Erykah Badu

"Turn Me Away (Get Munny)"

by K. Ross Hoffman

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If the raw, knotty New Amerykah: Part One found Mama Erykah refracting the agitated/agitative polit-funk murk of There's A Riot-era Sly Stone, the less-crazy, more-lazy, just-as-hazy Part Two (Motown) glows with a grinning Stevie-esque wonder and warmth, riffing blithely in the key of Life, no transpositions needed. While her crack team of funkateers (?uestlove on handclaps) lays down a dutifully breezy replication of Sylvia Striplin's 1981 groover "You Can't Turn Me Away," Badu — who plays Tower Theater June 8 — floats freely between that song's sweetie-pie sincerity and the crass cash-lust of the 1996 Junior M.A.F.I.A. smash ("Get Money") that sampled it, tweaking the juxtaposition into a dumb/funny gold-digging satire, delivered in a half-bored robo-drawl, which feels about as thought-out as the mock studio chatter that bookends the track, but still ekes by with the unsnarkable charm of lines like "I'll cook like your mother."