Erykah Badu and The Alchemist have revealed full details of their joint album, Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment, out this Friday via Young/Control Freaq Records.
The co-produced project was recorded over 18 months between Dallas and Los Angeles. The Alchemist sent Badu a collection of instrumental beats, which she then deconstructed and reshaped, layering in kalimba, chords and drums until the tracks felt entirely her own.
Across 16 tracks, the album moves through soul, blues, funk, rock, jazz and underground hip-hop, unfolding in four movements that trace ideas of love, art and identity, and which parts of ourselves are worth protecting before everything breaks apart. The tracklist features DJ Creole Princess, Westside Gunn, Joi, DRAM, Steve Lacy, Thundercat, Earl Sweatshirt and Kamasi Washington.
The album was previewed by single ‘Witch Doctor’, alongside a cryptic marketing campaign that saw posters reading “One More Song…” appear in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Paris and New York, each carrying a code tied to a placeholder website. That campaign has now escalated into the “Badu Burner Phone”: by completing a series of challenges at b-t-w-b.com, fans can unlock a phone number offering a direct FaceTime or video call with Badu herself, ahead of the album’s release.
Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment tracklist:
- Echos
- I Just Play a Part
- Crossfade (feat. DJ Creole Princess, Westside Gunn, Joi)
- Witch Doctor
- Valentine (feat. DRAM)
- Next 2 U
- Love Me Not
- Breezy
- Abracadabra
- To the Moon (Plan C) (feat. Steve Lacy)
- They Ain’t You (feat. Thundercat)
- What the People Say (Apostle 1)
- Hot BiBi (Apostle 2)
- No I.D. (feat. Westside Gunn)
- I Know That Man (feat. Earl Sweatshirt)
- Black Box (feat. Kamasi Washington)
Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment is out this Friday.
