With a little help from her friends, Dallas neo-soul queen Erykah Badu is paying tribute to one of her closest musical collaborators.
Billed as an “All-Star Benefit Concert Saluting Shaun Martin,” Badu will headline the Bruton Theatre in downtown Dallas on Sept. 14. “The friends of Shaun Martin come together to salute the Grammy Award-winning piano [sic] extraordinaire and support his legacy,” read press materials in part. Martin has been suffering from an undisclosed illness for the last several months.
She’ll be joined by a high-wattage roster of guest stars, including the Grapevine-reared Grammy winner Norah Jones; Houston pianist and producer Robert Glasper; Fort Worth-born gospel duo David and Tamela Mann; Brooklyn organist Cory Henry; multi-instrumentalist Adam Blackstone; Grammy-winning Denton jazz fusion collective Snarky Puppy; gospel musician Myron Butler; drummer and Corsicana native Bobby Sparks; Dallas soul band — and, of late, Badu backing band — RC and the Gritz, along with Martin himself.
The 45-year-old Martin is a musician, composer, arranger and producer who has been a fixture in North Texas music since his high school days. The Dallas native, who attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later, the University of North Texas, began collaborating with fellow North Texan Kirk Franklin while he was still a high school student, and first crossed paths with Badu while in college, helping produce her sophomore album, 2000’s Mama’s Gun. Martin has also worked with Snarky Puppy, Bjork, Terence Blanchard and David Crosby, to name just a few.
Tickets for the sure-to-be-singular event are on sale now, via Ticketmaster, and run between $100-$400. According to press materials, meet-and-greet packages are available for those purchasing sponsorship or donor packages.
To find out more information about either sponsorship or donor packages, call the Black Academy of Arts and Letters (TBAAL) box office at 214-743-2400.
The September performance will be Badu’s second of the year in her hometown, as she previously headlined, in February, her annual birthday blowout at the Factory in Deep Ellum which featured guest spots from Thundercat and Teezo Touchdown, among others.
Badu is spending the back half of 2024 popping up at various festivals from coast to coast: She’ll be at the Atlanta Funk Fest on Aug. 11, the Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn on Aug. 24-25, and the Cousinz Festival in Norfolk, VA on Aug. 31. In between those dates, she’ll make an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Aug. 19.
All-Star Benefit Concert Saluting Shaun Martin at Bruton Theatre, Dallas. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 14. Tickets are $100-$400.
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on X (@prestonjones). Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
