Black Star are back. One of the most respected duos in hip-hop have announced their first LP in 13 years, a mixtape inspired by Aretha Franklin. The group are currently on tour, with two new songs (Fix Up and You Already Knew) circulating online.
Back in 1998, Black Star released their one and only album, Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star. More than a decade later, Mos Def is no longer called Mos Def – he's now Yasiin Bey – but he and Kweli are making music again. The first new song dropped almost a year ago and didn't reappear until last month, when Black Star performed on US TV show The Colbert Report. The biggest surprise isn't that the track is produced by Madlib, or available on iTunes - but that it's a riff on a line by Dizzee Rascal. Fix Up opens with a quote from the east London rapper, entreating listeners to "Fix up, look sharp!"
Black Star released a second song, You Already Knew, last week. With that came the announcement it's "the first song off Black Star Aretha, the group's [forthcoming] tribute to the legendary singer". While there's no release date for the album, Kweli previously promised a Black Star record in 2012. "We are trying to find out the right mediums to get the songs out," he told MTV Hive. "We're really into a Madlib/Dilla thing right now. Anything you hear from us is probably going to be that type of sound."
