Badu is Bad to the Bone

If there is anything Erykah Badu knows, it’s how to get a foot in the spotlight–or in this case, a return to relevancy. One can either go straight for the sex scandal (a la “A Night in Paris”), or, well, death.

Badu chose both.

This past St. Patty’s Day, Dallas native Badu headed to Dealey Plaza to shoot “Window Seat,” the second video off her new album New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh). For those not in the know, Dealey Plaza is more commonly known as the grassy knoll, the infamous location of Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. And no, this fact was not lost on Badu.

Using what has been coined as “guerrilla filmmaking,” the video was shot with a hand-held camera, without a permit and in front of plenty of bystanders. Which would have been OK, if Badu had kept her clothes on. But she didn’t. As the song progresses, Badu strolls along, stripping down to her birthday suit, and ends up being shot in the head and “killed” by a sniper right where Kennedy was targeted nearly half a century ago. Badu quoted Matt and Kim’s video “Lessons Learned” as her inspiration, where they get really, really naked in Times Square.

After the unveiling of the blurred video on March 29th, Badu has been Tweeting up a storm, saying she has gotten a lot of hate and a lot of love for the video. “Funny thing is, the physical nudity is nothing lol,” reads one Tweet. “I been naked all along in my words actions and deeds. Thats the real vulnerable place.”

I, as well as many of my fellow locals, say pah-shaw to the whole thing. Hundreds gathered to Good Records on Greenville Avenue Saturday for a CD signing, showing their support for her video that is meant to be against “groupthink.” Badu has never been so bad, and so good for PR. So even if she does have to pay the fine for the disorderly conduct citation issued to her from the Dallas PD April 3, I’m pretty sure she finds the whole thing was worth her while. You go girl.