WATCH “WITCH DOCTOR” MUSIC VIDEO HERE
PRE-ORDER / PRE-SAVE BEFORE THE WORLD BLOWS HERE
Erykah Badu and The Alchemist today reveal full details of their highly anticipated joint album, due digitally on 28 August 2026. Titled Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment, the co-produced project was recorded over 18 months between Dallas and Los Angeles. The result is the inevitable collision of two iconoclasts: hypnotic, funny, blunt, deeply personal, and impossible to categorize neatly.
Ahead of the announcement, alongside the release of the album’s latest single, “Witch Doctor,” cryptic posters began appearing across Sydney, Melbourne, London, Paris, and New York City bearing the phrase “One More Song…”, accompanied by a code, that also appeared on placeholder album artwork, and the website www.b-t-w-b.com. Fans who visited the site were challenged to decipher a series of clues that ultimately revealed the album’s title: Before the World Blows.
Today, the mystery deepens with the launch of BADU BURNER PHONE: “ONE MO ______ BEFORE THE WORLD BLOWS.”
Ahead of the album’s release, Badu is giving fans a direct line to the Badu Burner Phone, with the chance to speak with her live via FaceTime or video call. By visiting www.b-t-w-b.com, fans can enter an interactive experience that unlocks a phone number through a series of challenges.
Participants begin by joining Badu’s mailing list and decoding the album title. Those who successfully complete the challenge will unlock the Badu Burner Phone number. Callers must then provide the decoded album title as a passphrase for a chance to be connected directly with Badu, who will invite select participants to complete the phrase:
“One Mo ______ Before the World Blows.”
Inspired by the poem BTWB, callers are encouraged to fill in the blank with a word of their choosing, creating their own interpretation of the album’s central theme. Select conversations will be recorded and incorporated into the wider BTWB campaign, making fans part of the album’s evolving visual and creative narrative.
The latest preview of the album, “Witch Doctor,” arrived with a music video directed by and starring Erykah Badu, with cinematography by Ayinde Anderson. The video premiered via a special one-off screening paired with an iconic prequel: Badu’s iconic 2010 short film “Window Seat.” Sixteen years later, Badu returns to the same stretch of road with a new perspective, exploring what remains after the world has taken everything it can from an artist, and pointing toward the one thing it can never manufacture, categorize, or possess: the source itself.
Erykah Badu & The Alchemist
Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment
Control FREAQ Records / Young Recordings
28 August 2026
Tracklist:
1. Echos
2. I Just Play A Part
3. Crossfade (feat. DJ Creole Princess, Westside Gunn, Joi)
4. Witch Doctor
5. Valentine (feat. DRAM)
6. Next 2 U
7. Love Me Not
8. Breezy
9. Abracadabra
10. To The Moon (Plan C) (feat. Steve Lacy)
11. They Ain’t You (feat. Thundercat)
12. What The People Say (Apostle 1)
13. Hot BiBi (Apostle 2)
14. No I.D. (feat. Westside Gunn)
15. I Know That Man (feat. Earl Sweatshirt)
16. Black Box (feat. Kamasi Washington)
In the eleven years since her last project and sixteen since her last official studio album, Erykah Badu has gathered not conclusions but a series of existential insights via a whirlwind of touring, teaching, motherhood, doula work, and the kind of deep reflection made possible by living and raising children in a rapidly changing world. Her cultural influence has only expanded in that time; a five-time GRAMMY winner with 20 nominations, Badu graced the cover of Vogue in 2023, received the CFDA Fashion Icon Award in 2024 and Billboard’s Icon Award in 2025, while continuing to collaborate across generations with artists including Janelle Monáe, Tyler, the Creator, Flying Lotus, Robert Glasper, Teyana Taylor and Rapsody. Meanwhile, The Alchemist has remained one of hip-hop’s most prolific producers, releasing multiple projects a year, from Spiral Staircases to Life Is Beautiful, LIQUID FORM to Bread and most recently Alfredo 2 with Freddie Gibbs, the sequel to their Grammy-nominated 2020 album Alfredo.
Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment exists in the tension between introspection and growth. Abi is Badu. Alan is The Alchemist. The record finds Badu contemplating which parts of ourselves and our stories – love, innocence, dreams, memories, womanhood – are worth protecting before the world breaks and fragments. Meditative and fluid, the album unfolds in four movements, charting the progression of self through the prisms of love, art, and identity, inviting us to sit with difficult feelings. Passion blurs with desire, hope with grief, each song revealing another illuminating facet of the inner Baduverse.
The Abi and Alan Experiment began more than three years ago after Badu told her longtime creative partner Cold Cris that she had always wanted to rap over Mobb Deep’s “The Realest,” a gritty, pounding Alchemist production. The Alchemist – who had quietly been hoping to work with Badu for years – was introduced soon after, and their conversations grew into a full-fledged collaborative project. The duo’s first studio session together in Los Angeles yielded the previously released “Next to You”, laying the foundation for what would become an entirely new sonic language. The Alchemist sent Erykah Badu a collection of instrumental beats, which she deconstructed and sculpted into tracks that felt uniquely hers, embellishing his warm, punchy samples with instruments from soft kalimba notes to immersive chords and drums. The result moves fluidly between soul, blues, funk, rock, jazz, and underground hip-hop, yet belongs entirely to none of them. From 2024 to 2025, Abi and Alan road-tested the entire album live, performing in intimate, phone-free settings with Badu’s digital collective, The Cannabinoids, and The Alchemist on the MPC, fine-tuning the tracks along the way. The result is one of the most forward-thinking bodies of work of either artist’s career: a record that will live, love, and evolve with you through space and time. It invites you to keep exploring yourself, to have one more kiss, one more hit, one more dance, one more joke, all before the world blows.
Erykah Badu and The Alchemist continue to tour North America, UK, and Europe over the coming months, with a recently announced joint tour across the US. Full tour dates are below. Head to erykahbadu.com to buy tickets.
Sep 10, 2026 – Highland Park, IL – Ravinia Festival
Sep 11, 2026 – Sterling Heights, MI – Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre
Sep 13, 2026 – Toronto, ON – RBC Amphitheatre
Sep 15, 2026 – Cleveland, OH – Jacobs Pavilion
Sep 17, 2026 – Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun Arena
Sep 18, 2026 – Forest Hills, NY – Forest Hills Stadium
Sep 20, 2026 – Washington, D.C. – Wolf Trap
Sep 22, 2026 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater
Sep 24, 2026 – Denver, CO – Fillmore Auditorium
Sep 26, 2026 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
Sep 27, 2026 – Berkeley, CA – Greek Theatre
Sep 28, 2026 – Highland, CA – Yaamava Theater
Sep 29, 2026 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl
Featured Image Photo Credit: Erykah Badu and The Alchemist by Adraint Bereal
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