Erykah Badu

After releasing her 1997 debut album "Baduizm," it didn't take long for Erykah Badu's jazzy R&B feel and bold, earthy style to earn her the title of "first lady of neo-soul. " Four Grammy awards and four albums later, she is still inventing her own sound. Her latest project is the Cannabinoids, a digital band made up of musicians and producers from her hometown of Dallas. With its debut album set to be released in early 2012, the group hopes to create a sensational, electronic musical experience for its audience.

Erykah Badu performed at Rams Head Live December 2. Reporter John-John Williams IV reviews the performance. Erykah Badu's live performances have been lauded for years. Fans praised her for connecting with the audience, performing a set list of recognizable favorites, and showcasing her enormous musical gifts - whether that be singing, rapping, or DJing. What fans got Friday night at Rams Head Live, though, was an eclectic mess, a snoozefest that had the audience scratching its head.

Welcome back from Thanksgiving weekend! How was the big night? Did anyone catch The Bridge at Rams Head? Or Bob Seger the night after? The Seger show was, according to reporter Chris Kaltenbach, especially good. This week, the big shows are by Erykah Badu and Ryan Adams; we'll have reviews for at least one of them. Elsewhere this week: "Dune," J. Roddy Walston and the Business, and Carly Ptak. On Monday , indie pop singer Devon Williams performs at Golden West.

After releasing her 1997 debut album "Baduizm," it didn't take long for Erykah Badu's jazzy R&B feel and bold, earthy style to earn her the title of "first lady of neo-soul. " Four Grammy awards and four albums later, she is still inventing her own sound. Her latest project is the Cannabinoids, a digital band made up of musicians and producers from her hometown of Dallas. With its debut album set to be released in early 2012, the group hopes to create a sensational, electronic musical experience for its audience.

Erykah Badu performed at Rams Head Live December 2. Reporter John-John Williams IV reviews the performance. Erykah Badu's live performances have been lauded for years. Fans praised her for connecting with the audience, performing a set list of recognizable favorites, and showcasing her enormous musical gifts - whether that be singing, rapping, or DJing. What fans got Friday night at Rams Head Live, though, was an eclectic mess, a snoozefest that had the audience scratching its head.

Erykah Badu will perform at Rams Head Live December 2 , it was announced Wednesday. Consider that an early Christmas present. Badu puts on an exceptional show, clever, iconoclastic, a blast . She's promoting her two-part album, "New Amerikah," whose second half was released in Spring of last year. You might have seen " Window Seat " already, give the tender "Out of my Mind" a try. Tickets, at $75, go on sale Friday. Also December 2, J. Roddy Walston and the Business, fresh from a bunch of festival dates, like All Good in West Virginia , will perform at the Ottobar.

LiveSecret Samadhi (Radioactive 11590)Sometimes, having a lyric sheet makes it easier to appreciate the depth of an artist's work; other times, though, it simply confirms that the music is much smarter than the words. Live definitely falls into the latter category, for "Secret Samadhi" is the sort of album that seems much more impressive the less one knows about the lyrics. "Century" may be impressive in its progress from a wistful, acoustic strum to fully amplified roar, and there's clearly a certain majesty to the way the guitar is folded into the string section during the chorus to "Lakini's Juice," but the sentiments being propelled by those sounds are rarely as eloquent.

In the nearly four years between albums, Erykah Badu, the self-proclaimed "analog girl in a digital world," had a lot going on. Besides raising her two children - Seven, age 10, and Puma, age 3 - she invested in the arts community of her native South Dallas, renovating the Black Forest Theater there, where she performed as a child. She founded B.L.I.N.D. (Beautiful Love Incorporated Nonprofit Development), which focuses on social programs, and Control FreaQ, her own label and production house.

Ask Erykah Badu about her music -- what inspires it, what keeps it fresh -- and she becomes metaphorical. "Have you ever had some hot tea when you had a cold? Some good tea?" she asks, her voice mellow with an old-soul Southern accent. "It works and makes you feel better, don't it? My music, I think, is like some good tea." Phoning from her Dallas home, the artist continues: "Each album has its own life. I'm not the same person I was in 1997." These days, Badu, who will play the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Tuesday night, is much richer in several ways.

Roy Hargrove punctuates his sentences with this strange, quick, high-pitched giggle. It sounds almost like a chicken dying. The jazz trumpeter is a real charmer, too. When told that his new album, The RH Factor: Hard Groove, is perhaps his best set to date, he emits that mildly annoying sound. "You know what, brotha?" he says. "I made it just for you. It's all for you." On Hard Groove, which hits stores Tuesday, the Texas native blurs the lines between musical genres with help from nearly 40 esteemed musicians.

