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Erykah Badu x Alchemist: Before The World Blows. Contender for Album of the Year??

Music

Erykah Badu has been ill my entire life. From the time I watched the debut of her music video for “On and On” in total confusion as to what the lyrics meant, to hearing her onstage freestyle “Tyrone” become a radio hit, the world has had the privilege of watching an artist have the freedom to try everything musically, without fear or doubt. As a woman that is rare, and with every project comes a legion of fans, critics, and the mildly curious ready to step into her world.

Her new album Before The World Blows, a collaboration with legendary Hip-Hop producer The Alchemist (Mobb Deep, Jay Electronica, Jadakiss), dropped August 28th, 2026 and lists 10 tracks with some of the best sequencing on a hip-hop album I’ve heard in a long time. 

Artists who have been around a long time are often asked which new and ‘up and coming’ artists they co-sign. On Before The World Blows, Erykah and The Alchemist have nothing but fresh features from the industry’s most underrated talent. Features include; Earl Sweatshirt, Westside Gunn, DRAM, Steve Lacy, Thundercat, and Kamasi Washington. Track 2, “I Just Play a Part” features DJ Creole Princess, a rapper I hadn’t heard before but the way she slides on the beat change is a nice introduction.

If anything this album is Erykah Badu at her silliest. Badu has always been a sort of comedian lyrically, however this album is full of fun and fuckery. The end of Track 7. “Love Me Not” has what has to be one of the best skits in Hip-Hop, and by far the most relatable to every woman who’s laid on a table to get “smooth”. 

Before The World Blows is on the short list of Best Hip-Hop Album of 2026 but it has the makings of Album of The Year. Two legacy artists having a blast in the studio with each other, made an experimental jazzy, boom-bap album that no one else could. In an ideal world Before The World Blows gets the accolades that Jay Electronica and Jay-Z’ 2020 masterpiece, ‘A Written Testimony’ never received. That album also featured production by The Alchemist and had a similar psychedelic vibe.  



Check out “No I.D” (feat. Westside Gunn)