Do You Hear Me Now Black Male Vulnerability Don Cornelius Soul Train

video: Badu’s Other Side of The Game

Sugar’s Review: Senior year in college, second semester to be exact, and i was doing my best to get my degree without jumpin over a bridge from the stress. baduizm floated onto the synthetically labeled neo-soul arena like a butterfly on a georgia peach patch. i didn’t know anyone, man or woman, that did not have or want to have that album, especially after seeing the video for “on and on”. soft inuendos, real love songs (and by real i mean situations that you could truly believe happened to regular folk) and a savoir faire that shook the world out of its complacent boots. it was and still is an album we talk about. some brothers acted like they hadn’t heard it just to slip in a fine girl’s room for an impromptu booty rub. i remember blasting her album on friday afternoon right after my last class and sunday night to ease my mind of all those monday assignments due. we loved the album so much we’d shout her out on the campus television show, radio show and parties we did (special shout out to greg stephan, chris newton and the gang at the Pulliam Center). from rim shot to otha side of the game to drama she told us her story even when it wasn’t always pretty. it was just golden…d’angelo cleansed our palates with brown sugar the year before (we miss you man) and baduizm was a much appreciated course. i learned more from erykah badu than any uppity syllabus could attempt to teach me.

Ed’s Review

“what you gonna do when they come for you/ work aint honest but it pays the bills..” - “Other Side Of The Game” from Baduizm

Erykah Badu’s Baduizm not only saved my damn life, but it’s revolutionary grooves would also come to embody (musically & spiritually) everything we wanted from an artist…and the dreams we clung to for ourselves…Broke as hell my sophomore year of college, Sugar beat me to the punch coppin’ the Badu joint and blasting it across the hall of our dorm in West Bubble Freak, Indiana…Overcome with jealously, I begged him like a crack fiend to borrow the album one weekend while he was out of town…But his hatin’ ass girl at the time came and stole the album before I could really catch a groove I remember using change –I had saved to wash my clothes–to buy the album. Baduizm was a regular niggas dream gettin’ me through finals, death threats, heartbreaks, suicidal ideation, and my parents (now divorced) rocky relationship. In many ways, “Other Side Of The Game” became my personal soundtrack (and still is) as a young man developing in a world where free spirits have hell to pay. It was my shit so much so; Sugar could tell if I was depressed by how many times he heard “Other Side Of The Game” on repeat Sista Badu had given us a gift we could never repay…the courage to get our dreams out of layaway…Thank You!!!!

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