Worldwide Underground
By Erykah Badu
| . | . | . | . |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
Track listing
Show track credits
- 1 Intro - World Keeps Turnin' 1:39
-
writer
-
- 2 Bump It 8:49
-
writer, backing vocals, lyrics, vocoder, music
-
keyboards, programming
-
music
-
recording engineer, mix engineer
-
backing vocals
-
drum programming
-
music
-
A. Maggetmusic
-
percussion
-
vocals
-
vocals
-
- 3 Back in the Day (Puff) 4:46
-
writer, lyrics
-
keyboards
-
music
-
recording engineer, mix engineer
-
assistant engineer
-
drum programming
-
music
-
programming
-
A. Maggetmusic
-
percussion
-
electric guitar
-
- 4 I Want You 10:53
-
writer, lyrics, music
-
keyboards
-
music
-
recording engineer, mix engineer
-
music
-
A. Maggetmusic
-
- 5 Woo 3:14
-
writer, lyrics, vocoder, music
-
recording engineer, mix engineer
-
engineer
-
A. Perezbacking vocals
-
backing vocals
-
Jazz Bellbacking vocals
-
Robert Packbacking vocals
-
backing vocals
-
backing vocals
-
drum programming
-
keyboards, music
-
flute
-
handclaps
-
Eevin Wrighthandclaps
-
Rod Ricehandclaps
-
- 6 The Grind 2:49
- feat. dead prez
-
rap, drum programming, music, producer, writer
-
drum programming, vocals
-
recording engineer
-
mix engineer
-
drum programming
-
lyrics, vocals
-
lyrics, vocals
- 7 Danger 5:49
-
writer, backing vocals
-
keyboards
-
recording engineer, mix engineer
-
mix engineer
-
backing vocals
-
drum programming
-
keyboards
-
mastering engineer
-
- 8 Think Twice 3:02
-
writer, vocals
-
keyboards
-
recording engineer
-
mix engineer
-
drum programming
-
trumpet, vocals
-
writer
-
- 9 Love of My Life Worldwide 5:26
- feat. Angie Stone, Bahamadia, Queen Latifah
-
vocals
-
vocals
-
vocals
-
writer
-
writer
-
keyboards, writer
-
recording engineer, mix engineer
-
drum programming
-
writer
-
writer
-
writer
-
writer
- 10 Outro - World Keeps Turnin' 4:01
-
writer
-
- Total length: 50:28
Rate/Catalog
Catalog
Set listening
Review
To rate, slide your finger across the stars from left to right.
5 Issues
25 Reviews
-
1
Intro - World Keeps Turnin'
-
2
Bump It
-
3
Back in the Day (Puff)
-
4
I Want You
-
5
Woo
-
6
The Grind
-
7
Danger
-
8
Think Twice
-
9
Love of My Life Worldwide
-
10
Outro - World Keeps Turnin'
I feel what holds this project back from standing toe-to-toe with the excellence of Erykah's past output is its sense of flow and cohesion – while Worldwide Underground clocks in at just under an hour, twenty minutes shorter than Mama's Gun, it still feels like more of a chore to get through than her previous material. While the admittedly long 'Bump It' and 'Back in the Day' open the album strongly, 'I Want You' is one of the major components to the flow of Worldwide Underground slowing to a crawl, clocking in at ten minutes – the album's longest song by a considerable margin. While it's far from a bad song, its experimentation with different sounds and ideas doesn't warrant its length compared to the other longer tracks in Erykah's back catalog that justify their lengths with more cohesion.
Regardless, Worldwide Underground is far from marring Erykah's run of phenomenal releases to this point. Listening is worth the excellence, even if you have to sift through some of its congestion.
Favs: Intro (World Keeps Turnin’); Bump It; Back in the Day; I Want You; Woo; The Grind; Danger; Think Twice; Love of My Life Worldwide
Least Fav: Outro (World Keeps Turnin’)
Published
ADVERTISEMENT
Can't believe this is the underrated album in her discography and I'm just getting here now. This shit jams! More straight up funk and hip hop jams than her other albums. Bump It, I Want You and Love of My Life Worldwide are flawless, top tier Badu bops. The whole thing just flows real nice. Definitely don't skip this one.
