Black Thought has teased new music with Madlib, revealing the producer has hooked up with him around 100 beats.
The Roots lyricist appeared on the latest episode of his bandmate Questlove‘s Questlove Supreme podcast that was released on Wednesday (December 20).
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During their almost two-hour-long conversation, Black Thought revealed that Madlib recently “bombarded” him a huge batch of beats.
“Sometimes I’m writing not to beats but it’s more exciting for me to write to beats,” he began. “I got a batch of joints from Madlib, for example. Like, maybe two to three weeks ago. He hit me, he was like, ‘Yo, Monday, I’ma start bombarding you with joints.’
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“Boom, Monday rolls around, he sends me like 100 beats. And then I got the beats, I narrowed it down to like 18 and I started vibing to those joints. But you know, it’s exciting now for me to come home and dig through that collection.”
The Philadelphia MC, who has released several critically acclaimed solo and collaborative projects in recent years, said he later flew to Los Angeles and spent time in the studio with the Beat Konducta.
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“We had a couple sessions in L.A. over the weekend,” he said. “I came back. So that’s what I’ve been chipping away at. I went to L.A. to do a book event at USC, but the studio is my church — that’s where I feel most at home.
“So if there’s any possibility for me to go and sit in a studio some place and hear music and chill and smoke and be social, whatever, whether I’m actively working on a thing or not, that’s what I’m gonna opt for.”
Black Thought is no stranger to Madlib beats. Last year, he traded bars with Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli on “Freequency” from the Black Star duo’s No Fear of Time album, which was soundtracked entirely by the enigmatic producer.
He also spit a verse on “Education” from Freddie Gibbs and Madlib’s 2019 Bandana collaboration, which also featured Yasiin Bey.
In addition to working on new music, Black Thought is currently busy promoting his debut book The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are, which hit shelves in November.
The book tells “the dramatic stories of the four powerful relationships that shaped him — with community, friends, art, and family — each a complex weave of love, discovery, trauma, and loss.”
