It’s been over for years since Erykah Badu released her most recent album, New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh), and apparently the big checks aren’t rolling in as frequently as she’d like them to.
Her solution to make a little extra cash? Busking on the streets of New York City — or as she calls it, the “Street Hustler Experiment.”
“We in Manhattan right now on the corner of West 42nd and New America and I just wanted to see what it would be like to sing for money on the streets,” Badu said to her fans via her iPhone video camera.
According to the time stamp, the eclectic chanteuse chose to hit the streets outside Bryant Park — not Times Square, people — on Friday (October 10) at around 8 p.m.
Draped in the kind of gold jewelry that would make King Tut jealous, Badu put on a pair of grandma’s reading glasses — you know, with the chain attached — and took off her hat and placed it on the ground to collect donations.
“I haven’t sold a record in a long time, b—h, need some money,” she sang, as New Yorkers breezed past her without dropping any money into the collection hat. “I needs money.”
After four minutes of crooning her ad-libbed “I needs money” ode, one lady finally put some change in the “Tyrone” singer’s chapeau. Frustrated with her minimal returns, Badu began to get more aggressive and her singing for money experiment dissolved into full-on panhandling.
Less than five minutes after she set up shop, the experiment was over.
So, how much dough did she collect? A grand total of $3.60!
“Look at all this money,” she said. “If you got some initiative, you can make money.”
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