Dallas: Erykah Badu at Booker T. Washington HSPVA

Baduizm rewired what R&B could be. Before that record existed, Erykah Badu walked the halls of Booker T. Washington HSPVA in Dallas. She studied dance and voice at 2501 Flora Street and graduated in 1989. What came next changed American music forever.

The school opened in 1922 as Dallas’s only high school for African American students. For decades, it anchored the artistic life of Black Dallas. In 1976, Dallas ISD redesignated it as a magnet school for artistically gifted students. The campus moved into the Arts District and became something singular — a place where serious training met serious ambition.

The school’s alumni list reads like a who’s-who of modern American music. Trumpeter Roy Hargrove came through those halls. So did Norah Jones. And then there was Erica Wright — the South Dallas girl who became Erykah Badu.

What the School Gave Her

Erykah, born Erica Abi Wright on February 26, 1971, grew up in South Dallas. Her mother, Kolleen Wright, was an actress and theater teacher. Art was the family language. At Booker T. Washington, she found a school that amplified everything she brought through the door.

But Badu carried something none of the others quite had — a sound that didn’t exist yet. She launched Baduizm in 1997, and it hit like a church service that doesn’t end when you leave. The neo-soul movement — Questlove, D’Angelo, Maxwell — found its gravitational center in that debut. Critics reached for comparisons. None fit. That was the point.

Dallas has always produced this kind of art. It arrives fully formed, carrying the city’s own friction. Just as Deep Ellum drew Blind Lemon Jefferson, Booker T. Washington drew the students who would define generations. Both places shaped music that outlasted the buildings.

Today, 2501 Flora Street still shapes working artists every day. Walk past on a school day and you’ll hear it — voices finding pitch, young people doing serious work. It sounded the same when Erica Wright was becoming Erykah Badu.

I’ve been here ♪