New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War

soul r&b funk neo-soul psychedelic soul conscious hip hop texas

V.I.P.

Recorded

2008

Released

2007

Even with so many notable collaborators — Madlib, Omar Rodríguez-López, Sa-Ra, Georgia Anne Muldrow, a whole nebula of Soulquarians — Badu’s greatest album in a career filled with them still feels like a powerful auteur statement. This is where what feels like her bohemian-cool neo-soul assurance fully displays itself as the product of a lot of navigated anxiety and meditative strength. And it also happens to be the funkiest record of the whole decade, from the Blaxplendence of the opening “Amerykah Promise” to the closing lover’s euphoria “Honey."

Nate Patrin