Erykah Badu and The Alchemist will put out their joint album on Friday, August 28, through Control FREAQ Records and Young Recordings. It runs 17 tracks and it still has no title: the Bandcamp listing reads "Sorry, we don't have an album title yet ...", which is the closest thing to a name anyone has. The two co-produced it over 18 months of sessions split between Dallas and Los Angeles, and released a single, Witch Doctor, with the announcement.
For Badu this is a long way back. Her last studio album, New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh), came out in 2010, and her last full project of any kind was the 2015 mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone. She spent the years since touring, teaching, raising children and working as a doula. The Alchemist went the other way, turning out records at a rate few producers in hip-hop match, most recently Alfredo 2 with Freddie Gibbs.
The collaboration started with a Mobb Deep beat. Badu told her longtime creative partner Cold Cris that she had always wanted to rap over The Realest, a track The Alchemist produced for the group's 1999 album Murda Muzik. He had wanted to work with her for years, introductions followed, and their first Los Angeles session became the earlier single Next To You. He then sent her instrumentals that she pulled apart and rebuilt, adding kalimba, chords and drums of her own.
They played the songs to people before anyone heard a recording, at intimate phone-free shows through 2024 and 2025 with Badu's collective The Cannabinoids and The Alchemist on the MPC. The album date sits with the rest of the month in the release calendar, and the pair have already put out Witch Doctor as a single. Its video is a 10 minute sequel to Badu's 2010 Window Seat film.
A North American tour runs through September, and a UK and European leg follows in the autumn, including two nights at the Blue Note club opening in London on 23 September. No tracklist has been published. Accounts differ over whether Next To You is on the record at all, and the count of 17 songs is the only firm detail about its shape.
The facts
- The joint album arrives August 28 via Control FREAQ Records and Young Recordings
- It runs 17 tracks and has no title; the Bandcamp listing says as much
- Badu and The Alchemist co-produced it over 18 months in Dallas and Los Angeles
- The lead single is Witch Doctor, released with a 10 minute video
- It is Badu's first studio album since New Amerykah Part Two in 2010
- Her last full project was the 2015 mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone
- The pair road-tested the songs at phone-free shows through 2024 and 2025
- A North American tour follows in September, with UK and European dates in autumn
How this checks out
Confirmed
Reported by 11 independent outlets
Independent outlets reported it separately, enough to treat it as confirmed.
One background citation is listed separately below. It fills in context and does not count toward corroboration.
Cited sources 11
Every outlet that reported this, linked to what it published. Equal credits, in alphabetical order.
Background 1
Context we looked up, with the source for each one. Nobody reported these as part of this story, so they count for nothing toward how well it checks out.
-
The Realest is a track on Murda Muzik, the 1999 Mobb Deep album, and The Alchemist produced it
Source Wikipedia