Erykah Badu, Lil Wayne Channel Funkadelic for "Jump in the Air"

The video for Erykah Badu's "Jump In the Air (Stay There)" featuring Lil Wayne — a rumored bonus track off her upcoming album New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) — premiered on Badu's official Website over the weekend. Considering "Jump in the Air" interpolates Parliament-Funkadelic's "Hydraulic Pump," it's fitting that Badu's kaleidoscopic vision for the track's video would hint at the cover image of Funkadelic's self-titled debut album. Multiple Badus weave in and out of the frame, as shapeless as an amoeba, until the cell explodes and several Weezys emerge to deliver his verse. If this is one of the dozens of videos Wayne reportedly filmed in the weeks prior to his prison sentence, the Rebirth star and his green screen are one for one.

The video ends with Badu floating in space, literally jumping in the air and staying there, before the final shot pays homage to Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" as Badu reaches out to Weezy as the words "Free Lil Wayne" scroll across the screen. As Rolling Stone previously reported, Wayne's imprisonment has been delayed until March 2nd due to dental surgery.

Watch the "Jump in the Air" video full screen with an opening montage featuring Barack Obama, Adolf Hitler, Bill O'Reilly and hand puppets over at Badu's official site.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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