Erykah Badu and The Alchemist have released Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment, the joint album they first confirmed was coming in March 2025. The 16-track record came out on August 28 through Control FREAQ Records and Young Recordings.
The partnership started when Badu told a longtime collaborator she had always wanted to rap over Mobb Deep's "The Realest", a track The Alchemist produced. An introduction followed, and he sent her a batch of instrumentals. She did not simply sing over them. Badu took the beats apart and rebuilt them, adding kalimba, chords and live drums until the music carried her own mark, which is where the Abi and Alan framing in the title comes from. Both are credited as producers.
Recording ran about 18 months and moved between Dallas and Los Angeles. The pair also road-tested the material live between 2024 and 2025, playing phone-free rooms with Badu's collective The Cannabinoids while The Alchemist worked an MPC, and reshaped the songs from what those shows taught them. The finished album is arranged in four movements rather than as a run of unrelated tracks.
The guest list runs wide. Westside Gunn appears twice, on "Crossfade" alongside DJ Creole Princess and Joi, and again on "No I.D."; DRAM sings on "Valentine"; Steve Lacy takes "To the Moon (Plan C)"; Thundercat is on "They Ain't You"; Earl Sweatshirt joins the gospel-leaning "I Know That Man"; and Kamasi Washington closes the record on "Black Box". Writing for SoulBounce, D-Money singled out "Crossfade" as possibly one of the best songs in Badu's catalogue.
The rollout was built around a puzzle rather than a single. Posters reading "One More Song..." appeared in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Paris and New York, each carrying a code that led to a placeholder site where fans who solved the clues unlocked the album's title. That trail later turned into a phone number offering a video call with Badu before release day.
The album lands 16 years after Badu's last studio record, New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh), and 11 years after her 2015 mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone. During the gap she stayed visible outside music, taking the CFDA Fashion Icon Award in 2024 and Billboard's Icon Award in 2025. The Alchemist, meanwhile, has kept up one of the heaviest release schedules in hip-hop production.
Release day also brought the video for "Witch Doctor", directed by and starring Badu, which returns to the same stretch of road she walked in her 2010 short film "Window Seat". The album follows the Witch Doctor single and the details the pair laid out earlier, and now sits on the release calendar alongside the rest of the week's rnb and soul releases.
The facts
- Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment runs 16 tracks
- It came out August 28 via Control FREAQ Records and Young Recordings
- The pair recorded for about 18 months between Dallas and Los Angeles
- Badu rebuilt The Alchemist's beats with kalimba, chords and live drums
- Guests include Steve Lacy, Earl Sweatshirt, Thundercat and Kamasi Washington
- It is Badu's first studio album since 2010's New Amerykah Part Two
- Posters reading One More Song appeared in Sydney, London, Paris and New York
- The Witch Doctor video was directed by and stars Badu
How this checks out
Confirmed
Reported by 5 independent outlets
Independent outlets reported it separately, enough to treat it as confirmed.
Cited sources 5
Every outlet that reported this, linked to what it published. Equal credits, in alphabetical order.