The Mind Of A One-Woman Multitude

THE day after she finished her new album at Electric Lady Studios, the West Village recording shrine that Jimi Hendrix built, the multiplatinum R&B singer Erykah Badu was back in her surprisingly modest apartment in Brooklyn, puttering. In the tiny kitchen she poured organic pomegranate juice into a jelly jar, then stretched out on a mattress on the floor as “New AmErykah, Part One (4th World War),” just released by Universal Motown, played on her laptop. After weeks in the studio, she was so happy to be home that she refused to leave, rescheduling appointments and interviews around her domestic whim and one really, really good bath. (More on that later.)

Ms. Badu with her son, Seven, in Washington in 2005.

She patted the spot next to her; why not conduct an interview in bed?

“This is my museum,” Ms. Badu, 37, said of the rent-controlled one-bedroom in Fort Greene where she has lived on and off since coming to New York, demo tape in hand, 11 years ago from her native Dallas, where she was Erica Wright.

“Since I’ve been here I’ve had two children, a few boyfriends, a lot of records,” she continued in her slight, girly drawl. “Everyone that comes over here draws on the wall or leaves something. You’re looking at my mind when you’re looking at these things.” Decorating the hallway, for instance, is a three-foot-tall ankh; artwork by her 10-year-old son, Seven, underneath a magazine photo of his father, the rapper André Benjamin of OutKast; yellow caution tape; dried flowers; protest-style placards; and a metal trash can lid, hung on the wall like an art piece. (“I thought it was cute,” she said.)

As idiosyncratic as the memorabilia on her walls, her first full-length album in eight years is a dense, stylistic mash-up. By turns overtly political and intensely personal, with 1970s-groove instrumentation, hip-hop phrasing and a roster of beats and samples from collaborators like the D.J. and producer Madlib, it is fierce but weird. And apart from “Honey,” the bouncy, playful single, it is largely uncommercial. In his review for The New York Times, Ben Ratliff called it “a deep, murky swim in her brain.”

But after such a prolonged absence its release still feels like a comeback event. Thanks to Ms. Badu’s appealingly eccentric neo-soul sex goddess/funky earth mama/black power revolutionary persona, her pipe cleaner of a voice, thin and bendy, her sultry delivery and beauty, she’s still a potentially bankable star. (The designer Tom Ford recently named her the face of his forthcoming fragrance.) And with R&B sales down 18 percent last year, the industry seems willing to take a risk on an independent-minded artist, especially one with a following.

“I think Erykah is one of the few artists that truly does have a movement,” said Sylvia Rhone, the president of Universal Motown. “Her music has changed, but she’s been feeding people this creative change all these years, and she’s stayed very connected with her fan base,” through live performances, online groups and other projects like acting in movies. She added that while Janet Jackson’s new record may outsell hers at Best Buy and Target, “Erykah will dominate at the independent record stores.”

After a public bout of writer’s block that led to her “Frustrated Artist” tour in 2003 and 2004, Ms. Badu is eager to promote what she calls her magnum opus. “New AmErykah” is part of a creative torrent that includes a sequel record, due in the summer, and an unrelated retro-minded album, “Lowdown Loretta Brown,” scheduled for the fall, both on Universal Motown. Ms. Badu also plans to start a lifestyle magazine, The Freaq, this summer; the first issue will come with a copy of “New AmErykah: Part Two.” Both records will also be available on a U.S.B. stick for fans to plug into their computers; for added value Ms. Badu wants to record a U.S.B. commentary track to explain her references and inspiration. A tour will start in May.

“I swear to God, this must be my artistic peak,” Ms. Badu said in an earlier interview at Electric Lady, where she walked around barefoot, belled anklets jingling above her tiny manicured feet. “I hope my sexual peak comes soon too,” she added, and laughed. Then, switching to bohemian mama mode: “If something happened to me, I would want them to say, ‘This is what your mother was about.’ ”

Ms. Badu is “one of those performers that don’t necessarily fit in,” said Stephen Hill, executive vice president for music talent and programming at BET, which has been aggressively playing the video for “Honey.” “She creates music as she wants to, and then it’s up to the public to decide.” He added that the new album was “not like anything that’s out there, and that’s what makes it exciting,” especially when the mainstream music business feels slack.

Of course Ms. Badu already had a legacy to build on. Her debut album, “Baduizm,” released in 1997, sold nearly three million copies, winning her two Grammys and comparisons to Billie Holiday, Diana Ross and Chaka Khan. By the time her follow-up, “Mama’s Gun,” was released in 2000, she had earned a title: the queen of neo-soul. And she was part of an era of left-of-center black singer-songwriters like Jill Scott, Angie Stone and Macy Gray; her male counterparts included D’Angelo and Maxwell. Like Ms. Badu many of them struggled to keep their creative momentum, conflicted about their early mainstream success.

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