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Erykah Badu is back. The 54-year-old artist is returning with her first album in 15 years. The album will be entirely produced by The Alchemist, the producer behind most of your favorite rap music, including by artists like Mobb Deep, Kendrick Lamar, Earl Sweatshirt, and Nas.
It might be surprising to hear consider her near dominance of the neo-soul era but Badu has only made five studio albums, a mixtape and a live album in her entire career. But when those albums include Baduizm and Mama’s Gun, well, those are two of the reasons why she hasn’t had to make any more.
This year, she earned a Grammy for best melodic rap performance with Rapsody on the rapper’s song “3 A.M,” from her album, Please Don’t Cry.
Yet her insane touring schedule has also helped cement her connection to Hip-Hop and R&B fans. This year, she was honored with the Billboard Women In Music 2025 Icon Award. In a recent cover story, she told Billboard that she’s toured eight months out of the year for the last 25 years.
“I am a performance artist,” she says. “I am not a recording artist. I come from the theater. It’s the immediate reaction between you and the audience and the immediate feeling. The point where you become one living, breathing organism with people. That’s what I live for. It’s my therapy. And theirs, too. We’re in it together. And I like the idea that it happens only once.”
Badu and The Alchemist announced late last year that they were collaborating and they dropped an excerpt from a new track last month. But per Badu’s eclectic timing, there’s no stated release date or mention of who else might be on any features. What we do know is that The Alchemist is producing the entire project. Fans will just have to let them cook and serve up the finished meal when it’s ready.
“I want to focus, I want to be in the moment of the foreplay,” she said. “Creating the music. The tragedy. The love. The experience of the whole thing. Then I go somewhere else after this is done. This is a movie and the studio audience is cracking up and crying and sh-t…”
Badu fans are pretty hyped for new music, see the reactions below.