The Cut - A 4-Hour Phone Call With Erykah Badu

She stood alone atop a black staircase before a megascreen that had all night projected many curious symbols — digital mitochondria, ancestral totems, a beetle — but would soon show a giant moon. Till then, it was just her. Just her and me, just thousands of Mes watching their own private Her. It was late July in Dallas, in the blunt-filled dark of the American Airlines Center, during one of the hottest summers we’ll ever experience until next summer. Time had come for Erykah Badu to sing “Orange Moon.”

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