Turnthony Sidetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Erykah Badu and The Alchemist album, Before the World Blows.

Yes, here on this record we have two legendary names coming together for a new collab. Producer extraordinaire Mr. Allen the Alchemist and Erykah Badu, both of whom are really at the whatever the hell you wanna do veteran status of their respective careers, but kind of got to that point along very different trajectories.

Al, having been a versatile non-stop workhorse since the 90s, not only on the MPC and the drum machine but the microphone too, and having worked with countless greats over the years and having a hand in many, many, many classic albums both old and new-ish.

These days, though, he is more prolific than ever and puts a lot of focus on this ongoing series of producer-artist records where he gets billing in the title of the album itself for bringing a whole slate of production for the record. Which brings us to Erykah, who is easily one of the most interesting and surprising names to turn up in this run of collaborations.

For anyone who doesn't already know, for some weird reason, she originally made a name for herself in the 90s and 2000s as a pioneering singer and lyricist with a very forward-thinking take on the soul genre. Fusing it with elements of funk, jazz, and hip-hop. Sometimes with a psychedelic twist as well. This, of course, led to classics such as Baduizm and Mama's Gun. And honestly, her whole catalog of studio albums is very solid, but more or less ceased as we entered into the 2010s.

However, slowing down with her output did not prevent her from reaching legend status, which she arguably was already at by 2010. But it is the case that over the past sixteen years, her older records have just aged better and better and better and better. And yes, it is true, she did have a mixtape back in 2015, but I more or less saw that project as a bit of a quirky, half-baked sort of detour. Nowhere near as substantive or as memorable as her core albums.

And I see Before the World Blows as a little bit of a return to that, at least in terms of the consistent vibes, but we'll get into that in a bit. First, what I want to say is this collab album has been in the works for about a minute now, with Alan and Erykah originally teasing this crossover way back in 2025. However, the rollout was kind of derailed because there was some kind of controversy around the fact that there were promo materials- visuals that were AI-generated attached to the whole thing.

Following that, there were months of silence. I don't know if that was connected to those events. But for a while, honestly, it felt like the project could have almost just been shelved. That is, until Alan and Erica started performing live, and we saw "Witch Doctor" drop as a single in 2026, with seemingly no AI art in the mix, and then, I guess, we were just kind of back on with an August release date. And the record is now finally here.

I think Alan and Erykah fall into a very sensible dynamic, with the former helping the latter plug into her former glory, with a series of groovy, meditative, jazzy, and gently trippy instrumentals.

Production and loose song structures that really allow Erykah to explore a lot of smooth vocal lines, pretty harmonies, and sometimes what feels like a lot of improvised lyrics. And while I do think the sounds and ideas are there for sure, rarely are they refined down for maximum impact and focus.

Even some tracks like "Next 2 U" run a little one-dimensional, with Alan's production being as repetitive as it is. But yeah, for the most part, this record kind of feels like the process of throwing whatever at the wall and seeing what sticks. And sure, thankfully, given how talented these two are, most of what is thrown does, in fact, stick. But it still doesn't keep this album from feeling like it's being gone about just a bit too casually at points.

Like with the opening track, which just cruises past seven minutes, with a lot of its runtime being eaten up by Erykah running through all of these different affirmations and grievances, that progressively lose more and more impact as the song continues.

Then the following "I Just Play A Part" I think falters more because of the structure and production. I mean, there are some amazing highs on this track, especially when you get all of these kind of trippy, intense layers of instrumentation and Erykah's vocals just soaring all over them.

But as far as the progression goes, the track feels like it's almost locked into this state of introduction that it never really quite moves past, or maybe even like a crescendo or a peak that there isn't that great of a lead-up to. And then suddenly the track transitions into like this weird electro passage with a very spacey, hollowed-out rap verse on top of it that is backed by some very weak drums.

Not only is the change just so random and doesn't really complement the song up until that point, but it's just not that great of a passage to begin with. And also, if we're going to get so many Westside Gunn ad-libs, could we at least not get like a sizable verse out of it or something? Because if he's just kind of orbiting around the track, I feel like his vocals just kind of serve as more of a distraction than anything.

After this, though, there are tracks like "Crossfade", as well as "Witch Doctor", which I do think hit a bit of a Goldilocks zone in terms of length, in terms of lyrical focus, in terms of having clearly defined hooks and choruses. Complimented by tasteful and subtle changes in Al's production.

Not only are these tracks bringing the vibe, but they are bringing the progression too. Tracks like these are exactly what I could have hoped for out of a project like this.

