Well, this is exciting. Erykah Badu is a treasure of American music, and she never goes away. Badu continues to give transcendent live shows and record occasional collaborations, though she doesn't really do that many of those. (Jamie xx's recent single "F.U.," billed as a collab, was really more a track built from a sample of Badu's stage patter.) Badu hasn't released a full-length from the intentionally minor 2015 mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone, and she hasn't dropped a proper album since the 2010 opus New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh). But Badu is apparently working on a new album right now, and she's doing it with the Alchemist!
For Billboard's annual Women In Music issue, the writer Damien Scott profiles Erykah Badu, and she reminisces on her early days -- growing up in Dallas, moving to Brooklyn, recording her classic 1997 debut Baduizm. Badu also talks about being much more interested in performing live than recording: "I tour eight months out of the year for the past 25 years. That’s what I do. I am a performance artist. 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."
Even if Badu isn't that into recording, she's doing it again right now. The profile includes the news that Badu is recording a new album and that it'll be produced solely by the Alchemist, someone who's been in the game even longer than Badu. Alchemist remains as busy as ever. He recently teamed up with 2 Chainz and Larry June on the collaborative album Life Is Beautiful, and he's lately been working on something called FORENSICS, a collaborative album with Badu's contemporary Yasiin Bey. Badu doesn't really say anything about the album in the Billboard piece -- just that she can't wait for it to be done. A few weeks ago, though, a teaser of a new song that seems to be called "Valentine" went up on Instagram, and it sounds really good.
Read the Billboard feature here.
