You may not have heard, but Erykah Badu is back on form. A decade ago, as the spiritual leader of the neo-soul scene, the Texan sold five million copies of her Grammy award-winning debut, Baduizm. Since then she has dabbled in acting, released two albums with muddled musical direction, brought up two children and been prone to erratic behaviour.

After five years away from music, in March she returned with a fourth album, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), which set her acute observations on issues such as drug dependency and poverty to an endlessly inventive blend of soul, old-school hip-hop, funk jams and jazz. In the States, it was a smash. Over here, it slipped out almost unnoticed.

Not that Badu has shed all of her British fans, who appreciated her arrival on stage. A seven-piece band played a lengthy instrumental in near darkness before three backing singers came on to form a triangle. Finally, Badu sashayed in from the front, pausing to strike sexy poses between every step. Looking like Kate Moss sporting Amy Winehouse’s hair, she wore a ruffled cocktail dress that barely covered her tiny bum and heels so perilously high that it was a wonder she could walk at all.

New Amerykah relies heavily on Badu’s recent embrace of electronics and, live, her principal instruments were a laptop on a table and drum pad she bashed to set off spooky sounds and samples. At one point, she played a drum tucked under her arm, but it was a voice that switched effortlessly from scat to shamanic wail or croaky, throaty blues to tribal chant that dominated the theatrical show.

A dancing Badu played conductress to pull the disparate sounds of the new songs together, sometimes leading from her swaying hips. Meanwhile, the old tracks On & On and Other Side of the Game were given a disco makeover that delighted fans. Forget neo-soul; Badu would rather be the new James Brown.

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