Erykah Badu new album update: Music legend reveals first album in 15 years

American singer and songwriter Erykah Badu has never stopped performing her music around the globe but it is 15 years since her last album was recorded. But that long wait will soon come to an end.

The 54-year-old neo-soul legend has revealed she’s been busy working on her follow-up to 2010's New Amerykah Part II: Return of the Ankh, which will be produced by Eminem and The Alchemist, who is Kendrick Lamar's producer.

The On and On hitmaker explained that she views herself as a "performance artist", opposed to a "recording artist" and focusing on her live shows is why there has been a considerable gap between her albums.

She told Billboard: "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 theatre.”

Performing for fans is like “therapy” for Badu.

She continued: “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.”

The superstar also described to Billboard how she grew up in a house full of music lovers. She said: “There were records from wall to wall, a radio in the bathroom that was on the local FM soul station.

“My uncles would be in the back listening to funk. They were into Bootsy [Collins] and George Duke and Stanley Clarke. My mother was more into the sirens — the Chaka Khans, the Phoebe Snows, the Deniece Williamses, The Emotions. My uncle, who’s a rebel, was into Prince and Pink Floyd and Three Dog Night. I had a variety to pull from.”

Last year, Badu made a guest appearance on Jamie xx's track 'F.U.' on the deluxe vinyl edition of his LP 'In Waves'.

In 2022, she featured on BTS star RM's debut solo album 'Indigo' on the opening track, 'Yun'.