Published
-
1 Intro - World Keeps Turnin'
-
2 Bump It
-
3
Back in the Day (Puff)
-
4
I Want You
-
5
Woo
-
6 The Grind
-
7 Danger
-
8 Think Twice
-
9 Love of My Life Worldwide
-
10 Outro - World Keeps Turnin'
So naturally, when she tried something new, at least production-wise, people took issue. The same thing happened to her then-romantic partner and fellow Soulquarian Common around the same time. He stayed within the Soulquarian fold for his Electric Circus but a sizable portion of the hip-hop fanbase wanted nothing to do with his increased incorporation of cosmic psychedelic rock elements. The Roots also followed up their consensus masterpiece from the era with something more boundary pushing and ambitious in Phrenology and pissed people off. So Badu not only pushing her sound into new directions, but doing it with a whole new team to boot? Well I guess that was just too much for a lot of people. The funny thing is that whereas Common & The Roots caught flack for moving away from conventional hip-hop, Badu did for incorporating more contemporary sounds. People are hard to please.
They're also dummies, because while Worldwide Underground is certainly not as a jaw-droppingly brilliant as Mama's Gun it's a clear success in every other way to my ears. For one, she sounds great navigating her way through the then-new electronic grooves here. People complained about this being too groove-focused....what the fuck did they think Mama's Gun was? Sure, that album had significantly more songs, but it was loaded with deep, sensual grooves for Erykah to float around in. I think she nails a great balance of (relatively) concise tracks with more wandering numbers. It helps that, like Van Morrison, Badu is perfectly suited for long tracks that let her experiment with her phrasing in pursuit of what she's trying to express. She's not someone who's meant to be in your face every second of every song. She gets how soul should work.
With all of that said, she did kind of throw down the gauntlet here on how weird people were willing to get in following her. "Bump It", the first full song here, runs 9 minutes and winds down with our queen of ceremonies tossing out squeeks and yips over a dissolving ether of electronics. Two tracks later she goes ten minutes on the brilliant tour de force "I Want You". Both songs are totally worth hearing and having, but the sequencing definitely reads like an act of extreme confidence and a bit of a challenge to listeners. The fact that she lays down what I think is the most accessible track here, "Back in the Day (Puff)" between the two makes it workable and not obnoxious, but again - I get how the first 25 minutes could have been tough for some. Especially considering that's exactly half of the album's run time and the rest is split between 6 tracks.
But none of that matters to me - the tracks vibrantly, funkily pop, Badu is master of all that's happening - Miles Davis is another reference that comes to mind in how she owns her moments but leaves plenty of room for the music to breathe - and I never once find myself lamenting the move away from the style of her earlier brilliance because she is a great artist and great artists are meant to change it up while still retaining their essence. It worked when The Beatles shifted from Rubber Soul to Revolver. It worked a few years after Digital Underground when My Morning Jacket shifted from It Still Moves to Z. And it damn sure worked going from Mama's Gun to Digital Underground.
Published
ADVERTISEMENT
Rolling Up My Eyes.
Oh my God, it is the same she has been doing but with a little twist. The four song, AMAZING, I thought for a moment that the album have been finished and another one started because the song, as said, it is amazing. If you like Neo-Soul she is a singer not to loose touch with. Totally recommended.Published
Erykah's most funky beat driven soulful album, a wee bit of hip hop on a few tracks, with Angie Stone, Bahamadia, and Queen Latifah, helping out on 'Love of My Life' a fun funky number. Its also Erykah's most experimental album. I like the result. 'Danger' is a sweet track, groovin', perfect, a track Erykah experiments on and it thoroughly works, same with the unusual 'I Want You', over 10 minutes long of good vibe and strangeness, a nice track. Really like 'The Grind' with Dead Prez as well. 'World Wide Underground' is an understated experimental album with some cool stuff happening, Erykah's least commercial album. There's a great blend of variety scattered throughout, but somehow soulful chill keeps it all together, I like.
