Review: Erykah Badu Brings a Soulful, Human-Centered Revolution to Miami Beach

"I didn't come here to give you a speech about anything," Erykah Badu told a rapt crowd midway through her nearly two-hour set at the Fillmore Miami Beach on Tuesday night. "I just want to show you how I want to be seen."

And yet in an age of instant gratification, separation, and the digitized capture and commodification of virtually every individual experience, Abi & Alan Luv tour did seem designed to deliver a message which, though long taken for granted as conventional wisdom, now feels once again revolutionary: Be here now.

First, the show served as an extended preview of Badu's first new album in fifteen years, Abi & Alan — a collaborative effort between her and superstar producer/rapper the Alchemist, with a back-to-roots moniker drawn from their birth names Erica Abi Wright and Alan Maman — which, aside from the dreamy track "Next to You," will not be available until August 29. Badu brought out some crowd-pleasing standards; the set heavily centered on new music. Buy the ticket and take the ride, as they say, but Badu was not getting to this destination on familiar highways. Thiswouldo be a backroads trip through an uncharted and magical region.
Second, once through security, all attendees had to place their cellphones in locked pouches. (How seriously was this enforced? New Times photographer Michele Eve Sandberg was provided an analog disposable camera to keep the visuals accompanying this piece kosher.)
Onstage, Badu thanked the audience for complying with this and protecting the "integrity" of the performance. The effect was powerful on multiple levels. Not only did you become aware of the reflexive crutch you've been using to limp through any dopamine-deprived moment and how chatting with other human beings beautifully fills that gap, but once the music started, it also became clear how much immersive and affecting a performance is when it isn't framed and curated through a digital conduit for content.
How, in other words, does Badu want to be seen?

Through eyes attached to present minds, united by sound.

"We deeply appreciate the connection we share with you," a postcard handed out at the end of the performance read, further confidently/preemptively referencing "this extraordinary moment we've created as one living, breathing organism together."

If anyone has the gravitas and cultural currency to deliver this message, it's clearly Badu. Standing in the long, snaking line outside the Fillmor,e it quickly became clear she occupies a unique space in our current musical landscape. Older fans clad in colorful, upscale jazz lounge-ready tailored suits and chic dresses waited next to young women who looked like they took a time machine to get their glow up in the time of flower power. Hip hop and black metal shirts were semi-equally represented. You had gaggles of people who might have just tumbled out of a South Beach clu,b easily intermingling with others whose faces were elaborately painted in ways that suggested they just returned from a rain forest vision quest (read: guided ayahuasca retreat).
Once inside, the stage setup, designed to resemble something between a comfy home and a hip clubhouse complete with lava lamps, walls of vinyl, and easy chairs, reinforced this vibe. Towards the back, there were two small enclaves. One housed Maman — who got his start as a rapper in the early nineties with the Whooliganz before building an epic producing career that includes work with Eminem, Mobb Deep, Action Bronson, and more — a nonstop, head-bobbing ball of energy with a smile so big throughout the set it looked like he'd just won the lottery — twice. In the other, you had Badu, in a signature headwrap and quilted oversized shawl, knocking out beats and accent on a drum pad between the mind-bendingly on-point flow state vocals of a genius in control of her full melodic range and internal power.
Center stage was open for artists, guest rappers, and vocalists — the crowd went wild when Earl Sweatshirt arrived — to storm in for a bit of the spotlight. Badu's long-time brilliant backing band comprised of a murderer's row of Grammy Award-winning hitmakers, the Cannabinoids, were split, flanking stage left and stage right, bringing the organic jams when the performance opened up space for it, locking in with Maman when Badu's own attack sharpened or a dialed-in verse or chorus required it.

Throughout, Badu reveled in the arc and drama of the show. As the curtain rose, she was seated, warming to the beats and scratches. By the end, she had flung off the shawl and was in full siren mode, embodying in a transcendent way the smolder and power that earned her the nickname the Queen of Neo-Soul when her debut Baduizm dropped in 1997.
Of course, it's one thing to draw a diverse crowd, but it's quite another for it to be united rather than atomized. This is the gap Badu bridged from the first beat to the moment she asked the crowd to spread the fingers on their raised hands to feel the vibrations to the last triumphant croon.

Truth is, she's never sounded better or more assured, live or on record, than she did last night in Miami. But you'd need to have been there to know it.

The Abi & Alan Badu era is coming. If Tuesday was any indication, you won't want to let it pass you by.