An evening with Erykah Badu

"I betcha love can make it better."

Parker can detect my mood the moment I pick up our nightly FaceTime calls whenever she’s not with me. Without fail, my greeting generates a smile. Almost immediately, Parker will join and turn my solo into a Daddy-daughter duet.

“Hello, hello, hey, hello, hello,

“Hello, hello, hey, hello, hello,

“Hello, hello, hey, hello, hello,

“Hello, hello, hey, hello, hello.”

The jovial jingle we share signals to Parker I’m free and available to chat. But if I’m working or otherwise occupied, there’s only one, relaxed hello.

On Saturday night, right on time at 8, Parker called. She got my shorter salutation because I was busy. I was about to hear the real thing live and in-person.

On my quest to fix my financial present and future, I’ve made many sacrifices. But I’ve always said I believe in the importance of enjoying new experiences and making new memories. This was one of those weekends.

The legendary and admittedly crazy Erykah Badu came through Chicago on her “Unfollow Me” tour, featuring Yasiin Bey, the artist formerly known as Mos Def. Both are legends and creative geniuses. Their staying power alone confirms as much. Their catalogs are filled with classics that have comprised the soundtrack of my life since high school.

This was the concert I referenced as my best money move back in April.

But a pair of concert tickets aren’t what made April my highest spending month so far this year. Taxes and a major car repair bill did that. This, on the other hand, was a welcome expense.

I had never seen Erykah Badu perform live. And while I don’t love concerts as much as I used to, my girlfriend Triest does. She’s sacrificed in so many ways by supporting me through my financial transformation. She deserved a date night to kick off our highly anticipated “Summertime Chi.”

I’ve also become so accustomed to major acts swinging through Chicago that I often take them for granted. I live 2 1/2 miles from the United Center, and had never attended a concert there. I deemed an evening with Ms. Badu was worth changing that.

For two tickets, I paid $165.58. We didn’t have the best seats, but they weren’t the worst. We were in the building, and we enjoyed a great sightline from the first row of a middle section in the upper deck. It would have been nice to be closer. But just to inch closer cost a lot more. I was proud of how I committed to making a memory but also maintained restraint.

Instead of binge-drinking, we “pre-gamed” by baking homemade chocolate chip cookies. It was a spontaneous decision but one that significantly added to our evening. It was quality time spent talking and working as a team.

I spent $38.88 on Uber rides to and from the United Center. I can’t stand traffic. Between it and the cost of parking, I chose instead to pay slightly more for convenience and to avoid growing cranky.

While losing ourselves in cookie dough, we failed to eat dinner beforehand. I ended up paying $24.38 for two personal pizzas before the show. I received one of the cheesiest little pizzas I’ve ever seen. The old me would have been in heaven. But I don’t gorge on such greasy goodness as much. On this night, though, I gleefully devoured every bite.

One week before the show, however, I began to develop anxious feelings. I realized my worry was over not wanting to purchase alcohol at the show and how that would look and feel on a date. I didn’t care about drinking. But I didn’t want to deprive my lady friend. All it took was expressing my unease and in her latest in a long list of examples of how she has my back, Triest told me she wasn’t expecting drinks and we didn’t need them.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Still, the feeling spoke to how ingrained drinking had become in my routine. I still carry scars.

All told, $228.84 was money well spent for a night we’ll cherish.

Erykah Badu performed most of her classics, such as “On & On,” “Tyrone” and “Bag Lady.” She even dropped her famous line that I jokingly quote to loved ones so often when discussing my writing.

“Now keep in mind that I’m an artist, and I’m sensitive about my shit.”

Badu’s music has been on my playlists and in my psyche for so long that I didn’t realize until getting home that her last album was in 2010.

Since then, her reputation has preceded her as a temperamental artist known for being late and fiercely feisty. When she flipped a show’s typical order by allowing her band to rock out for 30 minutes before she took the stage, I couldn’t help but joke that they were just stalling because she hadn’t yet arrived. But when she finally took the stage at 9:50 p.m. she didn’t disappoint. The 52-year-old Badu still captivates her audience and rocks a crowd.

She may consider herself crazy. But as she’s told us, she’s also clever.

In explaining why she named this 25-city experience the “Unfollow Me” tour, Badu cited her numerous controversies and referenced her stints in society’s so-called cancel culture.

“I think I’ve been canceled about 32 times by an unknown cancel monster,” Badu told WBZ-TV Channel 4 in Boston. “So I suggest to people unfollow me if they don’t like what I’m saying or don’t want to deal with it.

“And if you pull back another layer, ‘Unfollow Me’ speaks to a suggestion to follow your own heart. To find your own way. To dig inside of yourself to figure out your direction. You don’t need me. You don’t need anyone else to do it.”

Hello!