It's not often that Erykah Badu decides to offer up surprise performances. The celebrated soul singer and mother of three has been keeping a relatively low profile since paying her $500 fine last month for indecent exposure from her highly-publicized 'Window Seat' video.
But, the Dallas native decided to join her friends over the weekend at the kick-off to the Hennessy Artistry concert series, which was held at Chicago's The Blackhawk Building.
Last year, hip-hop's favorite band, The Roots, teamed with Common for the cognac company's tour and this year, they are back with some help from Q-Tip for a five-city trek. The Roots and Q-Tip have co-curated the series together and clearly took their job serious. In the two-hour span of performances, where the likes of Curren$y, Yahzarah and Chicago's own Kid Sister took the stage for mini-sets, The Roots backed the gamet of artists and the A Tribe Called Quest MC popped on and off stage with such frequency he became an extension of Jimmy Fallon's house band.
Though, they performed notable songs from their music catalogs, the crowd seemed most excited about how they re-worked a cover of N.W.A.'s classic 'Straight Outta Compton.'
Then, right when the crowd thought the night was coming to a close, ?uestlove, who told media after the show that the night was "one of the best of his career," announced that Badu would be the night's special guest. After opening with her controversial tune 'Window Seat' and the J Dilla produced 'Telephone,' the top hat wearing singer teamed with the Philly group for the Grammy Award-winning song that jump-started her career, 'You Got Me.'
DJ D-Nice, whose photographs of The Roots and Q-Tip were prominently featured at the venue, was on-hand to keep the crowd moving before and after the concert portion.
Now, in its fifth year, Hennessy Artistry 2010 not only includes special live music performances, but a new art education component has been integrated to the invite-only shindig. As part of Artistry GIVES, art work from local emerging artists will be featured in each city through a partnership with Americans for the Arts.
There are four additional dates on the Hennessy Artistry 2010 tour and Big Krit, Daniel Merriweather, DJ Irie, Jay Electronica, Kat DeLuna, Marsha Ambrosious, Mike Posner, and Travie McCoy, are all confirmed to perform at the upcoming shows.
The next tour stop will be in Miami on Sept. 25 at the Ice Palace, followed by dates at Bert's Warehouse in Detroit on Oct. 2, Los Angeles on Oct.6 and the finale show at New York's Cipriani Wall Street on Oct.14, which will be streamed live via Ustream on the Hennessy Facebook page.