Erykah Badu Celebrating 'Mama's Gun' 25th Anniversary With Limited Edition Reissues

Official Announcement | Published: Jan 25, 2026 2:54 PM EST

(UMe) Five-time GRAMMY Award-winning neo-soul trailblazer Erykah Badu commemorates the 25th anniversary of her influential sophomore album, Mama's Gun, with the release of new limited-edition Vinyl options out now. The 2LP UMe Ecomm variant is pressed on Gold Black Ice Vinyl and features a newly redesigned gatefold jacket, alternate cover, and special lithograph. Order here

Finally, the Vinylphyle edition of Mama's Gun features this album's first ever hi-res remaster since its original CD release, sourced from the original production tapes. The 2LP, which features new liner notes personally penned by Badu, was cut by Joe Nino-Hernes at Sterling Sound Nashville and pressed at RTI on 180g Black Vinyl.

The indisputable influence of Mama's Gun looms over every corner of the culture. It first arrived in stores on November 21, 2000. It peaked at #11 on the Billboard 200, scoring her strongest first-week sales ever and moving north of 191K copies. Within the span of only four weeks, it reached the threshold for a Platinum certification from the RIAA. Not to mention, this landmark body of work garnered three GRAMMY Award nominations, including "Best Female R&B Vocal Performance" and "Best R&B Song" for "Bag Lady" and "Best R&B Song" for "Didn't Cha Know?"

Indicative of the record's impact, it has claimed spots on numerous marquee lists such as Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time," Pitchfork's "The 200 Best Albums of the Last 25 Years," and NPR's "The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women," among many others. Resonating from one generation to the next, it has also impressively tallied over 1 billion streams. Retrospectively, Pitchfork rated it a rare "9.4," marveling at how, "She made a record that wore its awareness of the larger traumas and challenges that complicate human intimacy on its sleeves."