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Erykah Badu Picks Up Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’ With New Version

Now officially Drake’s most frequently re-worked song since “Marvin’s Room,” the latest artist to take on his top-five hit “Hotline Bling” is his “Days in the East” mentor Erykah Badu. Her track is labeled the “BUT U CAINT USE MY PHONE MIX,” after both the famous closing lyric from her 1997 hit “Tyrone” and the title of her upcoming mixtape, announced in the song’s SoundCloud info. The remix was apparently co-written by her son Steven Benjamin, and Steven’s dad Andre even pops up for a second with his famous “For-evah evah?” cry from “Ms. Jackson.”

Badu’s version also contains a length interlude with a faux-hotline message, which Pitchfork has transcribed:

“You’ve reached the Erykah Badu hotline. If you’re calling for Erykah, press 1. If you’re calling to wish her a happy birthday, Kwanzaa, MLK, Black History Month, Juneteenth, or Hanukkah, press 2. If you’re calling because you just saw her on BET, MTV, or any of the social media outlets and you’re checking to make sure you’re still in good standing, press 3. If you’re calling to beg for some s–t in general, press 4. If you’re calling to beg for the s–t but this is that pre-call before the actual begging, press 5. If you’ve already made the pre-call and this is the actual call to beg, press 6….”

Listen to the remix here.