Eyrkah Badu Charges $1 For Bedroom Concert

Erykah Badu charged fans just $1 to livestream a concert that she performed in her bedroom — with a band wearing surgical masks.

Her “Quarantine Concert Series: Apocalypse One” show — which will help support her band while their shows are indefinitely on hold — streamed on her BaduWorld Market site Monday night.

“I got a house full of masked engineers, musicians, techs, who are all out of work…We have a few band members that’s stuck in other states…I called them earlier and told them today, y’all still on the payroll even though y’all not here,” she said.

She also gave fans a glimpse into what musicians are facing during the shutdown.

“How [the music industry] works is, the artists get about 8 to 20 percent [of record sales], but it’s not paid until the record label recoups the money they loaned to you in the form of an advance, so it’s really not designed for us to become wealthy,” she said, “That’s why we rely on our live shows. We’re not rich people. We just play rich people on TV. This is how we make our living and some of us only have one form of income and that’s shows. I wanted to create another revenue of income and you’re helping me do that in a big way.”

Badu added that it’s usually concert promoters who set the price of tickets. “If it was up to me, I would always charge you one dollar, so that’s what I’m doing,” she said.

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