Erykah Badu's first full-length in sixteen years arrives as a two-hander with The Alchemist, built over eighteen months of sessions in Dallas and Los Angeles. Abi is Badu, Alan is Al, and the experiment is what happens when her kalimba-and-keys instincts meet his dusty loop science. Sixteen tracks drift between soul, blues, funk and underground hip-hop, with Westside Gunn, Steve Lacy, Thundercat, Earl Sweatshirt and Kamasi Washington dropping in. Road-tested live in phone-free rooms before release, it delivers what the singles "Witch Doctor" and "Next 2 U" promised: hypnotic, funny, blunt and deeply personal.