of her words caused them to land like birds head first into windows.
in regality i rode my first year of sporting locs with contentment. an expierince juxtaposed with what many folks deem as the “ugly phase” of growing locs as they aspire to waist-length kinky tresses, or opt to skip it altogether. i soon realized that this hairstyle did have different energy. not only was I beginning to go inward to confront my own internalized racism, but outwardly I was embodying Soulquarian energy. as i’d grocery shop for essential oils and fresh eucalyptus, “Peace Queen” “i love your hair” and the occasional, “ok erykah badu!” type compliments would rain as people let me know I was giving them “jill scott vibes”. i wondered when Erykah Badu and Jill Scott became the poster children for consciousness, blackness, and beauty. after all, I was really just trying to get over ‘ol boy through self-reinvention.
Erykah Badu released Baduizm on february 11, 1997. i can remember riding to school and my parents listening to “On & On” and “”Other side of the game” the most. with information that I have about my parents’ relationship present day, this makes sense. 3 years later, i was still in the back seat as “getting in the way” filled the car. Jill Scott’s debut single from her freshman album “Who is Jill Scott?” was an anthem for street-fighting-bold women-in-vaseline faces-and-tennis shoes-tied-tight after trying to keep the peace and fed up. these two women were the beginning and end of my awakening in preadolescence. in hindsight, it was probably due to the fact that at seven and ten years old, i was not controlling the radio. as I discovered music that would become the soundtrack to fully embracing my new identity years laters, i developed deep admiration for other artists making music during that time who were not as mainstream. finally, the moments in my grandfather’s basement, seeing and smelling “erykah badus” around oakland, california, being in the backseat, deciding to loc my hair, and listening to other neo-soul artists all came together.
i sit still, still unsure what my mother’s relationship is with her own blackness, but there had to be something viscerally relatable embedded in the lyrics of “baduizm” that made her buy two compact disc copies; for the house and the car. in my family, arriving at family functions often mean hugs and greetings filled with words like “red girl” or “yellow girl”. banter over barbeque would eventually float into opinions about hair, beauty, and body type mostly through filters of eurocentric beauty ideals. with the exception of my cousin, every woman in my family wore their hair straight, even if not chemically processed. for me the standard seemed set. only as i matured did i come to appreciate summers in my grandfather’s basement as the antidote to suppressed desires of wanting to be a white girl- also influenced by growing up in California.
in simplest terms, Erykah and Jill in their authenticity, provided a type of costume to usher us into our higher selves. as complex as it is to define and live our blackness in america, we look to past, present, and future expressions to find our voices and blueprints. if their music didn’t get you, their hair(wraps) could. if the hair couldn’t get you, the clothes did. if none of these felt like you, perhaps you were inspired to peer into the spirituality that erykah spoke of in her songs. perhaps it was badu’s complicated, public relationship with rapper common that initiated you, or their anomalous live performances. we received our entry points in different ways. we received our entry points at different times. yet growth, as promised, when one searches for their “higher self” does eventually descend upon you. not lost amidst their influence is the musical production/songwriting that was destined to help us feeldealandheal even if we’d never seen Jill and Erykahs’ aesthetic.
in front of almost one million fans, philomaths, and culture-vultures, their energy transcended screens and enveloped us as the women spoke candidly about the ways they have been preserving mid pandemic. their tones were soft as they spoke in between tea sips and served us a collective chill pill while celebrating each other’s achievements. Jill reminded us of our responsibility to operate in our gifts while here on earth, her dazzling smile hypnotizing us all. Erykah affirmed homeschooling families everywhere as a veteran herself. as they took up space digitally, it was familiar to us because they’d already done this. they’d been nationally successful and black AS. FUCK. they were women we wanted to be or searching to be-never losing that “homegirl up the block” appeal.
i’ve been natural ever since I decided to loc my hair. the effects of that choice still bleed into much of who I am now and how i show up in the world. it is popular for black women to speak of “big chopping” as something every black woman must do in their lifetime. though i resonate with the sentiment, everyone is not going to big chop. everyone is not going to go natural. what remains true is that the introduction to home within ourselves is closer than it may seem. regardless of your method, music can forever be a neutral catalyst to guide us.
my incense just burned out. hahaha.
thanks erykah, thanks jill.
