During her Everyday Struggle visit back in November of 2017, the world got to see the free-spirited Erykah Badu in all of her glory. And while she references the public's perception of her relationship with rappers ("That I take rappers to the sunken place" is how she describes it) in a new conversation with Vulture, heads are reacting to her comments on Adolf Hitler and Bill Cosby more than anything.
The interview is fascinating in its flow. The conversation that brought up Cosby, and later Hitler, started out as Badu speaking on her appreciation for XXXTentacion's work, and the idea of separating the person from the art they are making. "I love Bill Cosby, and I love what he’s done for the world. But if he’s sick, why would I be angry with him? The people who got hurt, I feel so bad for them. I want them to feel better, too. But sick people do evil things; hurt people hurt people."
Badu follows up, acknowledging that, "I know I could be crucified for saying that, because I’m supposed to be on the purple team or the green team. I’m not trying to rebel against what everybody’s saying, but maybe I want to measure it." That's definitely ruffling feathers, but as the conversation shifted, the interviewer asked her about Badu's perceived anti-Semitism based on an Israeli article quoting Badu's thoughts on Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
"I’m not an anti-Semitic person," Badu stated. "I don’t even know what anti-Semitic was before I was called it. I’m a humanist. I see good in everybody. I saw something good in Hitler." After being asked to clarify what she was saying, Badu said that Hitler was "a wonderful painter."
When asked point blank what Hitler being a good painter (even if he wasn't) had to do with him being a "good person," Badu explained "Okay, he was a terrible painter. Poor thing. He had a terrible childhood. That means that when I’m looking at my daughter, Mars, I could imagine her being in someone else’s home and being treated so poorly, and what that could spawn. I see things like that. I guess it’s just the Pisces in me."
Which, as she said before, "Hurt people hurt people," and while Badu chalked much of her comments up to her independent thinking, where she'd rather examine each case individually than align with the mentality of the many, that didn't stop Twitter from going ham about her comments.
Something about Erykah Badu's personality always screamed 'phony' to me. I'm happy to know I was right lol
Erykah Badu Interview was so upsetting 🙁 I’m damn near in tears 😢😳 after reading all the ignorant shit she said in an interview. 😫😩😩😩😩😩 I don’t no what’s worse the president 😤or her adding to the Hatred going around the 🌎 Poor Erykah Badu 🤦🏾♀️
Erykah Badu been trash since at least 2014. She called R Kelly her “family,” said teen girls are distracting men and should wear more clothes (paraphrased), she capes for Bill Cosby, she capes for Kodak Black. Like... it’s all been leading to this.
I only want to hear about Erykah Badu releasing music. not bad DJ'ing and worse interviews
So...turns out Erykah Badu is kind of stupid pic.twitter.com/m2FJkyuFB1
The fuck Erykah Badu taking about she feels bad for XXXTortilla, Bill Cosby and whoever else!?
Y'all can have your Erykah Badu. pic.twitter.com/KjLgFCihj0
There is something wrong with Erykah Badu. Seriously.
What's interesting is that Badu might have given herself the best advice ever during the interview: "You asked me a question. I could’ve chosen not to answer." Maybe some answers are best left unsaid.
Later Wednesday, Badu addressed the backlash on Twitter:
