Some collaborations make perfect sense the second they’re announced. Others make you stop for a second, tilt your head and wonder exactly what kind of beautiful musical experiment is about to crawl out of the laboratory. Erykah Badu and The Alchemist definitely fall into the second category, and after more than a year of teasing their joint project, we finally know when we’re going to hear the whole thing.
The pair’s long-awaited collaborative album is scheduled for August 28, following roughly 18 months of recording between Dallas and Los Angeles. Along with the release-date announcement comes a new track, “Witch Doctor,” following last year’s “Next to You” and giving us another glimpse into a partnership that, on paper, sounds unusual enough to be fascinating. Considering these are two artists who have built careers by routinely ignoring whatever everyone else is doing, conventional was probably never going to be an option anyway.
There is one small mystery remaining: what the hell is this thing actually called? The Alchemist previously referred to the project as Abi & Alan, but the latest announcement doesn’t appear to commit to that title. Even the project’s Bandcamp listing reportedly acknowledges that an album title hasn’t been settled. Apparently making the music was easier than naming it. Anyone who has ever spent three weeks arguing over the name of a group chat can sympathize.
Erykah Badu Has Been Doing Things Her Own Way for Nearly 30 Years
It’s easy to reduce Erykah Badu to the phrase “Queen of Neo-Soul,” but that description doesn’t really capture how strange, adventurous and influential her career has been. When Baduizm arrived in 1997, mainstream R&B suddenly had this unmistakable voice floating through jazz, soul, hip-hop and funk without sounding particularly concerned about where radio programmers wanted to categorize it.
The industry noticed immediately. Badu has earned four Grammy Awards, including Best R&B Album for Baduizm and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for “On & On.” Her 2000 album Mama’s Gun became another cornerstone of the neo-soul movement, while “Bag Lady” became her first song to reach the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Grammy nominations of its own.
And Badu’s career has never stayed confined to the recording studio. She’s acted in films and television, collaborated across genres, advocated for Black culture and artistic independence, and become one of those rare performers whose influence extends far beyond record sales. She has spent decades championing creativity, individuality, dancers, musicians and artists who don’t necessarily fit comfortably into whatever box the entertainment industry has prepared for them.
That’s probably one reason this collaboration makes so much sense. Badu doesn’t sound like anybody else, and The Alchemist doesn’t make beats that sound like they came from a committee meeting.
Put those two personalities together and things could get wonderfully strange.
Then There’s The Alchemist
Now we’re getting into my territory.
I’ve loved The Alchemist’s production style for years. There’s something wonderfully grimy and cinematic about the way Alan Maman builds a beat. He can take a dusty sample, some drums that sound like they were recorded in a basement where several crimes may have occurred, and somehow turn the whole thing into hip-hop gold.
And yes, I also appreciate his appearances alongside Action Bronson on Fck, That’s Delicious*, because watching these guys travel around eating ridiculous food while talking nonsense is somehow exactly the television program humanity deserved.
But behind the personality is one of the most respected producers in modern hip-hop. The Alchemist has worked extensively with artists including Mobb Deep and Prodigy, Nas, Jadakiss, Action Bronson, Freddie Gibbs, Earl Sweatshirt, Westside Gunn, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne and an almost absurd list of others. His work with Freddie Gibbs on Alfredo earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, and he’s also been part of Album of the Year-nominated projects from Kendrick Lamar and Lil Wayne.
And there’s an important little hip-hop-history distinction worth making here. The Alchemist became deeply associated with Mobb Deep after their rise, producing and working with them extensively over the years, but their legendary 1995 album The Infamous was primarily built around Havoc’s production. Alchemist’s Mobb Deep credits would become substantial later, including work connected to Murda Muzik, Infamy, Amerikaz Nightmare, Blood Money and other projects.
That doesn’t change the larger point, though: if you’ve never seriously listened to Mobb Deep, fix that.
Put on The Infamous. Turn the volume up. Let Havoc and Prodigy drag you directly into Queensbridge for an hour. Then start digging through the later records and The Alchemist’s work with Prodigy and the group. You’re welcome. Your hip-hop soul needed the maintenance anyway.
“Witch Doctor” Gives Us Another Taste
The new song “Witch Doctor” continues to make this collaboration feel less like Badu singing over a collection of Alchemist beats and more like two musicians building something together. Badu and Alchemist reportedly co-produced the album, which immediately makes the project more interesting because this isn’t simply Producer A handing Vocalist B a folder containing twelve instrumentals.
They spent approximately 18 months working together in Dallas and Los Angeles, and that kind of extended collaboration gives artists room to actually develop a shared sound instead of manufacturing something because somebody’s management team thought their streaming audiences overlapped.
The album is expected to include “Next to You,” the track that first gave listeners a proper taste of what these two were building. Now “Witch Doctor” pushes the story forward, and on August 28 we’ll finally find out whether all that studio experimentation produced the wonderfully weird record it seems capable of becoming.
The pair will also head out on a North American tour together next month, which should give this music another life entirely. Badu’s performances have always had an improvisational, unpredictable quality to them, while The Alchemist has spent decades working in a genre built around manipulation, sampling and reinterpretation. There’s plenty of room for these songs to mutate once they reach the stage.
Two Artists Who Never Needed Permission
That’s really what excites me about this album.
Erykah Badu has never seemed particularly interested in making music because an algorithm determined that people between 25 and 44 respond positively to a certain drum pattern. The Alchemist has spent decades doing almost the exact opposite of chasing mainstream production trends. He’s become more respected by becoming more himself, not less.
That matters.
We’re living through an era where music can be polished, focus-grouped and optimized within an inch of its life. Sometimes you need two veteran artists to walk into a room, shut the door and make something because they think it sounds cool.
Maybe it becomes a masterpiece. Maybe it’s completely bizarre. Maybe we’re all sitting here three weeks after release trying to figure out what the hell we just listened to.
I’m comfortable with all three possibilities.
Because music is supposed to take chances.
And if Badu wants to get weird over an Alchemist beat, I’m showing up.
Erykah Badu’s Legacy Is Already Secure
Whether this album becomes another landmark in Badu’s career or simply an interesting detour, she has nothing left to prove. Her influence stretches across R&B, neo-soul, hip-hop, fashion, film and Black popular culture, and nearly three decades after Baduizm, artists are still borrowing pieces of the road she helped pave.
The same can increasingly be said about The Alchemist within hip-hop production. He currently has three Grammy nominations to his name, including recognition for his work connected to Freddie Gibbs’ Alfredo, Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers and Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III. Awards are nice, but his real trophy case is the number of elite rappers who continue calling him when they want something that sounds dangerous, dusty and unmistakably his.
So now these two musical oddballs have found each other.
August 28.
I’m ready.
And if you’ve somehow made it this far in life without properly exploring Badu, The Alchemist or Mobb Deep, you’ve got two weeks to do your homework.
There will be no excuses.
Find More Music With Static Live
While we’re waiting for Badu and The Alchemist to unleash whatever they’ve been cooking, the Static Live Music Calendar App continues helping fans find live music throughout Florida’s East Coast, including Daytona Beach, Ormond Beach, New Smyrna Beach, Flagler Beach and surrounding communities.
We’re working toward bringing the Static Live calendar into additional cities as we grow, because local music discovery shouldn’t require searching through 47 Facebook pages to figure out who’s playing three miles from your house tonight.
Download the Static Live Music Calendar App and keep following Static Live Magazine for new releases, tours, artists and the occasional reminder that some of the best music happens when two people who shouldn’t necessarily make sense together decide to make something anyway.
