Black Star has officially released their first studio album in almost 24 years, No Fear of Time.
Exclusively available on Luminary, the new project features production from Madlib and nine new tracks of yasiin bey and Talib Kweli, along with guest appearances from Yummy Bingham on the title track and Black Thought on the closer “Freequency.” bey previously shared in a statement, “What you will continue to get out of us is a sincere expression. It’s who we really are, what we’re really responding to, and what’s really important to us.” Kweli added, “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.”
Kweli also opened up about the creation of the album, which began when he and bey were in Europe a few years back. “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. 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,” he explained. “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.”
Stream Black Star’s “o.G.” on YouTube and check out the full No Fear of Time album on Luminary.
Elsewhere in music, Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers could be released as a double album.
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