Close Encounters of the Badu Kind: Ahead of Her Birthday, Dallasites Share Erykah Badu Run-Ins

Erykah Badu enters the green room at Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts, her alma mater. The green room is really just the school’s choir room, occasionally converted for special occasions.

And today is as special as it gets.

In a few minutes, DART President and CEO Nadine S. Lee will reveal the design of the signature "Badu Bus," five vehicles honoring the singer, a tribute to the mark she’s made on her city. Now, with her portrait emblazoned on the side of three buses and two trains, it’s a physical mark.

It’s a busy week for Badu, whose annual birthday bash is this Saturday night at the Factory. And it's been an unusually busy year for the notoriously eccentric queen of neo-soul.

She was the cover of Vogue’s March 2023 issue, where writer Chioma Nnadi chronicled Badu’s “second coming” as a fashion designer and doula. In June, she embarked on a nationwide tour that ended with a homecoming at American Airlines center on July 23. Then, the November 2023 issue of GQ Germany proclaimed Badu “music icon of the year.”

Last month, she kept it local, gracing the cover of D Magazine when writer Casey Gerald took readers behind the scenes of a difficult, but ultimately rewarding, meta journey about working with Badu on a magazine cover shoot.

Badu is a massive star, one of the most successful and culturally significant names in R&B, fashion and certainly in Dallas history. Both her 1997 debut Baduizm and her sophomore effort, 2000’s Mama’s Gun, were certified platinum in the United States. She’s won four Grammys out of 19 nominations across her nearly three-decade-long career.

But in comparison to her contemporaries, it does come as a bit of a surprise that Badu has fashioned herself as an artistic recluse. Her last full-fledged music release came nine years ago with 2015’s But You Caint Use My Phone mixtape.

Seeing Badu in the wild is rare, but always memorable. At the Observer, we've celebrated her "lovably eccentric moments" in the past and gave her a lifetime achievement award in 2019.

The artist sometimes makes appearances at Booker T to impart wisdom along with her friend Common, or shows up to support her musical director RC Williams or DJ Sober's Dallas shows, or has funny run-ins with local police. Those lucky enough to have come face-to-face with the legend can’t help but tell the tale. These anecdotes are those rare "Close Encounters of the Badu Kind."

Williams met Badu at the Soul Train Awards as a teenager, nominated with Kirk Franklin's band God's Property. He asked for a photo, and years later became her musical right hand.

"I remember meeting Erykah. She was hosting, and she was pregnant," Williams told the Observer in 2016. "Kirk Franklin was taking us around to meet Puffy and Erykah, and I took a picture with her. She'd be tripping every time I show her this picture; she had no idea."

Lily Weiss saw Badu build her ivory tower firsthand. The dance teacher worked at Booker T from 1978 to 2014, spending significant time with Badu at the school through her graduation in 1989.

When Badu was her student, Weiss says she was much the same as we've come to know her now. In classrooms and hallways, Badu donned her now iconic head wrap, marching to the beat of her own 808.

“She called herself ‘Apples,’” Weiss recalls.

From "Appletree": If you don’t want to be down with me / You don’t want to pick from my apple tree.

Weiss and Badu remained in touch after she graduated. Decades later, they’re in the same building together again.

“Who’s in the audience?” Badu asks Weiss in the green room, “Are the kids going to be here?”

Weiss assures Badu that the kids would be there. In fact, the entire Booker T senior class would be there, along with Principal Garry Williams.

Williams himself is a graduate of Booker T, the school’s first alumni principal. He says that even 35 years removed from Badu’s time at the school, her influence is still felt.

“We are a school of young artists and thinkers,” Williams says. “When they look at Erykah, they see someone who has paved the way.”

From "Me": Everything around you see / The Ankhs, the wraps, the plus degrees / And, yes, even the mysteries / It’s all me.

John Dufilho ran into Badu when his daughter, June, attended Spanish World School with Badu’s youngest, Mars. The two struck up a conversation about music.

“She was raving to me about how her daughter is an amazing singer,” Dufilho recalls. “She had sent me a video of her daughter singing, which was amazing.”

Just a few weeks earlier, 8-year-old June had composed her own songs, which Dufilho put music behind for fun.

“I saw Erykah and sent it to her and said, ‘You might like this, June and I made a record.’” he says.

As June recollects, the father-daughter playful musical partnership was to be known as YUCKY FUZZ! Dufilho compiled 10 of their songs together, with titles such as “Worms Are Everywhere,” “Zooby Zoo” and “I Love Pizza.”

“When I saw Erykah again at the school, she came up to June and she's like, ‘That worm song is the jam!’” Dufilho says. “She starts singing it to June and I. Afterwards I was like, ‘June, do you have any idea how big of a deal that is?’ It was crazy to watch.”

Dufilho first saw Badu when he waited tables at a vegetarian restaurant called the Cosmic Cafe. It closed in 2021, but Badu remains a frequent customer of local vegan and vegetarian cuisine .

One of those places is Green Spot on Buckner Boulevard in East Dallas, a hole-in-the-wall small business described as an “eco-convenience store,” offering organic and vegetarian food items and kombucha. Adam Velte has been the manager at Green Spot for 15 years, and remembers a particular interaction with Badu like it was yesterday.

“I see this car pulling in the parking lot,” he says. “It’s Erykah Badu.”

Velte describes the vehicle as a “color-changing smart car” that could appear to be green, blue or yellow depending on how the sun reflected on it.

“She opens her door and is like, ‘You like my car? It’s iridescent, like your eyes.’” Velte recalls her saying. “OK, a compliment from Erykah Badu. Alright, a little boost of confidence.”

Velte still sees Badu at the shop every so often.

“I went to tell my friends this story and they’re like, ‘She was flirting with you’. Oh, of course, I blew it,” he says jokingly.

From "Next Lifetime": I guess I’ll see you next lifetime / No hard feelings

When Lily Weiss retired in 2014, she requested a concert to mark the occasion. The school hosted a massive event with performances from current and former Booker T students, with a “surprise appearance” promised.

About halfway through the show, a speaker announced: “Please welcome a special presentation from Apples.”

Badu was in the building. She sang a short freestyle, before delivering these words to her former teacher.

“Twenty-five years ago, I stood on this stage under the tutelage of Lily Weiss. I watched her dance. I watched her teach. I watched her pray, through her movement. I watched her create. I watched her compose. I watched her compost. I watched her pregnant-baby-dance until labor. I watched her labor, as she was hard at work. I love you. Thank you. I am you. I take you with me wherever I go.”

As a red curtain shielded the stage, Badu disappeared as suddenly as she arrived.

“She continues to give back,” Weiss says. “She is Dallas. No matter what.”

That distinction is well-earned. Badu was raised here, now she raises her own family here. She’s seen every inch of Dallas firsthand, and just like Weiss, Williams, Dufilho and Velte, if you’re around here long enough, you just might see her yourself.

If you haven’t yet, you have a chance to see Badu this Saturday, when roughly 4,000 Dallasites make the annual pilgrimage to The Factory in Deep Ellum for her birthday bash. There’s no telling which songs the newly 53-year-old will play, what kind of outfit she’ll be wearing or even when she’ll show up.

But at some point, probably wearing something flamboyantly unusual, Badu will be in the building. That’s good enough for us.