Erykah Badu’s ties to Philly — and to the specific Roots/Soulquarians/Black Lily moment — are so deep that we want to call her our own… but we caint. She’s the auntie who didn’t stay, who never settled, followed her muse and in the process, teaches us a lot in real time about the virtues of doing those things. Up in the office as the window fan blows right now, her latest release, 2015’s But You Caint Use My Phone mixtape — an extended meditation spurred by Drake’s “Hotline Bling” but which became an inspired homage to telephony itself — continues to low-key dazzle. Its musicality and sense of fun are on par with any of the greats you might care to name, but its melancholy, its mood, its Badu-ism only point in one direction: Onward.

Tickets here.