So just getting to see it happen and watching the audience’s response was my favorite moment. I was like, “Why don’t we do something where the singers can freestyle over some hard beats? I think it’d be pretty amazing.” It was an idea we saw from the Hip-Hop Cyphers. The first year, I got to see it, and the audience’s response to it was magical. Well, I guess the greatest thing about the Soul Cypher was that I just imagined it. Do you have a favorite moment from the Soul Cypher? And what can fans expect for a possible Soul Cypher for this year’s ceremony? One huge staple for the Soul Train Awards have been the Soul Cyphers. So by the time that I was 10, 11 years old, Soul Train was a staple in our home. Also, the grooving and the dancing was exciting. Soul Train brought it into your living room. It was definitely an exciting thing to see them because you got to see them. So, to see them on Soul Train live, even though they were lip syncing - it was exciting, because you got to see a 3-D version of this album cover that you’ve been staring at the whole time and wondering about. We didn’t have any of those intimate things. And we would only imagine where they lived and who they were and what their opinions were, or if they were faithful to their wives. So we had these album covers, and to us, The Isley Brothers were a bunch of white suits and capes. There were no videos, no Internet, there was nothing. We’re vacuuming, doing dishes, and was pausing in between to watch the artists because all we had when it came to these artists at that time was album covers.

We’d be cleaning up while watching Soul Train. That’s when adults started wavering into the room and the party got real.

So, we had to make our own cereal, toast, or boil an egg, whatever was easiest to do as a kid.īy 12, 1:00, that’s when Soul Train came on. My favorite moment growing up as a fan of the show was Saturday morning, we’d be watching all of the cartoons, and by noon, the cartoons would start to taper off, but we were up by ourselves the whole time, ’cause our parents were asleep on Saturday morning.

Take me back to your favorite Soul Train moment as a kid. Erykah Badu Back Again to Host the 2017 Soul Train Awards: Exclusiveīillboard caught up with the “On & On” songstress to speak on the 20th anniversary of Baduizm, her favorite Soul Train moment, the soundtrack to her life, and more.

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