Not but last week did we spend some time discussing the broader cultural impact of Erykah Badu’s R & B career and her very measured march to mainstream success in discussing new album New Amerykah Part Two. As if straight from central casting, we get her latest video released on the album’s drop date for “Window Seat.” (video after cut) Borrowing from Matt and Kim’s MTV VMA winning clip for “Lessons Learned,” the soul diva takes a very historic walk through her Dallas hometown retracing the path John Kennedy rode before his assassination. This video re-contextualizes the Brooklyn hipster punk-pop duo’s controlled stripped and naked insanity in Times Square, and turns it into something eminently more thought provoking.

Upon her death, blue blood leaks from her body and spells the word “groupthink.” A voice gives a verbal definition, and the video, in its last 45 seconds reaches maximum poignancy. The concept of a “groupthink” mindset in mainstream culture is always a troubling idea to wrap one’s mind around. Large groups of people sharing a similar mindset of how to see the universe and refusing to move and break as individuals is troublesome, and an issue. The fact that Badu herself, a noted non-conformist would be shot, only to re-emerge as some sort of renewed Nubian soul priestess is intriguing, as maybe she’s sacrificing what was once herself to the mainstream “groupthink,” but has the strength to evolve and continue to develop.

On a musical level, it only makes the author lament Lauryn Hill, who as an artist succumbed to such a mindset as her rampant individuality became a commodity and Hill, for a number of reasons lacked the emotional strength to ever be the same. On a social and human level, there’s a clear groupthink mentality that permeates any democratic society, much like our own, as a “first past the post” concept of voting eschews individuality that doesn’t at least capture at minimum 50% of the people all of the time. “Windowseat” as a track isn’t a blow away production, but pause for the video. As always, if Erykah Badu is involved, it’s more than a worthwhile use of your time.