Known as the Queen of Neo Soul and the First Lady of Neo Soul, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and producer Erykah Badu helped shine an early light on the R&B subgenre alongside D'Angelo and Maxwell by sprinkling her Baduizm on the music industry. Drawing inspiration from jazz singers such as Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald as well as a range of groups like A Tribe Called Quest, Earth, Wind & Fire and Pink Floyd, Badu inspired singers that followed in her footsteps such as Jill Scott, SZA and Ari Lennox among others.

Born Erica Abi Wright in Dallas, Texas, on February 26, 1971, Badu began performing at four years old, and as a teenager, she began freestyle rapping on the radio. Her rap name was MC Apples, but she also changed her given name from Erica to Erykah as “kah” signified inner self and “Badu” represented her favorite scat sound in jazz. She graduated from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas and attended Grambling State University in Louisiana before dropping out to pursue music full time. She created a 19-track demo called Country Cousins with her cousin Robert “Free” Bradford as the group “Erykah Free.” Record executive Kedar Massenburg got the demo, set her up to duet with D'Angelo on “Your Precious Love” in 1996, and got her a record deal with Universal Records through his Kedar Entertainment imprint.

On February 11, 1997, Erykah Badu released her debut album Baduizm, led by the single “On & On” released two months earlier. The single peaked at #12 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart on its way to gold status and winning a Grammy Award in the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance category. “Next Lifetime” and “Otherside of the Game” were also released as singles. Baduizm peaked at #2 on the US Billboard 200 chart and topped the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart before reaching multi-platinum status in the US and winning a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album in 1998.

Prior to the release of Baduizm, Badu began dating rapper André 3000 of OutKast and he appeared in the music video for “Otherside of the Game”, where Badu revealed she was pregnant. During her pregnancy, she recorded her Live album, which featured the hit single “Tyrone” and was released on the same day as her and André’s son Sirius Seven Benjamin was born–November 18, 1997. The album peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200 and became her second straight album to top the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and reach multi-platinum status. In 1999, Badu collaborated with The Roots on their single “You Got Me”, which won a Grammy Award in the Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group category in 2000. Around this time, André and Erykah separated, inspiring Dré’s part of OutKast’s Grammy-winning 2000 single “Ms. Jackson.”

On November 18, 2000, Badu released her critically acclaimed sophomore studio album Mama’s Gun through Motown Records. She connected with the Soulquarians collective, which included musicians ?uestlove, James Poyser and producer J Dilla. The crew was primarily working out of Electric Lady Studios in New York City, where they worked on Badu’s album along with D'Angelo’s sophomore album Voodoo, Common’s critically acclaimed album Like Water for Chocolate and Bilal’s debut album 1st Born Second around the same time. Mama’s Gun reached platinum status with support from the #1 R&B single “Bag Lady”, along with “Didn’t Cha Know” and “Cleva.” Badu went on the Mama’s Gun World Tour the following year.

In 2002, Badu and then-boyfriend Common released the single “Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)” for the Brown Sugar soundtrack. The single peaked at #9 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart before winning a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 2003–the same year Badu returned with her third studio album, Worldwide Underground. The album featured the singles “Danger” and “Back in the Day (Puff)” along with “Love of My Life Worldwide” featuring Queen Latifah, Bahamadia and Angie Stone over a sample of the 1979 track “Funk You Up” by Stone’s old rap group The Sequence. Badu then released her two-part New Amerykah series: Part One (4th World War) in 2008 and Part Two (Return of the Ankh) in 2010. In 2015, Badu released the mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone, and a decade later, she teamed up with producer The Alchemist for the collaborative album Abi & Alan.

Over the years, Erykah Badu has become an actress, a several-time hostess of the Soul Train Awards, a DJ and a doula delivering babies. On a personal note, along with her son Seven Sirius Benjamin with André 3000, Badu also shares children with fellow Dallas MC The D.O.C. (daughter Puma, born 2004) and New Orleans MC Jay Electronica (daughter Mars, born 2009). Erykah Badu has won numerous awards–including American Music Awards, BET Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, and NAACP Image Awards–and she was ranked #115 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.