Erykah Badu and H.E.R. Team Up for Spotify's R&B Takeover in Dallas

Erykah Badu is heading home, and she’s bringing H.E.R. with her.

According to Billboard, the two Grammy winners will headline Spotify and Live Nation Urban’s RNB X Live when the concert series lands in Dallas on November 1, putting two generations of R&B at the top of a lineup built to showcase where the genre has been—and where it’s going.

The show takes over the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, with kwn, Destin Conrad, Jai’Len Josey, and Dallas artist Rjthewierdo also hitting the stage.

For Badu, the Dallas stop doubles as a homecoming at a particularly active moment in her career. The Dallas native released Before the World Blows, her collaborative project with The Alchemist, on August 28.

The album ended a lengthy drought: It’s Badu’s first full-length project since 2010, giving her RNB X Live appearance some fresh material to pull from alongside a catalog that stretches back nearly three decades.

H.E.R., meanwhile, is arriving with considerably more than music on her plate. The singer, born Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, was just unveiled as one of the leads of DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island, voicing Jo opposite Liza Soberano’s Raissa.

The upcoming film sends two best friends through a portal into a world drawn from Filipino folklore—a role that H.E.R. said immediately connected with her own Filipina upbringing.

“I was so excited. You have no idea,” H.E.R. said of receiving the Forgotten Island script. Recalling a 2019 family trip to the Philippines and the folklore stories her mother shared, she added, “I literally grew up on them. I get to share a piece of my childhood in this work and with the world.”

That connection isn’t newly discovered. H.E.R. has repeatedly spoken about growing up immersed in both her Black and Filipino heritage, from Filipino food and music to family trips back to her mother’s hometown of Cabanatuan City.

Following her 2019 return to the Philippines—her first visit since she was 4—she said the experience left her feeling “even more connected to my roots.”

RNB X Live, meanwhile, has been building its own footprint around the country. Dallas follows editions in New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.; the D.C. lineup included Leon Thomas, Normani and Bryson Tiller, while the New York and San Francisco shows brought in artists including kwn, Odeal, Elmiene and Sasha Keable.

The Dallas bill keeps that veteran-meets-next-generation formula intact, with kwn coming off June’s And All Pride Aside and Conrad releasing Roadrunner in August.

Tickets first go to Spotify’s top fans in the Dallas area before the general public sale opens on September 11 at noon CT.