Benefit Concert: Erykah Badu and Teena Marie

Hello World:

On Thursday evening I had the task of going to the Erykah Badu and Teena Marie Benefit Concert at Ferrara Theatre. At the beginning of the event, LaToya and I managed to get into the backstage. We quickly realized that its not all its cracked up to be. lol. Inside the backstage we met the host of the event whose name escapes me at this very moment. We also posed and took pictures in front of the NUL background. I really felt exclusive during the event, walking in and out of backstage while people were taking their seats.

Shortly after we went to the first floor to get a better view of the people coming into the event. We took pictures and noticed that it took no time for the theatre to get packed. We stood around for awhile watching people come in and looking at the stage being set up. It really was amazing to see a thought come into fruition after seeing it in the Conference Bible, to watching the event up close and personal. After a while, we went up to the third floor to watch the event from our seats. While sitting in anticipation I thought of who Erykah Badu was; her lyrics are highly personal urban philosophies which give emotional challenges to any listener. She has an unusual musical sounds with songs like Bag Lady and Call Tyrone that captivates her audiences.It was funny because while we were waiting for her to come to the stage, the band must have been playing the instrumental to her song for at least ten minutes. But, when she did come out, the audience raved and you could tell who all the Erykah Badu fans were in the building. One song that I really like that she did was Bag Lady, it has always been one of my favorite songs of her's and whenever I hear it, it puts me into that hip hop soul kind of mood. She had a wondeful preformance and I had almost wished that she would have just headlined the show by herself.

That was until Teena Marie came to the stage, I have heard a few songs in the past, but she really did her thing during her preformance. Her vocals were amazing and really topped off the whole event, making it one of my favorite events thus far.


Overall, the event was a huge success. Everyone that I saw and spoke to raved about the great time that they had. It was a smooth atmosphere and people were having fun, not worrying about the fact that they had to get up in the morning for the next Plenary Session. The only thing I wish I could have done over would prabobly be to knock on their dressing room doors to possibly get a picture with either one of them. But, everything happens for a reason and hopefully I cross their paths in the future.

-Andrew J. Oliver