Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun is presented in a new audiophile format worthy of the album’s accolades.

The original artwork with embossed lettering is now in a tip-on jacket and heavyweight vinyl and includes a new essay by Erykah Badu herself.

The indisputable influence of Mama’s Gun looms over every corner of the culture. It first arrived in stores on November 21, 2000. It peaked at #11 on the Billboard 200, scoring her strongest first-week sales ever and moving north of 191K copies. Within the span of only four weeks, it reached the threshold for a Platinum certification from the RIAA. Not to mention, this landmark body of work garnered three GRAMMY® Award nominations, including “Best Female R&B Vocal Performance” and “Best R&B Song” for “Bag Lady” and “Best R&B Song” for “Didn’t Cha Know?”

Indicative of the record’s impact, it has claimed spots on numerous marquee lists such as Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” Pitchfork’s “The 200 Best Albums of the Last 25 Years,” and NPR’s “The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women,” among many others. Resonating from one generation to the next, it has also impressively tallied over 1 billion streams. Retrospectively, Pitchfork rated it a rare “9.4,” marveling at how, “She made a record that wore its awareness of the larger traumas and challenges that complicate human intimacy on its sleeves.”

Side A:
1. Penitentiary Philosophy
2. Didn’t Cha Know
3. My Life
4. ... & On

Side B:
1. Cleva
2. Hey Sugah
3. Booty
4. Kiss Me On My Neck (Hesi)
5. A.D. 2000

Side C:
1. Orange Moon
2. In Love With You
3. Bag Lady

Side D:
1. Time’s A Wastin’
2. Green Eyes

As I think we all know now, Erykah Badu’s debut established her headwrap queen look and icy-cool, boom-clack neosoul sound, but it wasn’t until her third album (I count the Live album, which includes her essential single “Tyrone”) that she unveiled the full persona she continued to inhabit thereafter.

Mama’s Gun found Badu letting her hair down literally and musically, with an expansive sound that encompassed a wide swath of Black music and guest musicians signaling the influence of jazz, R&B, jazz-funk, even reggae. The album also reaped the rewards of Badu’s involvement in the Soulquarians music collective, who were simultaneously recording D’Angelo’s Voodoo, and Questlove and J Dilla make an especially strong imprint.

As for some of the standout tracks, well, “Orange Moon” is ethereal and totally haunting. I love the jazzy throwback, taking the Erykah experience to a whole other level. She just croons with ease and is so comfortable in that area. She makes me melt. “My Life,” “Cleva,” “Didn’t Cha Know” and “Time’s A Wastin’” are just so infectiously charismatic.

Still, most of the impact comes from Badu letting it all out as she waxes philosophical, talks s#&t, and bares her heart in what was by then her distinctive cadence: gentle, poetic, at times aggressive, probably high. To this day, tons of artists in the alternative R&B game work the territory Badu maps out here; albeit, most times, less successfully.

Official Purchase Links