Yasiin Bey (previously known as Mos Def) and Talib Kweli’s Black Star have released their first album since ‘Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star’ in 1998.
The Madlib-produced ‘No Fear Of Time,’ which was announced last month, is now available. It’s only accessible to listen to on the podcast app Luminary, which also features the duo’s podcasts People’s Party With Talib Kweli and The Midnight Miracle, with comedian Dave Chappelle co-hosting the latter.
The duo explained that ‘No Fear Of Time’ was recorded in a variety of locales, including hotels and dressing rooms, but never in a recording studio, when they unveiled the album last month.
While the album is locked behind a paywall on the app, the pair has made one of the album’s tracks – opener ‘o.G.’ – available for free on YouTube with a lyric video. You can listen to ‘No Fear Of Time’ below, and if you’re a Luminary subscription, you can listen to it here.
“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 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.”
Kewli continued: “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.”
Bey added: “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.”
In addition, a new episode of The Midnight Miracle titled ‘Bugs Bunny Mathematicx’ acts as “audio liners notes to introduce the album,” delving deeper into how the two collaborated for the first time in almost two decades.