Texas Music News — August 28, 2026
After 16 years, Erykah Badu finally has a new album out today. She made it with producer the Alchemist, and they call it Before the World Blows. The South Dallas native has released loose singles and one-off collaborations since 2010, but she never followed up with another full album, until now. The 16-track record pairs Badu’s smoky voice and the Alchemist’s dusty, sample-heavy production. Still, it sounds unlike anything either artist has made before.
Badu grew up surrounded by gospel and jazz in South Dallas. She got her start singing as a teenager at Dallas’s Black Forest Theatre. She also debuted two songs from the album, “Next to You” and “Echos 19,” at her Juneteenth show in Dallas this year.
The Alchemist has produced for Mobb Deep and Freddie Gibbs, among many others. Yet he’d never worked with Erykah Badu before this project. The two met after Badu said she’d always wanted to rap over a classic Alchemist-produced track. After they connected, those conversations turned into a full album.
Erykah Badu Finds a New Sound in South Dallas
Before the World Blows drifts like incense smoke through a shotgun house — hazy, unhurried, and impossible to pin down. The tracklist features Steve Lacy, Thundercat, Earl Sweatshirt, Kamasi Washington, and Westside Gunn. Then Earl Sweatshirt opens the gospel-tinged single “I Know That Man” with one of the album’s sharpest verses.
One reviewer called the record “a psychedelic, spiritual trip through the weird little corners of our own minds.” Sixteen years is a long wait, but Before the World Blows makes it sound like Badu never left.
Details at Ratings Game Music.
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