Erykah Badu, with five-month-old baby girl Mars Merkaba in tow, hit Italy on July 8 to launch a month-long European tour that recently touched down at Le Zénith in Paris. And though she failed to sell out the 7,000-capacity arena (her excellent recent album, New Amerykah, Pt.1: 4th World War, was released in February 2008), the neo-soul prima donna gave up the funk in her patented fashion: one part hip-hop homeschooling, two parts shake-your-body-down-to-the-ground.

The French crowd was on its feet from the opening DJ’s teasing Michael Jackson breakbeats, on through Badu’s band opening with the blaxploitationist “New Amerykah”—and never once sat down.

Wearing tight black vinyl pants, matching top hat (echoing her long-gone late ’90s headwrap), and T-shirt, a huge name-plate chain swinging from her neck, Badu greeted the audience with “The Healer/Hip-Hop,” her New Amerykah dedication to late producer Jay Dee. On a gigantic screen above and behind her eight-piece band, experimental documentary director Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi (”Life Out of Balance”) played on silently. At one point, the film’s images of ghetto project buildings being demolished played against Badu chanting “hold on, my people” with a trio of bodacious background singers—then transitioning into her first Grammy-winning hit single, “On & On.” It was a transcendant moment. The soulful singer has cited Koyaanisqatsi as inspiration for her last record, but it was hard for the Parisians to train their eyes anywhere other than center stage.

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