She may only be singing background vocals on this song, but this is the earliest known recorded appearance of Erykah Badu.
Many thanks to Noz @ Cocaine Blunts for tracking this one down!
Noz and his amazing memory remembered this old post from the Usenet group Rec.Music.Hip-Hop (all the oldheads on the internets know what Usenet is…):
O.K here is some of the dope on Ms. Badu, And I know because I know her personally. I spent some time @ grambling university back in 90′, where Erykah Badu started college, We were in a group called Culture Productions Erykah was an MC along with (rasta) Che’ Malik, another female MC (Half Pint) a male MC (Self-Equality) 3 Dj\producers (Dj Ed, Dj Tekno & Myself). Erykah & I even did a duet She & I rapped & she sang the hook on it. We also put out (locally) a 12″ with three cuts on it. She never focused on the singing aspect of it, she was an MC first & not just an MC, her lyrics were mad deep. (& long), ( I used to trip on how she could remember them all.) Long story short, She left grambling headed for New York, ended up back home in Dallas doin’ her thing & boom the rest is history.
Now, if you want just plain ol’ Erykah doing more than backup vocals, then check out this song from the mid-1990s before she changed her name and was just Erica Wright.
