More than a year ago, Erykah Badu and The Alchemist got us open with their joint single “Next To You” and the news that they had a collaborative album on the way. They also announced a release date for last August that came and went with little to no acknowledgment from either party. It seems that they decided to put in more work to perfect the project, as the talented twosome is now set to release the effort later this month before embarking on their Erykah Badu + The Alchemist Present: Live Tour in September. But first, they cast their spell on us with their new single “Witch Doctor.”
The song actually delivers what you’d expect from Erykah and Alchemist. The instrumentation feels lo-fi and jazzy, with warm, looped keys wafting between subtle bass, a simple kick and snare and tribal-sounding drums. It gives Badu the space to speak on her witchy ways as she explains exactly how she casts her spell.
“I may intimidate you at first / But I come to stimulate your universe,” she sings on the opening verse. “Before it get good, it gon’ get worse / Good thing I know how to break that curse.” But this being Badu means that you’re also going to get something profound in the mix. This time it comes on the chorus, where she breaks down exactly what a witch is, singing, “Cause a witch is just a medium / And a medium like the media / And you eat it up, what they feedin’ you / That’s witchcraft, that’s witchcraft."
Halfway through the song’s six-and-a-half-minute runtime, the singing stops, and the instrumental takes over, with the previously mentioned tribal drums taking center stage. Accompanying them are floating notes, distorted vocals and other found sounds as “Witch Doctor” draws us in further before a quiet release.
Erykah Badu and The Alchemist haven’t officially revealed their album’s title yet, though they are giving fans a chance to decipher the code on the project’s artwork to reveal it via their website B-T-W-B.com. (We may have already cracked it, but we want to give others the chance to discover it for themselves.) In any order, the set can be pre-ordered/pre-saved now and will be released on Friday, August 28th. View the album’s artwork below.
