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Erykah Badu & The Alchemist: Before the World Blows

Eleven years apart, one shared beat, and a phone-free room in Toronto

erykah bady and the alchemist typographic graphic in pink and gold

Erykah Badu and The Alchemist's joint album

Before the World Blows started with a Mobb Deep beat and became her first LP in over a decade.



It started with a beat Erykah Badu couldn't let go of. Riding around with her friend Cole Chris, she kept coming back to "The Realest," the 1999 Mobb Deep track built on an Alchemist beat, singing over it like it was already hers. Chris turned out to know Alchemist and made the introduction. Three years and 18 months of studio time between Dallas and Los Angeles later, that car-ride impulse became Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment, released August 28, 2026 — Badu's first album since 2010's New Amerykah, Pt. 2 (not counting the 2015 mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone), and her first as a fully independent artist on her own label, distributed through Young/Beggars Group.


Most of the record was built in the same room. The two of them traded off between Badu's studio and Alchemist's, rarely apart for the length of the sessions. The project's working name, "Abi and Al," comes from Badu's own middle name — a small but deliberate move, she's said, to let listeners step outside "the 30-year Erica Badu program" and meet something newer, less armored. "Before I met Al, I was kind of hardening up," she's said of the years leading into this collaboration — worn down by an industry culture that chases "a moment"; working with him helped her lighten back up and remember why she makes music at all.


Even the title has a backstory: it began as a poem, built out of a running refrain — one more blunt, one more glass of water, one more shot, before the world blows — half doomscrolling anxiety about the state of things, half an inside joke about how long the album itself was taking to land.

They road-tested it live before anyone outside the room had heard a note. In August 2025, Badu and Alchemist played the entire album at Toronto's History with backing collective The Cannabinoids — a phone-free show, no recording, no leaks, just the songs doing the introducing.


The credits read like a map of who's been paying attention to both of them for decades: Westside Gunn (twice), Earl Sweatshirt, Steve Lacy, Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, DRAM, and Badu's fellow neo-soul-era traveler Joi. A few of those pairings have their own small stories — the "To the Moon" beat sat with Jay Electronica for three years before Alchemist finally got it to Badu, and DRAM reportedly wrote full songs to five different Alchemist beats off voice notes on a tour bus before Badu called time. Even Badu's 17-year-old daughter, who records as Mars Electronica, wrote the chorus melody on "Love Me Not." As Stereogum put it, Badu raps nearly as much as she sings across the record, in a loose, whispery style that blurs the two.


The rollout matched the record's spirit — cryptic "One More Song…" posters across five cities, a puzzle-based reveal of the title, an interactive "Badu Burner Phone" experience where fans who crack the code get a real callback. Playful, a little conspiratorial, entirely on brand for an artist who's never done a press cycle the normal way.


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Sources & Further Reading


Official Artist Links


Tour Dates - https://erykahbadu.com/

Erykah Badu Official Website - https://baduworld.market/

The Alchemist Official Website - https://alcrecords.com/


A note on this article: This piece was researched and drafted with Funknuz AI, then edited, fact-checked, and finalized by our editorial team. All sourcing is linked above.

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