"This is a mean thing to ask someone," says Ms. Erykah Badu when asked to run through her 10 favorite albums. Complex usually asks artists to list their 25 favorite albums, but seeing as how we had a limited amount of time with the host of the 2015 Soul Train Music Awards, 10 will suffice. Honestly, anything would suffice when it comes to Badu, the Texas-reared musician who, for nearly two decades, has carved a mystical niche for herself suffused with soul, R&B, funk, and whatever else she was feeling at the time of recording. Badu is a flower child all grown up with pop sensibilities who has never taken her finger off the pulse of what is poppin'. It's what allowed her to remain relevant all these years while her contemporaries have fallen by the wayside, and why she was able to easily create the best cover of Drake's "Hotline Bling," a track primed for her new mixtape, But You Can't Use My Phone. Luckily, Badu went two steps forward and gave us her 12 favorite projects. If you ever wondered what informed Badu's eclectic sensibilities, take a read below of her favorite albums.
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
Joni Mitchell, Blue (1971)
Nas, Illmatic (1994)
Andre 3000, The Love Below (2003)
Mary McCreary, Jezebel (1974)
Earth, Wind & Fire, That's the Way of the World (1975)
Jodeci, Forever My Lady (1991)
Prince, Sign o' the Times (1987)
Prince, For You (1977)
Prince, Controversy (1981)
Vanity 6, Vanity 6 (1982)
"'Nasty Girl.' I was very young at that time. I had to be in the seventh or sixth grade or something. But I understood. I know every song on that album by heart till this day. 'Make-up,' 'If a Girl Answers (Don’t Hang Up)'—I was into that, I was a rude girl. I was in ecstasy, going through puberty. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. My hands tingled, my toes tingled. I wanted someone to understand what I was feeling, but I couldn’t explain it. So I had to wait until my album came out to express how I felt about it."