But rather than continuing to refine what they're doing as a duo, Erykah and Al start to work in some more features, like with DRAM on "Valentine". Which is one of several surprisingly good appearances on this record that I think add quite a bit to it. "Valentine" itself is a bit of a cautionary tale about how the romantic dynamic that you're in might shift in a way where you're getting the short end of the stick if you allow the person who you're with to treat you like crap or cheat on you. I think DRAM's voice, of course, provides a really great contrast to Erykah, and if anything, the song could have used another verse.

And the production on this track is awesome, too, with some intense, heavy, thick bass, wavy jazz instrumentation, and droning chords. It feels almost like I'm listening to a slow-mo P-funk song.

Then "To The Moon" with Steve Lacy is also an interesting cut. It's kind of a tale of two parts, with Steve and Erykah taking the lead in two very contrasting sections of the song, which plays to their strengths as vocalists, respectively, with the whole thing kind of circling back around to Erykah's part for a holistic finish. And again, another moment with some very standout and focused lyricism as Erykah describes what kind of comes across like the dreadful feeling of a relationship or a romance that you're in, maybe not panning out the way that you'd hoped, and you're kind of worrying about your aspirations here being dashed and the whole thing ending.

Then "They Ain't You" featuring Thundercat feels almost like a response to this track or an extension of it in a way, as this time Erykah is very much in pursuit in this romantic dynamic, insisting that the person she is singing about just isn't measuring up to other lovers, other companions, and the instrumental itself feels like it's in pursuit as well with this thumping baseline and glossy electric keys. It's kind of like it's sneaking about, tiptoeing its way to love.

The appearances continue but kind of peter out in quality as they go on. We have Westside Gunn again on the track "No I.D.," which most of the time he's just kind of providing a bunch of vocal clutter to this track. Not to mention the song itself is maybe the least interesting on the record, and is mostly Erykah kind of referencing the idea of getting a beat from No ID, but then kind of jumps to getting a beat from The Alchemist, and name-drops other legendary producers too, like Pete Rock. She is just kind of running through producers to work with. The track, vibe-wise, almost feels like a nightmare, but not much of anything is happening, scary or otherwise.

Earl Sweatshirt is also featured on the record as well, and of course, in typical Earl style these days, he sounds asleep at the wheel. Earl, too unbothered to do anything interesting once again.

"Black Box" featuring Kamasi Washington is pretty cool though, mostly for the futuristic slam poetry direction the track moves in. And while I did kind of get ahead of myself and skip a few tracks in the process of running down the major highlights here, I don't know, as many times as I've spun this record, I just don't find the sequencing that interesting. Or rather, I feel like you could mix the tracks on this record any number of ways and get mostly the same result.

In fact, what the people say, "Apostle 1" and "Hot BiBi (Apostle 2)" might do better with some space, especially given they mostly feel like the same song functioning on the same musical themes, but one features Erykah singing, and the other one features Erykah rapping. If they were literally going to be back-to-back, why not bring these different moments together and just make it a single song? Having these same musical ideas brought up at one point, maybe as an interlude, and then revisited in a totally different way later down the road in the track list would have made more sense.

But back-to-back, you just kind of feel like you get two one-dimensional songs that just take different vocal approaches one after the other. The track "Love Me Not", I feel like, continues a lot of the album's themes of romance in a very funny way at the kickoff, mind you, but then the way the track ends, it's like this really unflattering skit about getting a bikini wax, which I could take or leave.

I do, however, love the song "Breezy", though. That's a real highlight for me. It's like a bright, chipper piece of pop-soul, at least as pop-soul as Erykah gets anyway. But for the most part, that is before the world blows.

A record that, all things considered, is the perfect definition of it's okay. And again, I kind of bring the shortcomings of this record down to the fact that Alan's production chops are there, Erykah's vocal chops are there, and the trademark neo-psychedelic soul style was certainly worth chasing after, and has by no means aged badly or lost relevancy over the past 20 years. If anything, it's kind of coming back.

All of those boxes get checked here. What didn't actually happen was that the song ideas Erykah and Alan had were refined down to their best, most memorable, captivating, and alluring moments. So as a result, there are some tracks on this thing that feel underdeveloped. There are some that really drag on. There are a handful that find a middle ground between those two, and some tracks that are kind of made by their feature appearances as well.

It's not a fall from grace or a severe letdown by any means, but it's not really knocking it out of the park, either. Which is why I'm feeling a strong 6 on this thing.

Anthony Fantano, Erykah Badu, The Alchemist, forever.