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(Badu would have her first real headline-making moment in 1994-a solo deal with Universal Records-after she opened a D’Angelo show in Fort Worth with her cousin Robert Bradford as a hip-hop duo named Erykah Free.) “I mean, if you saw her then you might have thought she found her clothes rummaging through a donation bin in the church basement,” says Queen­ie. Badu was an avid theater kid then, and amateur dancer, and was dressed for the photographer in pajamas rolled at the waist and a men’s suit jacket. She’s recalling the surprise of Badu’s first appearance in the newspaper: a street style picture of her 14-year-old in the lifestyle section of the Dallas Morning News. In other words, if you want to know where Badu got her trademark irreverence, her mischievous wit, it’s best to come here and call on Queenie. “Once you meet her, y’all are going to forget all about me,” the 51-year-old Badu says. Badu’s mother is Kolleen, goes by Queenie. “Hi, Tyrone,” she purrs, petting the puppy, named after Badu’s most enduring single from 1997, a hilarious freestyle about a deadbeat boyfriend. The door opens and out bounds the welcoming committee: an excitable snow white Malt-Tzu. “The vibration is familiar, soothing, like wind chimes.” “I grew up listening to these trucks and cars pass by,” she says, motioning toward the freeway, her tiny flip-flop-shod feet jingling as she approaches the door. But now the clouds have parted, and the normal sounds-birds, traffic-of the tree-lined neighborhood are filtering in. This is a Tuesday in mid-December and the area has been under a tornado watch all morning, unusual for this time of year.

Standing on the porch of her South Dallas childhood home, a modest white clapboard house where her mother still lives, she’s serving a look that’s part shamanic priestess, part artist at work. She also has a tangle of amethyst crystal pendants thrown over her paint-splattered overalls, gigantic silver rings on each finger, rubber bangles stacked up to her elbows, and a red beanie pulled over her hair. Erykah Badu likes to wear clothes that make music when she walks-it’s why today she has strings of bells strapped to her ankles.