*Erykah Badu is getting another listen nearly nine years after she offered a blunt assessment of drugs, hip-hop and a society she believed was struggling to cope.
The resurfaced “Breakfast Club” interview footage dates to November 2017, when Badu was discussing drug references in music following the death of 21-year-old rapper Lil Peep. At the time, the conversation around his death had intensified debate over whether hip-hop artists were encouraging young listeners to use drugs.
Badu Said Hip-Hop Was ‘Broadcasting the News’
Badu pushed back on the idea that artists alone were responsible for what audiences heard.
“I think it’s the culture. I think it’s where we are, ’cause hip-hop is the people,” she said in the resurfaced interview. “Hip-hop goes wherever the people go. It grows how the people grow.”
Her description of rappers was even more pointed: “They’re just broadcasting the news.”
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Badu said an artist’s primary responsibility is to be honest, unless that person deliberately assumes another role.
“I don’t think it’s an artist’s responsibility to do anything but be honest,” she said, adding that the equation changes if an artist chooses to become “a teacher,” “a mentor” or “a healer.”
‘We Sick, We Sad’
Badu then widened the conversation beyond hip-hop, arguing that drug use was part of a much larger attempt to cope.
“We’re in a state of mental illness, period,” she said. “The whole world needs some kind of coping mechanism.”
She described people reaching for relief through relationships, drugs, alcohol and even health food because “we sick, we sad.”
In separate remarks reported by BET on Nov. 17, 2017, Badu made the same distinction, saying she did not believe music or drugs were the underlying issue and instead pointed to mental health and people attempting to cope with the world around them.
Old Clip, Familiar Conversation
That date matters. Badu isn’t making a new declaration about the world in 2026. The clip captures what she was saying in 2017.
But its resurfacing gives the remarks an unusual afterlife. Strip away the date, and Badu’s argument — that music reflects what people are living through, artists cannot automatically be blamed for listeners’ behavior, and people seek different ways to numb emotional pain — could easily be mistaken for a conversation happening today.
Maybe that’s why the old clip doesn’t feel particularly old.
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