A.d. 2000

This song is written as though Amadou Diallo is speaking from the grave in the year 2000, hence the title AD 2000. Amadou Diallo was a Guinean immigrant killed by 19 shots from NYC police officers in February 1999. Look it up...this is Ms. Badu's explanation.

I always thought that the 4th line of the song was "my name will be misDATED," and my interpretation of the song centered around that line and it's relation to the title. The title "AD 2000" conjures the image of those plaques you see outside of buildings denoting the year of construction. Ms Badu proudly states that having a building named for her (or after anyone for that matter) can never accurately represent all that she stands for, whether now or in the distant future when it would inevitably become rundown. Instead, I like to think that she uses this album as a token of her existence, hence the title "AD 2000" (when the CD was released). Her songs will always remain intact, accessible, and in the form she intended; they will endure for as long as music exists, far longer than any material monument or building would. She changes the line "my name WILL be misdated/mistated" to "my name WON'T be misdated/mistated." This song will carry her voice through time, from 2000 and on into the future; it is her her stamp on the world, more significant and meaningful than any building bearing her namesake could be.