Erykah Badu Pleads Not Guilty to "Window Seat" Charge

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Erykah Badu has pleaded not guilty to a disorderly conduct charge stemming from her controversial "Window Seat" music video, which featured the New Amerykah Part Two singer stripping down naked while walking through Dallas' Dealey Plaza. Hundreds of Dallas residents, some of them children, watched Badu's video shoot, and while no one called police at the time, as Rolling Stone previously reported, the police actively sought witnesses to step forward in order to charge Badu after the video became a viral sensation. One witness finally complained earlier this month, telling officers "she and her two small children were offended," leading to the Class C misdemeanor charge, which carries a $500 fine. Rather than simply pay the fee by mail, however, Badu opted to challenge the charge, Dallas Morning News reports.

Badu's "Window Seat" video combined Matt and Kim's "Lessons Learned" clip, in which the duo ran around New York's Times Square naked, with allusions to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which also took place in Dealey Plaza. Badu has since said she chose Dealey Plaza because it was one of the most popular places in Dallas.

As Rolling Stone previously reported, Dallas officials sought to use the "Window Seat" case as a catalyst to springboard changes to the city's "no permit necessary" laws for video shoots. So far, Badu has not commented on her plea on her very active Twitter.

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Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

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