Erykah Badu is back with The Alchemist on their collaborative effort, Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment. The mystical soul singer and boom-bap stalwart have been in each other’s orbit since 1997, when they shared space on the Smokin’ Grooves tour. They reconnected years later and spent 18 months making music expressing exhaustion with a world flimsy on spiritual insight.
Badu decided to use her middle name, Abi, as an avatar to share a more vulnerable space than the traditional Badu approach. She also wanted to do more than just sing on the album, taking on the duties of executive producer. They introduced their sound by dropping the percolating “Next 2 U,” built off of the same sample The Alchemist used for Mobb Deep’s “The Realest.” Thundercat, Steve Lacy, Kamasi Washington, DRAM, and DJ Creole Princess are some of the guests who dropped in and added to Badu’s current soul meditation.
The alluring “Witch Doctor” has Badu playing straight into the assumption that she owns a cauldron when she whispers about casting out mainstream media aspersions. She sets expectations on her first album in 11 years by opening up with “Echoes,” which calls out misogyny and announces her legacy but urges you to grab love while you can. It makes it clear that Before the World Blows is about a rotten zeitgeist.
However, no R&B album is truly itself without some talk of love, and “Valentine” featuring DRAM is a comical but honest take on a weak attempt at coupledom. Badu gets poetic on “Black Box” with stream-of-consciousness verses about Ozempic, Harriet Tubman, and Woodstock, amongst other things. Before the World Blows is moody and inspired, and Badu is fully self-possessed on the mic.
