WATCH: Erykah Badu sings for change on New York street, makes about $4

“I just kind of always wanted to see what it would be like to sing for money on the streets,” she says early in the self-edited iPhone video.

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Turns out, it's not all that lucrative or rewarding, which should not be too surprising, sadly. (The Washington Post won a Pulitzer for its excellent story about acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell playing in obscurity in a D.C. Metro station.)

One person recognized Badu, but she was after strangers’ donations, not fans’ attention.

“Beat it!” she tells a guy who wanted to take a photo. She did acquiesce, then removed her hat so no one else would recognize her.

Then she let her powerful vocals loose. She didn’t sing any of her hits, but rather a freestyle verse that basically went, “Give me some money!”

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She wound up with $3.60 and a morality lesson.

“Look at all this money. If you’ve got some initiative, you can make money,” she says. Her video then flashes a message: “Easy to judge isn’t it … but in reality life is a lot harder than this.”

Check out the video here: (WARNING: Video contains some graphic language.)