This Ain’t The Right Time

Teyana Taylor featuring Erykah Badu “Lowkey”

Teyana Taylor is clearly living a blessed life – she managed to pull off the late ’90s/early ’00s hat trick of getting Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott, AND Erykah Badu to all appear on her album. This would be like if Charli XCX got Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, AND Justin Timberlake on her next record, or if Car Seat Headrest got in collaborations with Stephen Malkmus, Beck, AND Thurston Moore on their next one. It’s a staggering achievement in feature-wrangling, and certainly gives the impression that she’s been anointed by these icons.

Even more impressive is that Taylor convinced Badu to essentially make a sequel to one of her most famous and beloved songs, “Next Lifetime,” with her. According to Taylor she heard echoes of “Next Lifetime” in the track and decided to embrace the similarity rather than run away from it, and reached out to Badu for her blessing and to invite her to be involved. (I absolutely love the confidence of this.) There are definitely ways this could be a sort of crass move, but Taylor’s lyrics and performance come from an artistically genuine place – it’s not a tribute to the original so much as it’s in conversation with it. She’s examining the song’s themes of talking yourself out of infidelity despite the temptation of an intense emotional connection from her own angle. Whereas Badu’s original was sung from a position of bittersweet certainty, Taylor sounds more tormented and indecisive. When Badu appears on the track, she’s more in Taylor’s emotional zone – conflicted, and only begrudgingly doing the right thing.

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