Yasiin Bey & Talib Kweli Announce Black Star Album Release Date

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Mos Def and Talib Kweli of Black Star backstage during the 2012 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on June 8, 2012 in Manchester, Tennessee.
Black Star's "No Fear Of Time" has an official release date.

The wait is almost over for a new album from Black Star. It's been two decades since Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli came through with their debut album as Black Star. Fans demanded a sequel for years, though it seemed that it was unlikely to occur at one point. However, there's been chatter since 2018 that they'd finally emerge with a second Black Star album, and today, they've unveiled an official release date.

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Bey and Kweli announced No Fear Of Time earlier today, along with a May 3rd release date for the project. Neither party have unveiled details about what we could expect from the project or who might appear on the tracklist but we do know that it'll be produced entirely by Madlib. No Fear Of Time will drop through the Luminary podcast network, which Bey and Kweli have worked closely with on the Midnight Miracle podcast alongside Dave Chappelle.

"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. 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," Kweli said in a statement. "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.”



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Aron A. is a features editor for HotNewHipHop. Beginning his tenure at HotNewHipHop in July 2017, he has comprehensively documented the biggest stories in the culture over the past few years. Throughout his time, Aron’s helped introduce a number of buzzing up-and-coming artists to our audience, identifying regional trends and highlighting hip-hop from across the globe. As a Canadian-based music journalist, he has also made a concerted effort to put spotlights on artists hailing from North of the border as part of Rise & Grind, the weekly interview series that he created and launched in 2021. Aron also broke a number of stories through his extensive interviews with beloved figures in the culture. These include industry vets (Quality Control co-founder Kevin "Coach K" Lee, Wayno Clark), definitive producers (DJ Paul, Hit-Boy, Zaytoven), cultural disruptors (Soulja Boy), lyrical heavyweights (Pusha T, Styles P, Danny Brown), cultural pioneers (Dapper Dan, Big Daddy Kane), and the next generation of stars (Lil Durk, Latto, Fivio Foreign, Denzel Curry). Aron also penned cover stories with the likes of Rick Ross, Central Cee, Moneybagg Yo, Vince Staples, and Bobby Shmurda.
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