NORFOLK
Erykah Badu's sold-out show at Chrysler Hall on Friday was both gripping theater and play time, an intimate trip with a superstar and a personal chit-chat with family and friends.
The Roots, the hip hop group that is also a live band, warmed up the stage before Badu. Or, the seats at least. Chrysler Hall, very often the preferred space for Broadway shows and lectures and dance recitals, was suddenly a jook joint. As The Roots played songs from their oeuvre including "You Got Me" and "Everybody is a Star," people clapped and danced in their seats.
What really got the crowd in near hysterics, though, was their medley of hip hop and R&B classics. They played everything from Kanye West's "Flashing Lights" to Kool & The Gang's "Jungle Boogie." Black Thought, the group's emcee, is a tornado inside a man who can rhyme quicker than most of us can think, but it was sometimes hard to hear what he was saying and you wished there was a teleprompter.
Badu, however, was crystal clear. She arrived on stage wearing a tiered black bubble gown and a wig she later flung off. It is hard to fathom, looking at her, that piercing, sharp wails can come from such a tiny body, but they did and they were magnificent.
Her show, which she nicknamed the Vortex Tour (explaining that Norfolk was near one of six centers of energy in the world) was a mix of political thought, spirituality, feminism and groove. Every song chosen, from "Twinkle" to "Other Side of the Game" to "On and On," were extensions of her well-crafted stage persona, which included the tossing of her wig and her funky, opinionated self.
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