Erykah Badu and The Alchemist literally started their show by waking up in beds on stag

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Erykah Badu has always been a vibe. Back in 1997 when her debut album “Baduizm” hit radio and record store shelves, D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar” had already declared that there was a new sound in R&B and Badu’s album, with its hit singles “On & On”, “Next Lifetime,” and “Otherside of the Game,” marked Badu as a different kind of singer-songwriter among the from Janet Jacksons, Mary J. Bliges, and other R&B vocal groups of the time. Since then, Badu’s vibe and Earth-Mother-Afro-Futurist Queen aura have only grown. Tuesday night, Badu making her first appearance in Cleveland in 22 years, bringing mostly new music but the same cool and confident vibe to Jacobs Pavilion. Badu hasn’t been especially prolific across her nearly 30-year recording career, with her last studio album being 2010’s “New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh),” though she did release a loose, hazy, mixtape in 2015, “But You Cain’t Use My Phone.”Her recently released collaborative album “Blow Up The World” (with famed hip-hop producer The Alchemist, a.k.a. Alan Daniel Maman) has her dedicated fanbase ready for anything. A chunk of that fanbase showed up and packed Jacobs, and though the album has only been available for a few weeks; much of the crowd seemed to have already absorbed the low-key, boom-bap-infused songs. The crowd’s familiarity was helpful, because Badu and the Alchemist (or Abi and Al) performed much of the album’s 15 tracks and only dipped into Badu’s storied back catalog a few times for some big singalong moments with the mostly millennial and Gen X crowd. As always, Badu’s unpredictability and “I’m gon’ do, what I’m gon’ do,” attitude is part of her appeal. And while some fans were hoping for a few more greatest hits, the live versions of the album’s tunes were augmented with interesting arrangement touches: namely a rhythm section, two backing vocalists, keyboards, a percussionist and four DJs/drum machine. All the players upped the album’s low-key vibe.The staging was also unique. At center stage was a black metal scaffolding with the band on the bottom and the DJ, drum Machine players on the top level. Down front were two beds on either side with a large sectional between them. The lights went down and “Abi and Al” both “woke up” in their respective beds for a “phone call” about making music before easing into the seven-minute album opening track “Echoes,” with Badu’s spoken word/singing into the phone receiver and The Alchemist joining the upper deck crew of digital music machinists.More “Blow Up the World” tracks followed, with Badu lounging on the couch and triggering samples. She coaxed vibes for the slow-crawling, smoked-out groove of “I Just Play A Part.” The 90s hip-hop keys and bouncy bass line of “Witch Doctor” had the crowd singing along to the chorus of “I’m a Witch Doctor, no Tabitha, no Samantha.” Unlike the album versions (where Badu’s voice mostly lives in her low-key, lightly raspy register) she upped the ante and energy with plenty of big, wide-open, full-throated wails and ultra-funky percussion.For the head-nodding groove of “Next 2 U,” the upper deck denizens joined Badu on the couch for a party at Badu’s House vibe as she sang and removed a few of her dress of many layers, revealing a Number 5 Guardians jersey. The Alchemist had a brief moment in the spotlight, performing a couple of his own songs, including dropping his verse on the posse cut “Hold You Down,” from his 2004 debut solo album “1st Infantry.” Then Badu returned to “take it back to 1997″ and the crowd was apoplectic and sang at the top of their lungs to an extended and slightly jazz-infused “On & On,” an uptempo take on “Love of My Life,” and a downright sexy “Didn’t Cha Know,” before going back to the album.The live band added human swing and fleshed out arrangements to several of the album tunes. “Breezy” bounced and hit a bit harder, with the band throwing in dashes of the famed piano stabs from Elton John’s “Benny & The Jets,” so Badu could engage the crowd in a little call-and-response. She would switch gears again, ending the song with the syncopated bassline and beat from Outkast’s “So Fresh and So Clean.”The show wound down with the album’s closing track, “Black Box,” with Badu mixing the recording’s jazzy bassline and spoken-word lyrics with words of encouragement for artists and anyone doing their own thing. “Black Box” ends the album and has ended the four previous shows on the tour, but in a seemingly genuine spur-of-the-moment decision, Badu called to her band and sang a few verses and choruses of her wildly popular “Tyrone,” again sending the audience into a sing-along frenzy. Hopefully, for her regional fans, there won’t be another 22 year-long gap between Badu’s Cleveland appearances (or another 16-year gap before another record, for that matter). Though she mostly eschewed past hits, 2026 Erykah Badu is still living and creating in the Afro-future.