Published
Often Seems Pretty Uninspired & Thin on Material
Yeah, lots of these are just chill beats with Badu hardly saying anything really, often spitting a hip hop sort of hook, with lots of hip hop inspired beats. Kind of boring and she adds nothing to most of them for the most part, some just running so unnecessarily long (like the especially weak "I Want You"). "Back in the Day" is solid though.Published
Worlwieundagroun *deep voice*
Worldwide Underground for me was an exciting project to listen to because I knew so little about it before getting into it. Unlike her previous albums I chose not to listen to the singles before getting into the album and if I’m being honest avoiding this album wasn't that much of a challenge. This album seems to the one which has been brushed under the carpet slightly. I really didn't know what to expect going into it.
I think I understand why this album has been ignored. I think it’s really hard to describe what this album is, what it sounds like and what it stands for. Unlike her previous two this one dwindles with a number of themes and personally I don’t think executes them sharply enough to give a lasting impression. Baduizm for example deals with relationships, spirituality and most importantly enlightenment. There’s a sense of coming of age when I put on Baduizm. When I play Mama's Gun I get the themes she had on Baduizm but you also get her expressing more of her sexuality and this strong sense of loneliness and insecurity. For me this sense of insecurity came as a surprise following Baduizm because she sounded so powerful on that album, even in her more depressed moments it felt like Ms Badu or whoever she was portraying would eventually pull a solution out of the bag. With Worldwide Underground Erykah tries to mix all these feelings together (along with some Hip Hop) and it ends up sounding like a mess if I’m being honest with you.
The album kicks off with World Keeps turning intro and as soon as I heard this I started to cringe. I was cringing because she sampled On & On, not that it’s a bad song it was a great tune but I feared I was going to get a lot of recycling. I was almost convinced I’d end up hating this album (based on the intro? I know ridiculous right?). The intro and indeed the rest of the album just sounds like Erykah had run out of ideas. It feels like she really had to push through some serious writers block to get this album done and it shows. There’s a lot of lyrical recycling, repeated ideas and the lyricism here is really uninspired about 80% of the time. Take the track “Bump it”, I don’t hear anything potent in the song lyrically, it’s just a badly written song. I understand she’s just singing about “bumping the beat loud” (*throws up a little*) but she could have approached the song from an interesting angle? It just sounds like a bad idea for a song if I’m being honest with you. This lackluster song writing continues into the next song and throughout the album. I mean “Back in the day when things were cool, all we needed was bop-bop, bop-bop, bop-ba-domp”. Like seriously? I’m not a big fan of picking out one liners and ridiculing them but come on she’s better than this. Tracks like “Woo” and “The Grind” don’t promise better lyricism either but I think things get especially bad on “Think Twice”. Lyrics like “Maybe we ought to think twice/Before we start something nice” and “No need to sacrifice the spice in our lives...oh oh oh/Your love is like fire and ice” just show me Erykah wasn't in her most creative and prolific zone when she was writing the lyrics for this album. It’s not all bad though she does come across as interesting and innovative in some songs. The 10 minute sensual plea “I want you” springs to mind. I mean come on a 10 minute song of Erykah singing I want you is a win in my book, seriously who can resist that? Also who can’t relate to this song? We've all been there. Sometimes it just wouldn't let go, no matter how many good books you read or yoga stretches you do. No matter how long you fast or even if you possess the capabilities of increasing the temperature of the sun it’ll grab you or your ass in the worst kind of way. It’s a very good song but even this beast does loose intensity around the middle mark but it does comeback with a lovely sucker punch towards the end.
