CONTROL FREAQ RECORDS & TAPES Presents: Erykah Badu - "HOTLINE BLING BUT U CAINT USE MY PHONE MIX" (Drake Re-interpretation)

"Remember one night, I went to Erykah [Badu's] house, she made tea for me. We talked about love and what life could really be for me. She said, "when that sh*t is real, you just know," Canada's #1 Rap-Singer Drake crooned of an apparent tea-date with Miss Badu on "Days In The East." While it may or may not actually be a fictionalized re-telling, Drake and Erykah Badu's mutual admiration doesn't seem to end with "Days In The East;" without any prior warning, Erykah-She ILL-Badu suddenly uploaded her slightly wordy "HOTLINE BLING BUT U CAINT USE MY PHONE MIX" to her newly-minted Soundcloud page Friday evening. ANALOUGE GIRL {IN A DGITAL WORLD} aka THE MIGHTY AFRO DIGHTY herself plays bells, in addition to providing original vocal accompaniment, on "HOTLINE BLING" along with her cast of highly skilled players: producer/keyboardist Zach Witness, guitarist Ben Hixon, and Ethan Worland on "brushes" (drums). Erykah Badu co-wrote her "HOTLINE BLING" re-arrangement with yet another close collaborator, her 17-year-old son 7 Benjamin, fathered by none other than OutKast founder André 3000; "from the [forthcoming] mixtape, "BUT U CAINT USE MY PHONE,'" which okayplayer somewhat suspiciously reports "will be dropping soon... quite soon." Badu's own sultry seven+-minute rendition of Drake's chart-topping non-album single features a beautifully meandering coda, extended mid-song hotline menu interlude, and a refreshing take on the all-too-familiar "fell in love with a stripper" (or in this case, call girl) motif. Drake's latest Simpsons-referencing album recorded with his sharp-tongued frenemy Future, What a Time to Be Alive, is currently available for purchase from online digital retailers; while Miss Badu's long-awaited follow-up to New Amerykah Part Two (Return of The Ankh) only seems imminent, at this point, be it a new album or a mixtape chock-full of familiar chart-topping revisions.