Cellular Device by Erykah Badu is apart of her album But You Can't Use My Phone which was inspired by Drake’s hit song Hotline Bling. This album is a phone themed work of art, which remixes and remakes on of Erykah’s best hits, Tyrone. The song itself carries the phone theme on while focusing on how people are always calling and texting Erykah when they want something. Which symbolizes how once she became a celebrity everyone just saw her as a personal bank or their own personal entertainer, when in all actuality they weren’t that close to her before, and really aren’t that close to her now.
Erykah uses repetition of the line “Late night when you need my love/Late night when you need my love/Late night when you need my love/Late night when you need my love” which makes the line resonate with you, a common technique in poetry. The line itself of course is describing how Tyrone use to call her when he wanted her companionship.
She also chooses more interesting nouns and verbs such as saying cellular device instead of cellphone which keeps you much more intrigued in the piece and for some it may make you have to listen a little harder and think more about the piece.
She also uses the voicemail interlude to show her beliefs and what days she celebrates and are important to her. “If you're calling to wish her a happy birthday, Kwanzaa, MLK,/ Black History Month, Juneteenth, or Hanukkah, press 2”. Obviously she celebrates her birthday; then Kwanzaa: the celebration of African heritage in African American culture; MLK day: Which celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. and all of his efforts with the civil rights movement; Black history month: The “remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora”; Juneteenth: the ending of slavery in 1865; and Hanukkah: the festival of lights.
Erykah’s use of imagery is also amazing such as “glasses of champagne out on the dance floor” shows the image of people at a party dancing and drinking champagne but it is just said in a clever manner much like poetry. At the end of the song she has a section that is a voicemail that clearly defines the entire album. It basically list off all the reasons people call her on her cellular device.
The voicemail tone goes, “If you're calling to beg for some shit in general, press 4/If you're calling to beg for some shit, but this is that pre-call before the actual begging, press 5/If you've already made that pre-call and this is the actual call that you beg, press 6”. While giving insight into her life it is also is pretty funny because you can just imagine how many people do this to celebrities that they “use to be cool with”.
The album But You Can't Use My Phone as a whole tells a great story and the song, Cellular Device is a fun and light response to the freeloaders in life such as Tyrone.
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