Erykah Badu is Becoming a Midwife

Singer Erykah Badu doesn’t plan on basing her career entirely on the soulful hits she records.

The “Tyrone” singer recently performed at rap festival Rock the Bells, but has identified something other than music as her “calling.” Badu says that while assisting with a friend’s birth in 2001, she realized how right being a doula or midwife would be for her.

Badu describes her experience in a recent interview, and says that while she always had a motherly instinct, midwifery wasn’t always in her plans:

“I’ve always had a mothering nature. But I didn’t plan on becoming a doula. I just wanted to care for my family and friends.

“When I saw the baby, I cried. I knew what I was supposed to do with my life.”

The songstress- who is a spokeswoman for the International Center for Traditional Childbearing- says her clients call her “Erykah Badoula,” and indicates she is planning on getting midwife certification so she can open “birthing centers” for women to have a better chance of experiencing an anesthesia free birth. Badu herself is mother to three children- son Seven, 13, with rapper Andre 3000, daughter Puma, 7, and daughter Mars, 2.

Badu ignited a degree of controversy last year with the release of the video for her song “Window Seat,” in which she strips naked without permission and to the surprise of passersby near the location of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. On her Twitter feed (@fatbellybelly) at the time, Badu described the shoot:

“…was shot guerrilla style, no crew, 1 take, no closed set, no warning, 2 min., Downtown Dallas, then ran like hell”

She later refuted rumors of a fourth pregnancy after the video was filmed, saying she was “not pregnant, just chubby.” Badu paid a $500 ticket following the incident.