Before the World Blows isn’t just a superlative collaboration between two giants of hip-hop; it’s basically Erykah Badu’s first album in more than 15 years—a major milestone in one of the more casually impacting careers in pop. Neither artist has ever seemed inclined to work on other people’s clocks, instead letting their sizeable influence accrue while weaving in and out of the mainstream—a quality especially true of Alchemist, who in the mid-2000s might’ve been considered an interesting footnote to East Coast rap, but 10 years later was being revitalised as a go-to for gritty, underground torchbearers from Earl Sweatshirt to Westside Gunn. (Both share some spotlight here.) Slow and spacious as the music is, there’s a lot to hang on to here—if anything, Before…’s most outstanding quality is just how many sounds and ideas it manages to pack into a space that never feels too crowded or hurried: vocal hooks that drift in and out like voice notes, supple ’70s-style electric piano, basslines that carry real melodic weight, melting movie samples and plenty of live percussion. In some ways, the album plays like a summary of the sound both Badu and Al have been refining for 30 years now, blurring the line between hip-hop and R&B, seductive and sinister, the directness of street rap and cosmic settledness of new LA jazz. The guest list alone—Steve Lacy, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat—speaks to the music’s breadth. “Crossfade” is a highlight. Ditto “Love Me Not” (“Now in hindsight I think it happen kinda subtle/He only wanna fuck, but I really wanna cuddle”) and the stunning one-two of “I Know That Man” and “Black Box”, whose choir and saxophones—led by Washington—carry on regally into the mist.