The Life Alterers

Do you know about those rare times in your adult life, that you find one of those life-altering CD's, not life changing, those only come maybe twice in a lifetime, but the life altering ones. Life changing CD's are the Marvin Gaye what's going on, Stevie Wonder Songs in the key of Life CD's that are usually done by legends that come along once in lifetime. The life altering ones come in a sub-category, the albums that you find in a pile of litter on the floor and when you pull it out, you realized you haven't listened to it before and you are totally skeptical when you begin listening to it, and then you realize slowly but surely that you love this CD. And for about 30-60 minutes of your life, whatever shitty is going on in your life you completely forget about.

If you haven't figured it out already, I discovered one of these CD's today, and I know I'm late but I absolutely love Erykah Badu's Worldwide Underground EP. I had a little bit of a grudge against Erykah Badu since I found out her dreads were fake (her eyes are fake too, but that's another day). I loved her first album, but I couldn't believe that someone who is supposed to be representing realness and being yourself, had the nerve to wear fake dreads. And it wasn't just the fact that it was her dreads, it was the fact that it was one of her trademark physical assets. Really pissed me off. I loved Mama's Gun too. Then I saw the two videos for the album that looked cheap beyond belief, and acquired bitter feelings for her because I felt that she was trying way too hard to be "artistic". After that, and after hearing that her and Common were "celibate" together, and she left him and got pregnant by D.O.C., I was done with her.

Worldwide Underground is one of many MP3's that are loaded on my computer at work. I have listened to or part of every CD on there except for that one, so I was disgusted with everything else this morning and decided to listen to it. Another reason that this action was actually prompted when I saw her give this great performance on a old episode of Dave Chapelle, and I was wondering where the song was from. I know now that I must learn that I must not let the media steer my bias towards an artist because this is great. Like charge my credit card because I spent my check on bills great. A few of the songs are over 10 minutes long but they're still great. I found myself bobbing my head and tapping my feet at work, something that I never do when I'm wearing any type of headphones. I also repeated every song twice. Another thing that I never do.

Also, this CD will go under the short list of that I call "The Life Alterers" that currently includes: Justin Timberlake's justified, Christina Aguilera's Stripped, The Chronic 2001, the Roots's phrenology, Jon B's Cool relax, Gwen Stefani's Love Angel Music baby and Kanye West's the college dropout. Its wonderful, and I'm sorry Erykah.