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Vibe of the Year award goes to Miss Jill Scott and Erykah Badu for blessing this side of the universe with a gloriously historic night. On Saturday, May 9, these ladies took to social media as the inaugural women’s Verzuz battle on Instagram Live, peaking around 725K viewers. However, like most, this for me didn’t feel like a battle in the traditional sense, but rather a congregating of god-sparks, supplying Mother Earth’s inhabitants with medicine for the soul.
One viewer commented, “This is silk,” and I don’t think there is a better way to sum up the night in three words. This community soul session was not just a reunion between two juggernauts, two planets, two Orishas or two goddesses, but rather an enormous show of spiritual force intended to uplift our souls and our heavy hearts. Without a doubt, this was emphatically, the best moment of the new world order.
Purveyors of Blackness may not be aware of the magnitude of such a celebration, but the culture is profoundly aware of the soul-shifting that occurred that night. Our souls were saturated with healing underneath the amethyst clouds that are Jill Scott, and our minds were enlightened via the lavender prism that is Baduniverse.
The obscure greatness that is all things incense, tea, healing and loving showed up and showed out. As a comment highlighted, “The ancestors are smiling tonight.” This was the overarching theme of the event as many of us listened with matured ears to echoes of what seemed to be past lives. So many invaluable, nuanced moments occurred in this sacred convergence, from Sara Bellum inciting writers to release their music to the world, as it is mandatory, to Scott inventing a new word, that we must all add to our lexicon, “ingenuitive.” Ms. Badu reminded us to stay away from shallow breathing and demanded that any negative commenters of the show exit stage left. (And that’s the nice version.) Jilly from Philly reminded us that she smells different after a Badulla Oblongata concert, a mystical fragrance that only seekers of truth can distinguish, which is something we can all identify with. Cause when you know, you know.
One notion that was graciously upheld and illuminated is that Black women are the keepers of this province. They are not enemies of one another, but lifelong friends, mothers, creators, spiritual swordsmen, prolific writers and shamans of the realm. Black Queens bless and bequeath other Black Queens. Black Queens acknowledge their foremothers, as Lady Scott and FatBelly Bella did when they intimated the musical influences of Chaka Khan, Minnie Ripperton, Millie Jackson, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Queen Latifah, Phyllis Hyman, Angela Bofill, Angela Winbush, Lalah Hathaway, Mary J. Blige and many more. Badu exalted the voices and singing styles of these women as primal wails and tribal moans. That for me, was a gentle reminder that Black life has been, and always will be, gloriously distinctive.
Unmistakably, the evening’s assemblage was for the 21 and over, as the Analogue Girl in a Digital World and Miss Beautiful Nasty traversed time and space to usher us into a portal view of our deepest selves. I left the gathering with deeper breaths, smiling graciously, full of gratitude, and intentional about my life and the folks in it.
Utmost thanks to these two mother priestesses, and all mothers worldwide, for being fierce custodians of our becoming.
By the way, Ms. Badu, if you are reading this, alike Miss Jill Scott, I too am willing to give you a foot rub to have my ears blessed with the words in your sacred poetry books.