So lyrically this album isn't doing anything new and at times it does the old stuff badly but I still like it. The production of this album is superb at times. Really really good stuff on here, most of the beats on this are creative, catchy with some really forward thinking ideas. I think sonically this is her most enticing listen. Most of the beats here do have a very strong Hip Hop influence but I don’t think it cheapens ‘The Neo Soul appeal’. That’s not to say Neo Soul and Hip Hop coming together sounds cheap but generally when Hip Hop and Soul or RnB come together the results aren't always delightful but Erykah finds a way to balance all these styles perfectly. She might have flopped lyrically but she masterminded her band and team of producers to make an absolutely delight set of instrumentals. She also sounds fantastic on these beats too, I’ve always thought she was a great singer and she never disappoints vocally. On “Bump it” she sings in a slightly lower register and sounds smooth, seductive and very womanly on this and towards the end of the song it’s almost as if she transforms into this enchanted forest witch who draws wandering lumberjacks and lost young men into her lair never to be seen again. Not only does she sounds sensual she also bring out her wild side (well of course this is Badu), on tracks like “I want you” and “Danger”. “Danger” sounds like a wilder ghetto version of “Other side of the Game”, which it also samples (surprise motherfucker). On here she sounds like a crazy all action wife/girlfriend who’s prepared to blow your FUCKING head off if you try to mess with her’s and her kids while her Hubby is away. It’s very exciting to listen to; I love it when she sings “Danger! you’re in danger, No hard feelings…”. It’s so catchy, so fun and so badass. Love of My Life is really good too but I’m sure you knew that already.
I didn't end up hating it. Of course lyrics aren't everything (even though I went on and on about it) and thanks to some great singing and catchy production I ended up liking this and ended up writing this bloody long review. To whoever that may be reading this if it sounds incoherent I’m not drunk it’s just 2am.
I’m feeling a Healthy 7/10 on this.
Hilites: “I want You”; “Danger”; “Love of My Life”
Lolites: “Woo”; “The Grind”; “Think Twice”
Worldwide Underground for me was an exciting project to listen to because I knew so little about it before getting into it. Unlike her previous albums I chose not to listen to the singles before getting into the album and if I’m being honest avoiding this album wasn't that much of a challenge. This album seems to the one which has been brushed under the carpet slightly. I really didn't know what to expect going into it.
I think I understand why this album has been ignored. I think it’s really hard to describe what this album is, what it sounds like and what it stands for. Unlike her previous two this one dwindles with a number of themes and personally I don’t think executes them sharply enough to give a lasting impression. Baduizm for example deals with relationships, spirituality and most importantly enlightenment. There’s a sense of coming of age when I put on Baduizm. When I play Mama's Gun I get the themes she had on Baduizm but you also get her expressing more of her sexuality and this strong sense of loneliness and insecurity. For me this sense of insecurity came as a surprise following Baduizm because she sounded so powerful on that album, even in her more depressed moments it felt like Ms Badu or whoever she was portraying would eventually pull a solution out of the bag. With Worldwide Underground Erykah tries to mix all these feelings together (along with some Hip Hop) and it ends up sounding like a mess if I’m being honest with you.
The album kicks off with World Keeps turning intro and as soon as I heard this I started to cringe. I was cringing because she sampled On & On, not that it’s a bad song it was a great tune but I feared I was going to get a lot of recycling. I was almost convinced I’d end up hating this album (based on the intro? I know ridiculous right?). The intro and indeed the rest of the album just sounds like Erykah had run out of ideas. It feels like she really had to push through some serious writers block to get this album done and it shows. There’s a lot of lyrical recycling, repeated ideas and the lyricism here is really uninspired about 80% of the time. Take the track “Bump it”, I don’t hear anything potent in the song lyrically, it’s just a badly written song. I understand she’s just singing about “bumping the beat loud” (*throws up a little*) but she could have approached the song from an interesting angle? It just sounds like a bad idea for a song if I’m being honest with you. This lackluster song writing continues into the next song and throughout the album. I mean “Back in the day when things were cool, all we needed was bop-bop, bop-bop, bop-ba-domp”. Like seriously? I’m not a big fan of picking out one liners and ridiculing them but come on she’s better than this. Tracks like “Woo” and “The Grind” don’t promise better lyricism either but I think things get especially bad on “Think Twice”. Lyrics like “Maybe we ought to think twice/Before we start something nice” and “No need to sacrifice the spice in our lives...oh oh oh/Your love is like fire and ice” just show me Erykah wasn't in her most creative and prolific zone when she was writing the lyrics for this album. It’s not all bad though she does come across as interesting and innovative in some songs. The 10 minute sensual plea “I want you” springs to mind. I mean come on a 10 minute song of Erykah singing I want you is a win in my book, seriously who can resist that? Also who can’t relate to this song? We've all been there. Sometimes it just wouldn't let go, no matter how many good books you read or yoga stretches you do. No matter how long you fast or even if you possess the capabilities of increasing the temperature of the sun it’ll grab you or your ass in the worst kind of way. It’s a very good song but even this beast does loose intensity around the middle mark but it does comeback with a lovely sucker punch towards the end.
