Now, holding her daughter, she talked, again in her own way, about time. Badu admits that her own conception of the temporal rarely coincides with the one used by people who wear watches. She had been in her home studio until five in the morning, so we had started our interview almost two hours late. I had already learned something that morning about waiting for Badu.

The 35-year-old Badu asked Ysheka, one of her assistants, to bring a bottle, and when it came, the toddler climbed back into her mother’s lap and drank quietly. She squirmed and fussed, stretching her head out of reach, then climbed down and stood on the floor, glaring. I couldn’t tell if Puma, who is two and a half years old, with light skin and puffed cheeks, was more unhappy about what was being done to her hair or sharing her mother’s attention with a stranger. I wanted to create a nourishing environment, a place I could retreat to when things got too busy for me.” The labyrinth is an ancient symbol you find them all over Europe and Asia. It’s a labyrinth-there’s one entrance and one way to the center. Erykah Badu, known variously over the past decade as the Queen of Neo-soul, the Nefertiti of Hip-hop, and the Woman Who Wears That Thing on Her Head, sat on her couch rubbing Blue Magic conditioner into her daughter’s hair, tying clumps together and wrapping them with rubber bands while she talked about the giant, red, mazelike circle painted on the floor at her feet.

Erykah badu tyrone chlean