#TBT: Out My Mind, Just In Time by @fatbellybella (Erykah Badu,) Written by: @Natural_Nation

In honor of her new mixtape: But You Caint Use My Phone dropping Thanksgiving weekend, I dedicated this here Throwback Thursday to Ms. Erykah Badu; my mother from another lifetime. 

 As a whole Erykah’s music has shaped my taste in music from a fairly young age. She was the reason everyone called me an old soul. She is the reason, still to this day, that people acknowledge my likeness to her. I always admired her eccentricity. I loved everything about her, from her voice down to her hair. She embodied a part of me that I didn’t know was there yet and she helped me realize that not only was it cool to be different but that it was beautiful. I came across this particular song Out My Mind, Just In Time much later in life. I can still remember lying n my room watching the ceiling fan turn as I sang under my breath.

“ I’m a recovering under cover over lover”

                                     “…..recovering from a love I can’t get over"

The lyrics were and still are so relatable. It was like she was singing for me. In the song, Erykah tells a story of a relationship we have seen so many times before: a woman who would do anything for a man.  She takes you through her range of emotions and thoughts during her experience. She’s a woman engulfed in a love that is no longer present. Her other half wants to move on to someone new. After time passes there are many moments of pain and self reflection. She knows she is smarter than the way her actions portrayed her. Love made her blind and naïve but she realizes that was only a moment in time and she has the ability to correct herself. By the end of the song she acknowledges the part she took in her own downfall and refuses to make the same mistakes again.  

 The song is and emotional combination of jazz, blues, and soul; something for an overcast day in the middle of autumn. I have an affinity for long/two part songs. They always seem to tell a great story and I am a sucker for a good story. This track tries to give Parliament’s Knee Deep (seriously the longest song I have ever heard in my life) a run for its money but falls short at ten minutes and forty-eight seconds long. If you're a lover of  jazz or just a Badu fan who hasn't made their way to the New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh  album yet, this is a MUST LISTEN in her arsenal. It's a tale of a love lost...who hasn't been there?