He contributes to “Hello,” a tranquil, serene joint that mixes 3 Stacks’ absurdly dope lyrics (“flip watchin’ you skip down my corridor, fuck a ballad/don’t need shit on the side no more, I should know, fuck a salad”) with Badu’s soulful vibes in a bona fide duet that plays like a song written for each other. Erykah ends her project with a duet featuring none other than André 3000, the father of Badu’s son Seven. After covering Drake’s “Hotline Bling” on a track now re-dubbed “Cel U Lar Device,” Drake adds a verse to a reprise of the song titled “U Use to Call Me.” While it’s rare to have a guest that can outshine Drake, Badu’s other guest is one of the select few with that ability. In any event, the anticipation and excitement surrounding the project has been monumental she hasn’t released a solo album since 2010’s New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh), which debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 charts.įor the most part, But You Caint Use My Phone is all Erykah, save for two very high profile guests. Badu’s wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more to the mixtape’s meaning than that. Badu but are still fantastic songs in themselves and are different enough to maintain the listener's interest but at the same time similar enough to subconsciously 'please' the listener as there aren't any drastic changes that come as a big shock.At 12:00am today, Erykah Badu dropped But You Cain’t Use My Phone, an 11-track mixtape featuring her ingenious remix to Drake’s “Hotline Bling” (now called (“Cel U Lar Device”) as well as its follow-up single, “Phone Down.” The latest project centers on themes of communication, and while the literal references to telephones are hard to ignore, fans of Ms. The laid-back, 'chilled', minimalistic vibe is Erykah Badu's stylistic fingerprint that points out to the listener that "Yes this is an Erykah Badu song", for example, listen to the songs Other Side Of The Game ( )and Rimshot (Intro) ( ) both of these songs still have that exact same stylistic fingerprint of Ms. Badu, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Badu creates, which some may see as a bad thing as she doesn't push herself as an artist to expand her music into new directions or reach new audiences, however, I would argue that even though this song is very reminiscent of many other songs by Ms. The laid-back, 'chilled', minimalistic vibe of this song can be seen in nearly every song that Ms. Badu is out to live her life and not care about what others think of her.įor me this song shows exactly who Erykah Badu is as a musician and an artist. On the other hand the repetition, of the pre-chorus and chorus, really drills the message of the song into the reader's mind, that Ms. Badu's part, as we know she is very capable of writing intelligent and fitting lyrics that could've offered more to the song but she gets away with this laziness because her sultry vocal styling make whatever she's singing pleasant to listen to regardless of the lyrics actually are. Some individuals may see this as laziness on Ms. However, despite being very cleverly written in some places there is also a great deal of repetition of lyrics, for example the last four sections of the song are just repetitions of what has already been said. I think overall the lyrics are very cleverly written with intelligent references to the Tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden and that her knowledge is like the apple that Eve picked from the tree and that knowledge is like food that has to be planted and grown before being passed on to other people.