After toiling long and hard in her home studio in Dallas, Erykah Badu is nearing the end of the road on her new album.

Badu is expected to deliver the follow-up to her 1997 breakthrough smash "Baduizm" on September 19 when her new album, tentatively titled "The New Du," hits stores.

While the album has been a long time coming, the singer has hardly been keeping a low profile. Badu turned up on the big screen in the Oscar-nominated "The Cider House Rules" and in the somewhat less critically acclaimed "Blues Brothers 2000." Musically, she has also turned up on tracks from Outkast, The Roots, and Rahzel, and in the video for Common's current single, "The Light.

In addition to those projects, Badu has also been busy with motherhood after giving birth to a son in 1998. Last fall, Badu had hoped to have the LP ready for a spring release, but she noted that she was taking her time with the album (see [article id="1425306"]"Erykah Badu On Finding

The Words For Next Album"[/article]).