In a retrospective review, Patrick Corcoran of Albumism said that "with its talk of ciphers and cups of tea", 'On & On' cast Badu "as serenely disassociated from the troubles and strife of the world, somehow able to rise above it all."[3]Larry Flick from Billboard wrote, "While everyone else is trying to mimic Faith Evans and Mary J. Blige, newcomer Badu is going one step further. She is taking the jeep-soul concept and expanding it with her own new ideas. With the aid of producers Bob Power and Jamal Cantero, she infuses elements of African culture with a touch of Middle-Eastern vocal flavor. The result is a refreshing and adventurous single that could easily lure hard-core hip-hop kids—and their parents, too. This bodes extremely well for the creative depth and commercial reach of the forthcoming album Baduizm."[4]
Ralph Tee from Music Week's RM Dance Update gave the song four out of five, noting that Badu "sounds a touch like a young Ella Fitzgerald on this sparse but effective debut. Booming bass, jazzy keyboards and percussion hold the track together, this not being the most typical of R&B records but a healthy alternative to the hip hop/swing side of soul that D'Angelo and Maxwell have already lapped into."[5]David Fricke from Rolling Stone remarked the singer's "battered but steady-rollin' pride" on the track.[6] Eric Henderson from Slant Magazine viewed it as "mystic", writing, "'On & On' is, in practice, little more than a dinosaur heartbeat synchronized with that low-end-theory bassline, were it not for Badu's minor-key epigrams drifting like stray gauze throughout."[7]
Music video
Erykah Badu is depicted as a maid in a black family household in the accompanying music video for the single, showing her doing her chores. Scenes of her chasing a dog that bit the laundry that she put to dry, tying a little girl's hair into a ponytail and falling into mud could be seen throughout the video. The video ends with Badu dressed fully in green with several people in a farm, singing and dancing. The video is loosely based upon the 1985 film adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple. The video was also nominated at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, including Best Female Video and Best R&B Video.
Impact and legacy
In 2011, Slant Magazine ranked the song number 46 in their list of "The 100 Best Singles of the 1990s", writing, "Boasting the roundest bassline since Digable Planets got cool like dat, "On & On" is Erykah Badu's mission statement from a higher plane. Her money might be gone, she might be all alone, but she's feeling high and mighty, and the siren song pours forth from her honeyed lips like a fount of alien wisdom. Backed by a languorously snapping, swinging backbeat and expansive, half-heard piano chords that repeatedly collapse back on themselves, "On & On" is as sonically introspective as its creator, a woman who can believably claim to have walked the entire cipher of Earth, clear her throat, utter Goddammit, I'ma sing my song, and still seem like she's hiding more than she's revealing."[8] In 2017, Billboard ranked it number 43 in their list of "The 100 Greatest Pop Songs of 1997".[9] In 2022, Pitchfork ranked it number 56 in their list of "The 250 Best Songs of the 1990s".[10]
