Hip hop duo Black Star (Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli) have announced details of their first album in almost 24 years, ‘No Fear Of Time’.
The pair announced the new record, which has been produced by Madlib, on Friday (April 8). It was recorded in various locations from hotel rooms to dressing rooms, but never in an actual recording studio.
Arriving on May 3, it’ll mark the follow-up to their 1998 debut ‘Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star’, but will only be available on the podcast app, Luminary. The platform is already home to two podcasts they’re part of, People’s Party with Talib Kweli and The Midnight Miracle with Dave Chappelle. They debuted a new Black Star track on the latter podcast last year.
Check out the album trailer below:
“About 3-4 years ago I was visiting Yasiin in Europe and we started to talk about songs to do on an album, so I flew an engineer out just to see what that would be,” Kweli said in a press statement.
“Once I realized this conversation is starting to organically become a creative conversation, I started making sure to have the engineer around at all times. There was one day we were just in a hotel listening to Madlib beats, and he’s like, ‘Play that Madlib tape again.’ I’m playing the beats and he starts doing rhymes to the beats. And that’s how we did the first song.”
“This is very similar to how we did the first album. But the first album, there were no mobile studios. This entire album, we have not set foot in one recording studio. It’s all been done in hotel rooms and backstage at Dave Chappelle shows.”
Discussing pressure to release the record on Kweli’s podcast last year, Bey said: “when we ready with it, you’ll get it”. They also previously criticised “interlopers and culture vultures” for hindering the album’s release.
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