Singer Erykah Badu had her work cut out for her at the 2016 Soul Train Music Awards as she was determined to "bring back the '90s".
R&B greats from the era will be acknowledged for their works at the prizegiving, with Brandy Norwood taking home the Lady of Soul Award and Blackstreet's Teddy Riley receiving the Legend Award.
Badu served as event host and executive producer, and while she and her other producers created segments for the ceremony, she explains to USA Today their sole aim was "to bring back the 90s and pay homage to some of that music that was so inspiring to this wave of generation (and) to some of the greatest artists in our music industry".
However, achieving the vision required Erykah to do more than she bargained for behind-the-scenes.
"I had to do everything," she recalls. "I had to take out the trash, I had to change the gels on the lights, I had to clip somebody's toenails. I mean, you name it.
"I did a lot of things, including writing the monologues and writing the intros for some of the presenters, choosing the artists who would perform, and helping to create the segments."
As the pre-recorded 2016 Soul Train Music Awards airs on U.S. television network BET this Sunday (27Nov16), Erykah will be chilling at home with her family following days of Thanksgiving celebrations.
"You know, I like the sound of everybody in the house," she says while describing her love for the American holiday. "I like the smell of my grandma's and my mother's cooking, I like the music, I like the sound of the football game, I like the kids who go out to the car and smoke weed. Everything about it is so amazingly warm to me because it's a chance to break up the whole day-to-day motif and go into just being ourselves around our families."
However, don't expect Badu to relax for a significant amount of time, as she has plenty of work on her plate, including an EP collaboration she is working on with rapper D.R.A.M. and a forthcoming solo album.
"I'm working on my own album, always working on that," the On & On star details. "I'm not in a rush to do that; whenever it happens, it happens. I'm a music supervisor for (Comedy Central's show) Legends of Chamberlain Heights, so I'm coming back for a second season to do that and I'm working on post-production with the Soul Train Awards."
