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	ERYKAH BADU Chakra tactics

Erykah Badu’s 10-piece back-up band took the Orpheum stage at 9:50 p.m. last Saturday night, peeling right into a slap-happy funk ’n’ roll jam that fell somewhere between James Brown and Tower of Power. It wasn’t until 20 minutes later that Badu herself emerged, flanked by two dancers. Bathed in an otherworldly purple light, she appeared extremely pregnant, with cornrows flowing down to her knees. It was quite a sight.

Touring in support of her Worldwide Underground (Universal) EP, Badu has turned conceptual matters up a notch, dividing her performance into "chakra"-denominated segments. Each chakra was explained (sexuality, forgiveness, self-will) and given a corresponding color. She then marked each transition by slamming together two tuning forks and letting them reverberate. You could write the theatrics off as pretentious new-age crap if the performance hadn’t been so convincing.

Drawing on her three studio recordings, Badu opened with "Back in the Day," an ode to fond teenage memories of getting stoned after school. "The Other Side of the Game," with a new call-and-response passage, was followed by "Danger," a continuation of the story line in "The Other Side of the Game" that actually samples its predecessor. She edited the overlong (on disc) "Bump It" but kept the sultry "I Want You" at its full 11 minutes plus.

Flanked on one side by a touch-sensitive drum machine and on the other by turntables, Badu appeared self-assured in a cream-colored silk robe with T-shirt and brown bell-bottoms underneath, her pregnant midriff unashamedly exposed. The large band enjoyed an excellent mix that set the stage for Dwayne Kerr’s accomplished flute playing and Keisha Jackson’s backing vocals. R.C. Williams played keyboards; New York DJ Beverly Bond provided live scratching and sampling. Badu interrupted the flow of the show for a political rant about advertising, programming, and fear, but she made good on her late start by playing past midnight.