Sixteen years after her last studio album, Erykah Badu is back. And she is not coming alone. The queen of neo-soul has formally announced a full collaborative project with hip-hop production architect The Alchemist, arriving digitally on 28 August via Control FREAQ Records and Young Recordings.
The album, cheekily listed on streaming platforms as Sorry, we don't have an album title yet, was co-produced and recorded across 18 months in Dallas and Los Angeles. Its existence has been an open secret since spring 2025, when the pair released the single "Next to You" and began road-testing material at intimate, phone-free shows with Badu's digital collective, The Cannabinoids.
The announcement comes paired with a new single, "Witch Doctor," a six-and-a-half-minute meditation that finds Badu weaving through Alchemist's soulful, percussive production. "Cause a witch is just a medium / And a medium like the media / And you eat it up, what they feeding you / That's witchcraft," she declares, name-checking Hermione, Elphaba, Glinda, Ursula, Sabrina, and Stevie Nicks in a single breath.
The collaboration's origin story is almost mythic. Badu told her longtime creative partner Cold Cris that she had always wanted to rap over Alchemist's beat for Mobb Deep's "The Realest." An introduction followed, conversations turned to recording, and their first Los Angeles session produced "Next to You." Alchemist supplied instrumental foundations that Badu then transformed, layering her own instrumentation across a palette that moves through soul, blues, funk, rock, jazz, and underground hip-hop.
A 17-track tracklist has appeared on digital platforms, though only two song titles are visible: "Next to You" and "Witch Doctor." The rest are simply numbered placeholders, keeping the mystery alive.
Badu's return is significant. Her last studio album, New Amerykah Part Two, arrived in 2010. Since then, she has released mixtapes and one-off singles but held back from a full-length project, making this Alchemist partnership her most substantial musical statement in over a decade and a half.
The duo will support the release with a North American tour this September, joined by De La Soul. Dates include stops at Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Forest Hills Stadium in New York, the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, and a closing night at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