Welcome back from Thanksgiving weekend! How was the big night? Did anyone catch The Bridge at Rams Head? Or Bob Seger the night after? The Seger show was, according to reporter Chris Kaltenbach, especially good. This week, the big shows are by Erykah Badu and Ryan Adams; we'll have reviews for at least one of them. Elsewhere this week: "Dune," J. Roddy Walston and the Business, and Carly Ptak. On Monday , indie pop singer Devon Williams performs at Golden West.

Erykah Badu will perform at Rams Head Live December 2 , it was announced Wednesday. Consider that an early Christmas present. Badu puts on an exceptional show, clever, iconoclastic, a blast . She's promoting her two-part album, "New Amerikah," whose second half was released in Spring of last year. You might have seen " Window Seat " already, give the tender "Out of my Mind" a try. Tickets, at $75, go on sale Friday. Also December 2, J. Roddy Walston and the Business, fresh from a bunch of festival dates, like All Good in West Virginia , will perform at the Ottobar.

Most nights, and always after a nerve-racking commute from work, singer Wayna Wondwossen would crash on her couch feeling drained and frustrated. Just out of college, she worked as a writer in the White House Office of Presidential Letters and Messages. It was a prestigious position, sure, but much too buttoned-up for an artsy spirit. Drafting commemorative messages to dignitaries on behalf of President Bill Clinton hardly lent itself to creative expression. Wayna (she goes by just her first name)

There's no other artist in mainstream R&B right now who synthesizes her influences as dynamically as Erykah Badu. Her albums -- especially her latest, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) -- often swirl with vivid strains of hip-hop, '70s funk, jazz-fusion, vintage blues and whatever else the Dallas singer-songwriter feels like throwing in the mix. Yet the results coalesce into a singular sound that is unmistakably Badu. On stage, her musical melding comes alive, tempered with down-home, amusingly profane banter and clumsy theatrical touches.

From the start, the Roots were an anomaly: a rap group that uses live instruments in lieu of samples and turntables. In the '90s, as hip-hop became flashier and the genre's biggest hits mostly glorified American pathologies - ruthless violence and gross consumerism - the nine-piece Philly unit became more earnestly political. Over the course of 18 years, the Roots, who play Pier Six Pavilion tonight, have remained anomalous. Save for two gold albums - 1999's Things Fall Apart, which contained the Grammy-winning "You Got Me," featuring Erykah Badu, and 2003's Phrenology - the band has never had a true smash.

In the nearly four years between albums, Erykah Badu, the self-proclaimed "analog girl in a digital world," had a lot going on. Besides raising her two children - Seven, age 10, and Puma, age 3 - she invested in the arts community of her native South Dallas, renovating the Black Forest Theater there, where she performed as a child. She founded B.L.I.N.D. (Beautiful Love Incorporated Nonprofit Development), which focuses on social programs, and Control FreaQ, her own label and production house.

From the start, the Roots were an anomaly: a rap group that uses live instruments in lieu of samples and turntables. In the '90s, as hip-hop became flashier and the genre's biggest hits mostly glorified American pathologies - ruthless violence and gross consumerism - the nine-piece Philly unit became more earnestly political. Over the course of 18 years, the Roots, who play Pier Six Pavilion tonight, have remained anomalous. Save for two gold albums - 1999's Things Fall Apart, which contained the Grammy-winning "You Got Me," featuring Erykah Badu, and 2003's Phrenology - the band has never had a true smash.

TELEVISION 1.American Idol (Tuesday), Fox 2.American Idol (Wednesday), Fox 3.American Idol (Thursday), Fox 4.Moment of Truth, Fox 5.20/20: The Royal Family, ABC FILMS 1.10,000 B.C., Warner Bros. 2.College Road Trip, Disney 3.Vantage Point, Sony 4.Semi-Pro, New Line 5.The Bank Job, Lionsgate SINGLES 1.Love in This Club, Usher featuring Young Jeezy 2.Low, Flo Rida featuring T-Pain 3.With You, Chris Brown 4.Don't Stop the Music, Rihanna 5.Love Song, Sara Bareilles ALBUMS 1.Discipline, Janet 2.New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War)

ART THE GREAT MIGRATION / / 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St. N.W., Washington. $8-$10. 202-387-2151 or phillipscollection.org. ....................... All 60 panels of Jacob Lawrence's groundbreaking visual epic of the largest internal migration in U.S. history, the movement of rural Southern blacks to the urban North, are reunited in this spectacular exhibition, created when the artist was still in his 20s. This is the work that put African-American art on the map when it was first exhibited in the 1940s.

Just announced Duran Duran -- Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia on May 27. 410-547-7328 or ticketmaster.com. Pearl Jam -- Verizon Center in Washington on June 22. 410-547-7328 or ticketmaster.com. Erykah Badu -- Pier Six Pavilion on May 10. She also plays DAR Constitution Hall in Washington on May 14. 410-547-7328 or ticketmaster.com. Dave Matthews Band -- with Michael Franti and Spearhead, Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, Va., on June 28. Also, the Jonas Brothers are there Aug. 18. Tickets go on sale at noon Saturday.