Erykah Badu & Jill Scott: We All Won Last Night

If you got nothing else from Erykah and Jill's IG Verzuz battle, then you should have definitely got the vibrations of two black women connected energy that elevated us all. The love and admiration that they showered on one another like golden drops from the heavens of our ancestors. It was beautiful!

They way they had the reminiscent soliloquies between each song they played; about how they met, became friends; and the intwining of their lives with each of them in it. I loved how when they listened to each others song, you could feel the movement as if it was traveling from their hearts into each others soul. They moved each other. They inspired each other. They encouraged each other.

To know that Jill got her first writing gig from Erykah was news to me ( I don't know how I missed that one) but to hear Jill humbly thank Erykah for allowing her to and Erykah respond with "I had to. That's what I was supposed to do." was even more enlightening. I felt a cosmic energy as if I just saw a shooting star. I was like "yaaaasssss, this is how it's supposed to be."

Jill and Erykah showed us how a battle is more so within us when we don't allow ourselves to connect with each other. When we continuously try to disconnect by wanting to be apart or stand out from one another rather than embrace how we're connected to one another. We can be individuals and different but still appreciate where we are the same. It allows us to openly love on each other the way we need to versus worrying if their love is as adequate as the love we're giving.

I want that, I need that, and most certainly needed to experience it. I wish I could experiences that with black women around me often. I have a few but imagine the abundance of genuine black girl magic and healing we could recieve and give to one another.

I can't compare and say who was better because where others may put them in the same genre, they definitely give me a different perspective to the same narrative. I can't compare because ain't no Jill without Erykah and no Erykah without Jill. Meaning that as artist we need each other to spar with, to feed off to help us to evolve as artist. Who's to say that Erykah's "Other Side Of the Game" wasn't an inspiration for Jill to write the hook to the Roots "You Got Me". Therefore we possibly wouldn't have that classic (among many others) to reminisce on that first love that gave us those familiar feelings.

We need more of these moments. We need more of that love. We need more of that energy. We need more spaces that we can be vulnerable with each other as a community so we can heal and prosper from just surviving to living. Thank you Erykah Badu (that's bae) and Jill Scott (that's bestie) for an amazing night.