Erykah Badu

Erica Abi Wright, known professionally as Erykah Badu, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Influenced by R&B, soul, and hip-hop, Badu rose to prominence in the late 1990s when her debut studio album Baduizm (1997), placed her at the forefront of the neo soul movement, earning her the nickname "Queen of Neo Soul" by music critics.

Dallas native Erykah Badu didn't just ride the neo-soul wave of the late '90s—she created the blueprint that defined it. *Baduizm* arrived in 1997 as a seismic shift in R&B, one that pulled hip-hop's consciousness upward and gave the genre permission to be cerebral without sacrificing groove. Her connections tell the story of neo-soul's golden era: artistic soulmate André 3000 (with whom she shares a son and creative vision), fellow conscious royalty Common, and Jay-Z from those crucial late-90s New York and Atlanta circles where rap's future was being rewritten. Through five studio albums spanning from *Mama's Gun* to *New Amerikaanse Part Two*, Badu constructed a legacy that proved hip-hop's closest relative wasn't pop music—it was radical Black spirituality and unbending individualism.