Page 31 - ARUBA TODAY

PEOPLE & ARTS A31
Friday 24 November 2017

Erykah Badu offers ‘soul therapy’ ahead of Soul Train Awards

By SANDY COHEN In this Jan. 25, 2016 file photo, musician and Actress Erykah Badu poses for a portrait to promote the film, “The Land”, during the
AP Entertainment Writer
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. On Sunday, Badu will host the Soul Train Awards on BET.
(AP) — There’s no question
that Erykah Badu is the soul Associated Press
hostess. On Sunday, she’ll
host the Soul Train Awards bowls,” Badu said. “I didn’t the seven chakras by dia- as creativity, desire or self- ered herself a writer first.
on BET. But earlier this week,
she was the soulful host know how necessary that gramming them on a piece discipline, she said. She composed her first
who invited a small group
of reporters to a West Hol- was to tell people. And it’s of poster board. Badu said she travels with song at age 7 after her
lywood hotel suite for an
introductory lesson on kind of weird to tell people Each chakra corresponds a set of tuning forks, which grandmother bought her a
chakras. Badu transformed
a room at Le Parc Suite Ho- something like that. But with a color of the rainbow, she pulled from a back- piano, and started writing
tel into an intimate spiritual
classroom Monday night we’re entering this age of she said, drawing a red pack shaped like an Afri- raps and other poetry be-
for what she described as
a “soul therapy” session. Il- information where people circle for the “root chakra” can mask. She clacked one fore becoming a singer.
luminated by candlelight,
Badu told her dozen guests are more open to this kind and continuing with spirals of the forks against a crystal Asked what song she wish-
about the Eastern concept
of chakras — whirling en- of thing... so it’s a good in orange, yellow, green, hanging from her neck and es she had written, Badu
ergy centers that stretch
from the base of the spine time to share something blue, indigo and purple held it by each guest’s ear said Joni Mitchell’s “Blue.”
to the crown of the head —
and how they respond to like this.” (her favorite color, she so they could experience “Joni Mitchell is one of my
music, color and personal
development. Promotional With bells on her ankles, a noted). Each chakra is also its vibration — in the key of heroes,” she said, adding
events for awards shows
are not usually like this. The pile of medallions and crys- associated with a musical F, for the heart chakra. that they’ve yet to meet.
show itself was never even
mentioned. tals around her neck and a note or vibration, a set of When the chakra lesson “She’s very responsible for
Instead, the singer-song-
writer engaged the group in stack of colored markers in bodily organs and a basic was done, Badu told the a lot of my honesty and
a discussion about creativ-
ity, opened up about her her hand, Badu explained human characteristic, such group she always consid- bravery in music.”q
heroes and revealed that
she uses chakra-stimulating
sounds in her music. “Badu-
izm,” her groundbreaking
and Grammy-winning 1997
debut, is built around the vi-
brations of tuning forks and
singing bowls, she said. She
layered theremin sounds
under later recordings.
“I never share any of these
kinds of things, that I use
tuning forks and singing

Johnny Cash boyhood home considered for historic nomination

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — 30 miles (48 kilometers) “They go through a rigor- its 1934 appearance, said the feeling of a farmhouse
The boyhood home of ous internal determination Ruth Hawkins, director of from the 1930s-era Dyess
country music icon Johnny northwest of Memphis, Ten- of eligibility before going ASU’s Heritage Sites. Colony.”
Cash is being considered to the (Arkansas) board, The home was sold by the Cash was born in 1932 in
as a nominee for inclusion nessee. The house and 40 so if a nomination makes Cash family in 1954, and Kingsland, Arkansas, ac-
on the National Register of it through both of those subsequent owners in- cording to the official web-
Historic Places. acres (16 hectares) were processes, it’s definitely a stalled paneling, wallpaper site devoted to the musi-
The Arkansas Historic Pres- property that should be list- and modern tile flooring, cian. His family later moved
ervation Program’s review provided to the Cash family ed,” he said in an email to which had to be torn out, to Dyess.
board is to meet Wednes- the newspaper. Hawkins said. She added He began his music ca-
day to consider 14 state as part of a federal govern- The home, which is under that most of the original reer as a rockabilly singer
properties for nomination the control of Arkansas material was still there. in Memphis on the same
to the list of the nation’s his- ment economic recovery State University, would not “The house retains much of Sun Records label as Elvis
toric places, including the have qualified for nomina- its original 1930s vernacu- Presley and is a member of
Cash home that was built program during the Great tion without the completion lar/Colonial Revival de- both the Country Music Hall
in 1934 in Dyess in north- in 2014 of a restoration proj- sign,” the nomination form of Fame and the Rock and
eastern Arkansas, about Depression. ect that brought it back to says. “The property retains Roll Hall of Fame.q

Preservation Program

spokesman Mark Christ told

the Arkansas Democrat-

Gazette that a final deci-

sion on whether the proper-

ty is included on the list will

be made by the National

Park Service.