Takin' Ya Down To The Underground (Worldwide Underground - Erykah Badu)

Member Name: XICripZ

Product:	Worldwide Underground - Erykah Badu
Date:	25/07/09 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bangers throughout

Disadvantages: Nothing specific

Released in 2003, "Worldwide Underground" came as the third album by the Neo-Soul singer Erykah Bad and finds her doing more to combine a variety of alternative genres to come up with something fresh to ad to the diversity of modern R&B as she introduces more of her Soul work to Hip Hop, Jazz and Funk to come up with such innovative material.

1. "World Keeps Turnin'" (Intro)

2. "Bump It"

Getting straight into the grooves this one has her powering through with some Hip Hop-inspired work as she jumps on heavy beats and lays down her own interpretation of classic Fat Boys material before getting down the singing and coming through in a soothing fashion to take you right in as you tend to feel with Cool Jazz compositions. It is a banger and livens you up perfectly for what is to come later on.

**Five Stars**

3. "Back In The Day"

After a very lengthy tune, she regulates this one by giving it a pretty normal length and it enables her to get down to a fly one where she is able to deliver in a way that made it perfectly-suited for one of the singles form the album as she comes through in dramatic fashion with another calming number that has so much underlying energy that it is almost impossible to contain the power that it possesses (but holds back).

**Five Stars**

4. "I Want You"

She returns to the longer ones as with this one you get a song that goes on for nearly eleven minutes (making it clear why the albums tracklistings isn't that long). In this one you find that as she works with J. Dilla, the two of the them pack in lots of experimental elements to keep you interested and wanting to hear more f where the unpredictable things goes as it steadily progresses into a well-developed funky Neo-Soul tune.

**Five Stars**

5. "Woo"

She soon flips things back to a much more manageable length as she gets down to one of the most exciting tunes as she shows the B-Girl within her and throws out a killer Hip Hop jam here where she performs a fresh jam and seems to just get loose with it and not really make much (apparent effort) to impress as she jumps on the killer composition and does things as only she is able to and akes big things happen.

**Five Stars**

6. "The Grind"

On this one you get her collaborative with Florida's key Political Hip Hop duo, dead prez and together this collaboration makes for a tune which moves on Badu's music in away that it hadn't before as she shows that with this socially-conscious Hip Hop act, she is able to retain what people enjoy most about her music and experimental with much harder material to some great results (though not a good as anything else up to this point).

**Four Stars**

7. "Danger"

The High quality of the album continues to bare itself as this one gets into effect and Badu comes with this killer tune. It sees her carrying through the kind of influence which came through in the two tunes prior to it to come up with some sort of balance between the two where she gets down to some full-on Hip Hop production from J Dilla, who doesn't seem to care that it is Badu that he's creating the beat for, and she ensures that it isn't made to be an issue.

**Five Stars**

8. "Think Twice"

You seem to get more of the same with this one as you get here working off some Electronic synth work, and when you consider what came through with her first two albums, it seems to have the same effect that the Naked Funk years had upon Funk as all instruments were replaced with electronic counterparts, but this is sill kept alive through Donald Byrd's trumpet work to show that she hasn't actually moved on.

**Five Stars**

9. "Love Of My Life Worldwide"

The final proper track on the album is a pure killer one and one which you won't be able to get over once you have heard it as she takes things back to the Old School of Hip Hop and so gets some assistance from Queen Latifah , The Sequence's Angie Stone and Bahamadia. It is one of the best creations to ever come from the artist and the Funk you get from this one out-does almost any other 1979-1982 Hip Hop tune I can come up with as she performs a dedication to he genre that influenced a good percentage of what she does as Common (who features as part of the original song) did with "I Used To Love H.E.R."

**Ten Stars**

10. "World Keeps Turnin'" (Outro)

I am aware that some critics weren't as accepting of this as they were with the two albums which preceded it, due to the later stages having her get on some much more modern production, but I really think that this is a bad thing at all, and the mixture of the two makes for a killer album which I felt stayed on the same high level as the first two (although the remix to "Love Of My Life" was clearly the best she had ever pulled out for me).

Summary: Erykah Badu's third album