Erykah Badu, De La Soul and The Alchemist Team for September Tour

Erykah Badu’s “LIVE” tour with The Alchemist and De La Soul pairs neo-soul, hip-hop history and underground production on a September run scheduled to open Sept. 10, 2026, in Highland Park, Ill., and close Sept. 29 in Los Angeles. (Live Nation/313 Presents)

After spending last year revisiting "Mama’s Gun," Erykah Badu has announced "Live: A September Tour," a run that pairs her with De La Soul and The Alchemist — a bill that makes more sense the longer you sit with it.

The title may tug at anyone who remembers Badu’s 1997 live album, "Live," the record that gave "Tyrone" its permanent place in the R&B conversation. But this is not being billed as an anniversary tour. It reads more like Badu using the stage as the center of the story again.

That matters with this lineup.

The Alchemist is not just a left-field name on the poster. Badu and the Beverly Hills producer spent 2025 building toward "Abi & Alan," a collaborative project that has already produced the June 2025 single "Next to You" and remains a vital part of their shared orbit. His presence keeps this from becoming a clean nostalgia package. He brings the dust, the tension, and the kind of loops that make a room lean forward.

De La Soul brings a different kind of weight. The Long Island group is no longer just a beloved catalog act finally freed from streaming limbo. Last year’s "Cabin in the Sky" gave De La Soul a new chapter after the 2023 death of co-founder David "Trugoy the Dove" Jolicoeur, carrying grief, memory, and joy without turning the group into a museum piece.

That is where the bill gets interesting.

Badu’s catalog has always lived between soul, hip-hop, jazz, church smoke, and side-eye. "On & On" introduced her in 1997 as something more complicated than a standard R&B star. "Bag Lady" turned emotional baggage into a hook. "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip Hop)" made the connection plain for anybody who somehow missed it.

De La Soul helped build a version of rap that could be funny, strange, smart, wounded, soulful, and still fully hip-hop. The Alchemist has spent the modern era proving that a beat can still sound dangerous without raising its voice.

So no, this is not a random throwback package.

It is Badu, De La Soul, and The Alchemist standing in the same old conversation from three different corners: the singer who never separated soul from rap, the rap group that never separated jokes from depth, and the producer who still knows what to do with a dirty record.

The tour includes a Friday, Sept. 11, stop at the Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre in Sterling Heights, Michigan, according to venue promoter 313 Presents. The show begins at 8 p.m., with tickets scheduled to go on sale Friday, June 26, at 10 a.m. local time through BaduWorld.market.

Badu’s official calendar lists the run opening Sept. 10 at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois. It continues through Toronto; Cleveland; Uncasville, Connecticut; Forest Hills, New York; Washington; Indianapolis; Denver; San Diego; Berkeley, California; Highland, California; and Los Angeles.