The phone has long been a creative device for funk and soul songwriters, as Erykah Badu’s mixtape concept attests. Inspired by an impromptu remix of Drake’s Hotline Bling and recorded quickly with Dallas producer Zach Witness, But You Caint Use My Phone riffs on phone-centric songs by New Edition, Usher, the Time, the Isley Brothers and her own addition to this canon, Tyrone.
The way technology both enables and complicates love is one of those constant themes in life, and it’s one that Badu frequently mines for comedic effect here. Her take on Hotline Bling includes a hilarious “Press one for…” dial menu interlude, and on Phone Down – the perfect phone jam for 2015 – she addresses concertgoers and suitors in one fell swoop by singing, “I can make you put your phone down.”
The production is similarly of the moment but spare by Badu standards. It’s experimental and improvisational but familiar. When she puts her psychedelic soul spin on the trappy drums of today (what she calls trap&B), it’s the sound of an artist embracing change and all the new possibilities and complications that go with it.
Top track: Phone Down
