Erykah Badu has shared a self-made, iPhone-shot video through OkayPlayer, which shows the legendary neo-soul singer doing some solo busking in Times Square to a bunch of predictably unimpressed New Yorkers. With the exception of one person during the video's monologue introduction, nobody seems to recognize Badu, and by the video's end she has made just $3.60 — though she seems excited by how much she earned.
"I just always wanted to see what it would be like to ... sing for money on the streets," she explains in the introduction to the video, which Badu directed and edited herself.
"If you got some initiative," she says at the end of the video, "you can make money."
The whole thing is funny, especially Badu's decision to improvise lyrics about waking up babies and not wanting a "real job."
You can check out Badu's "Street Hussle Experiment" video here:
As she mentions during one of her improvised songs, Badu has not "sold a record in a long time," with her last album New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) coming out in March 2010. It is unclear when her next album will be released, though in 2013 she said she was writing music for it.
"I'm writing right now," she told Billboard. "Sometimes it takes a little while. When it happens, it does."
The most recent song Badu has appeared on is Janelle Monáe's "Q.U.E.E.N.," which was released in September 2013 on Monáe's second album The Electric Lady.
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