Naked Erykah Badu sparks extensive criticisms

Singer Erykah Badu performs during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux July 4, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Iconoclastic R&B singer Erykah Badu has caused great repercussions as she not only strips naked in a music video but also falls to the ground where John F. Kennedy was asassinated, according to the AP reports on Wednesday.

Erykah Badu, born in Dallas, February 1971, was dubbed the "Queen of Neo-Soul" in the 1990s.

She released the five-and-a-half minute "Window Seat" music video on Tuesday, in which the singer strips down in Dealey Plaza in the city center and falls to the ground with a jerk at the sound of a rifle shot.

Badu said the song is about "liberating yourself from layers and layers of skin or demons," and the video is a bid to awaken interest in a 1950s term called "groupthink" in which a person is afraid to express themselves for fear of being ostracized by the wider public.

"When I fall to the ground in the video, the word groupthink spills out of my head because I was assassinated by groupthink," she said.

She told the Dallas Morning News in an interview that she chose the famous "grassy knoll" at Dealey Plaza because "it was the most monumental place in Dallas I could think of." Dealey Plaza is widely considered as sacred ground where Kennedy was shot in 1963.

The vedio has sparked a host of criticism among bloggers and on social media sites.

"Wow, sad how the art was displayed plain as day and no one seems to get it.? How is it a dis to JFK???...it's inspiring to me," wrote one commentator on YouTube.

But Janet Shaw, a blogger on web site blackpoliticalthought.com, wrote, "Erykah Badu has lost her mind. This unsightly act occurred near in Dallas near Dealey Plaza. This isn't how a decent entertainer should behave."

More worse, a Dallas Morning News report cited police as saying Badu could face a charge for indecent exposure.

Source:Xinhua/Agencies


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