So lyrically this album isn't doing anything new and at times it does the old stuff badly but I still like it. The production of this album is superb at times. Really really good stuff on here, most of the beats on this are creative, catchy with some really forward thinking ideas. I think sonically this is her most enticing listen. Most of the beats here do have a very strong Hip Hop influence but I don’t think it cheapens ‘The Neo Soul appeal’. That’s not to say Neo Soul and Hip Hop coming together sounds cheap but generally when Hip Hop and Soul or RnB come together the results aren't always delightful but Erykah finds a way to balance all these styles perfectly. She might have flopped lyrically but she masterminded her band and team of producers to make an absolutely delight set of instrumentals. She also sounds fantastic on these beats too, I’ve always thought she was a great singer and she never disappoints vocally. On “Bump it” she sings in a slightly lower register and sounds smooth, seductive and very womanly on this and towards the end of the song it’s almost as if she transforms into this enchanted forest witch who draws wandering lumberjacks and lost young men into her lair never to be seen again. Not only does she sounds sensual she also bring out her wild side (well of course this is Badu), on tracks like “I want you” and “Danger”. “Danger” sounds like a wilder ghetto version of “Other side of the Game”, which it also samples (surprise motherfucker). On here she sounds like a crazy all action wife/girlfriend who’s prepared to blow your FUCKING head off if you try to mess with her’s and her kids while her Hubby is away. It’s very exciting to listen to; I love it when she sings “Danger! you’re in danger, No hard feelings…”. It’s so catchy, so fun and so badass. Love of My Life is really good too but I’m sure you knew that already.
I didn't end up hating it. Of course lyrics aren't everything (even though I went on and on about it) and thanks to some great singing and catchy production I ended up liking this and ended up writing this bloody long review. To whoever that may be reading this if it sounds incoherent I’m not drunk it’s just 2am.
I’m feeling a Healthy 7/10 on this.
Hilites: “I want You”; “Danger”; “Love of My Life”
Lolites: “Woo”; “The Grind”; “Think Twice”
Published
Back in the Day & Love of My Life Worldwide are on steady rotation at my house.
Published
Votes are used to help determine the most interesting content on RYM.
Vote up content that is on-topic, within the rules/guidelines, and will likely stay relevant long-term.
Vote down content which breaks the rules.
Vote up content that is on-topic, within the rules/guidelines, and will likely stay relevant long-term.
Vote down content which breaks the rules.
Catalog
7 Jun 2024
6 Jun 2024
4 Jun 2024
3 Jun 2024
31 May 2024
29 May 2024
-
1 Intro - World Keeps Turnin'
-
2 Bump It
-
3
Back in the Day (Puff)
-
4
I Want You
-
5
Woo
-
6
The Grind
-
7 Danger
-
8 Think Twice
-
9 Love of My Life Worldwide
-
10 Outro - World Keeps Turnin'
29 May 2024
28 May 2024
26 May 2024
-
1
Intro - World Keeps Turnin'
-
2
Bump It
-
3
Back in the Day (Puff)
-
4
I Want You
-
5
Woo
-
6
The Grind
-
7
Danger
-
8
Think Twice
-
9
Love of My Life Worldwide
-
10
Outro - World Keeps Turnin'
24 May 2024
23 May 2024
22 May 2024
22 May 2024
20 May 2024
18 May 2024