Black Star, the 90's hip-hop duo consisting of Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli, have been announced to close this year's Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, on July 14th.
This is notable for a number of reasons, as according to HipHopDX, the festival will also include a panel discussion on "The Making of the Black Star Album," which will delve into the history and creation of the duo's debut album: Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, which will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
This performance and panel follows a series of announcements from Yasiin concerning the existence of a new Black Star album. Back in February, Mos Def took the stage at a Madlib DJ set, and announced that Black Star would be dropping an album exclusively produced by Madlib in 2018. Almost two weeks later, Yasiin appeared at yet another Madlib performance, and claimed that he had just recorded the first verse for the Black Star album, and proceeded to rap it for the fans in the crowd.
The person who has been remarkably quiet about this whole thing is Talib, who was just as surprised to hear about the announcement as the rest of the world was. He told HipHopDX after that, "It looks like it might happen. I found out on the internet the same way y’all did." He did seem on board with the project, adding, "It’s an idea we have been discussing for a long time, now we just gotta make it happen."
Hopefully there's some sort of official announcement during the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival in July.