St. Louis, however, is a place near and dear to her heart that’s like a second home for her. After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, she enrolled in Grambling State University in Grambling LA, where she majored in theater. Grambling is where she met her former college roommate and lifelong friend who is from St. Louis. Badu often visited St. Louis with her roommate. She ended up dropping out, deciding to pursue a full-time music career and gained critical acclaim for her 1997 debut album “Baduizm,” which also won a Grammy for best R&B album.
“The first thing I realized in St. Louis is that we all have the same dialect,” Badu said while mimicking St. Louis’ signature ‘ur’ pronunciations on words with a hard “r” including care and there.
In a group zoom interview with The St. Louis American and other media outlets she shared what she thinks of St. Louis, she thinks of family and thinks of home.
Badu is currently on a 25-city joint tour with yasiin bey, FKA (formerly known as Mos Def). The Unfollow Me Tour stops in St. Louis Wednesday, June 28 at Enterprise Center.
“It [St. Louis] creates a comfort and easiness inside of me,” she said. “I want the people to see themselves in the reflection of that. I hope that the tour or that particular show in each city can encourage them to have an inner dialogue that may spark the next evolution they have.”
With the tour called The Unfollow Me Tour, it immediately grabs your attention. Badu named the tour this for good reason.
“The Unfollow Me Tour is about not depending on someone else’s opinion or the image of their journey to get to where they need to be,” she said. “We all lost so unfollowing me would be a waste of your time. Follow your own paths, your own hearts. You’re quite capable of creating and that's the message. Also, if we’re on social media if you don’t like what I’m saying unfollow me. It's so easy, it's two steps un and follow.”
Badu has grown exponentially both personally and professionally since her musical debut. What does the evolution of 2023 Badu look like in concert?
“They gone get a 2023 Badu,” she said. “It's the culmination of experiences. It's a smaller me. There are less things attached. I take up less space and it allows people to feel themselves even more.”
Fans and supporters might wonder how Badu always stays so serene and level-headed especially on tour. She maintains the same practices she does in her everyday life, featuring what she calls five doctors: the sun, vitamin D, nutrients, exercise, and breathwork.
“I don’t have to make my issues anybody else’s responsibility because I know where to go to get the energy,” she said.
Badu also maintains a healthy lifestyle from a plant-based diet.
“I think I’m a plant-based electric foodist, I eat food that is electric and plant-based and that also happens to be vegan food,” she said.
Badu’s decision to tour with bey comes from them being longtime comrades in music.
“We use music in the same way, as a platform to tell our stories and to document our history,” she said. I think we have that in common with our whole tribe, Soulquarians (a music collective made up of Badu, bey, and other respected emcees and creatives). Hip-hop is 50 this year and there’s no other emcee that I would come out with that can anoint the stage in the way that I feel necessary this year than yasiin. I convinced him to come outside. He outside.”
Outside of being a beloved visionary and musical legend, Badu has positioned herself in being a serial entrepreneur with interests tailored to fashion, cannabis, and free of charge doula services/advocacy.
She unveiled her fashion capsule collection with the Italian luxury brand Marni this year. Marni is also one of her favorite brands because it’s being eclectic, and full of knits and layers.
The opportunity presented itself after Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue asked her to walk for Vogue in New York Fashion Week. She took the opportunity and saw it as a sign to let her light shine.
Marni’s creative director, Francesco Risso asked Badu at the MET Gala if she’d be open to collaborate on her own fashion capsule and from there it was created.
“All of those things aligned like that were a result of the integral private moments that I am working behind the scenes to make things happen,” she said. “I believe the universe inspires with you to make those things happen.”
No stranger to cannabis, day-one fans are familiar with and know that Badu is a frequent cannabis user and connoisseur. Oftentimes the stench of cannabis is heavily strong at her concerts.
She joined forces with Berner, San Francisco-based rapper and cannabis entrepreneur to release the strain collaboration "The Badu," a Limoncello cross-bred and grown by Mad Cow Genetics.
“I decided to join the conversation where many cannabis connoisseurs, growers, dispensary owners and educators who are women across the world use plant medicine in our work,” she said. “It was important for me to bring into this market because it's a market. I didn’t wanna forget it's also a plant medicine, I had to bring those elements in as well. I did some researching and found where there was an absence of ovaries. I inserted myself and Berner supported me completely.”
Badu served as Teyana Taylor’s doula for her second child, Rue Rose Shumpert, and recently was the doula for Summer Walker’s twins (the names of the babies haven't been revealed). Badu said she enjoys doing doula services because it's one of the only times where she doesn’t have to feel her own [expletive].
“Cause we’re always in our minds throughout the day,” she said. “When I’m doing service work I don’t have the urges to journey into those places. I feel good. I’m breathing well. I’m quiet because when you’re in the service industry there’s not a lot of talking, it's a lot of intuition, listening, feeling and breathing together. It's rewarding for me. I don’t charge for it. I do it because I have a contract with those babies who are now here. I'm the welcoming committee. I want to make their first introduction to this school called Earth as peaceful as possible, at least they have an advantage.”
Badu also has a Funko doll, which is a bobblehead made in her likeness mimicking her image and pregnancy in the “Tyrone” music video.
“I love my Funko doll, that's my child,” she said. “I approached Funko doll last year because it was one of the fun, popular things I saw. I wrote down a list of things that I wanted to be a part of and the Funko world was one of them because its a very affordable collectible toy everybody can have and enjoy. So many legendary people from all walks of life have been immortalized by becoming funko dolls. I wanted to be the first pregnant Funko doll. I chose the “Tyrone” video image and the lil funko has got a baby bump. I thought it was the cutest thing.”
Integrity is a word Badu wants her fans to hang onto that they can carry with them.
“We are awarded for integrity and just that,” she said. “Sometimes it's not how talented, how clever, how strategic or how technical you are. Sometimes it's integrity, things that people don’t see…the work that is not announced or broadcast or promoted. When it's time to get up and you get up, you don’t feel nothing, you still get up, that's integrity. When you’re able to self govern yourself and self manage yourself with nothing in return.”
For tickets and more information about the tour, visit www.unfollowmetour.com.