At the turn of the millennium, it seemed like everyone was waiting for something — caught in the past and anxiously awaiting the future. Erykah Badu’s sophomore album Mama’s Gun was perfect for such a moment; it established her as a singular voice and crowned her as the Queen of Neo Soul. Mama’s Gun saw Badu at her most innovative and most introspective, at once bearing the weight of the world and waiting for answers to come, while also turning inward to reflect on love, heartbreak, indecision and growing pains — the personal as political. The album’s sound — combining jazz, classic soul, funk and hip-hop to evoke Black music history while bringing in a distinctly modern and futurist sound — is incredibly influential. Recorded at Electric Lady Studios with contemporary hip-hop and neo-soul heavyweights like Questlove, D’Angelo and J Dilla, Mama’s Gun — much like Badu herself — is firmly planted in the now while also looking toward a distant and speculative beyond. Badu revisits her seminal project on a current 25th-anniversary tour, which arrives at The Pinnacle Dec. 8. Listeners new and old can experience the era-defining album that solidified a music legend.
8 p.m. at The Pinnacle
901 Church St.
