Boo-da-da-da-doo. Bamp-bam-bam, dobba-dobba-dat-da. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-dah. Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there. I was just trying to reach my word count as I write a review dooby-doo doot-doo of the new Erykah Badu disc. Being a fan of nu-soul involves a superhuman amount of patience-- D'Angelo and Badu both routinely take 3+ years to drop new records-- and despite its fifty-minute length, Worldwide Underground is listed as an EP as a means of discerning it from a proper follow-up to 2000's Mama Gun. Here, Badu scribbles-- in a nattering Fiona Apple style, no less-- "Freakquency is born and neo-soul is dead." Given that it's taken three years to drop on EP of purported idiom, does it mean even longer waits? This disc contains more filler and fluff than her fresh-picked fro can symbolize on the cover.
"Bump It" delineates the problem with time. The first half of its nine minutes is relaxed, comfy soul cushion, firmed by a hip-hop click and intonation of the title command. That focus soon starts to slump in the seat, though, devolving into another five minutes of congas and croaked adlibs of boo-pee-doopy-doo's, some courtesy of Zap Mama's Marie Daulne.
Building slowly on a descending keyboard vamp and Badu's panned rhythmic coos, "I Want You" blossoms into percolating and passionate, high on smoldering lust. But chugging holy water, picking up paperbacks, or toting yoga mats, nothing can quite touch that initial tingle. Burning out like joints and crushes are wont to do, the vamp goes limp, lackadaisically slowing tape before punching in a... um, Lenny Kravitz guitar solo, which makes it easy to forget the earlier power of its eleven minutes.
Tighter tracks like "The Grind" and "Love of My Life Worldwide" ride the beats with soulful, vocal fringe looped ad infinitum, perfect as instrumental flips for hip-hop night at the Black Betty. Choruses of "keep the glock on lock" or "ring-ding-dong" and folks like Dead Prez, Queen Latifah, Angie Stone, and Bahamadia stepping to the mic carry that informal, if not consistently inspired, level of interplay.
Where scarcely sketched-out words and ideas have a tendency to fall into that painful American Idol vat of melismas, Badu keeps the proceedings here buoyant and relaxed with that supple-lipped scat of hers, stretching out scant syllables at her lounging, loopy leisure. It's nonsensical (lacking Baduizms or pleas to kiss her neck), conveying instead that small, spacy joy of puffing in the back of the ride. Opening the music up and just letting the tape unfurl catches moments unattained otherwise, but as it stands, Worldwide Underground could use some tightening up.
