October 8, 2009


Bilal hasn't put out an official album since 2001's "1st Born Second," but fans can rest assured that new solo material is on the way. The R&B singer is almost done recording his next album, he tells Billboard.com, and it's slated for release in the first quarter of next year on the indie label Plug Research.

"I'm just excited to put out a new record without having to conform to major label standards," says Bilal. "Before there was always this pressure of, 'What's going to be the first single -- what are people going to get?' I never really saw making music like that."



Bilal -- who has stays mostly out of the public eye but made a recent surprise appearance on Maxwell's tour -- released "1st Born Second" on Interscope eight years ago. The album boasted production by Dr. Dre and J. Dilla and cameos by Mos Def and Common, and it sold 319,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

However, Bilal's label dropped him in 2003 and shelved "Love for Sale," the follow-up effort that he had convinced execs to let him self-produce. The project eventually leaked online and again earned acclaim, helping him secure live gigs and continue to grow his fanbase. He now describes the turn of events as a Catch-22.


"I was bummed out. I felt like I was under the bootleg plague for a minute," recalls Bilal, who stopped recording for over a year after the "Love for Sale" leak. "But then I started getting a lot of work…I wasn't making money from the album, but I was making money from the shows and people were responding to this new music. Everybody knew it word for word."


The response inspired Bilal to finally hit the studio again in early 2008 and start his next album, which he describes as "a progression of the music that was bootlegged.


"On 'Love for Sale' I was going for a raw, bluesy feeling because I was listening to a lot of Howlin' Wolf records," he says. "This time I've taken that and mixed it with jazz and rock inflections. This record is about me discovering Steely Dan, John Lennon, and Bobby Womack."

Nine of the 12 songs planned for the album are finished, and all are produced by Bilal with some help from Virginia producer Nottz (Kanye West, Snoop Dogg), and Sa-Ra member Shafiq Husayn, who worked on Erykah Badu's "New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War."


Among the standout tracks, Bilal says, are "Who Are You?" -- a seven-minute, Squarepusher-inspired opus on which he sings about horoscopes, religion and Egyptology -- and "Dollar," which he describes as an electronic blues track about the allure of money and drugs.


In addition to the new album, Bilal most recently lent his vocals to Husayn's own genre-bending solo debut on Plug Research, "Shafiq En' A-free-Ka," and jazz albums by Terence Blanchard and Robert Glasper. He also jumped onstage with rapper Common during the rapper's opening set for Maxwell's Sept. 28 show in New York, something that he plans to do again soon. "Initially it was just going be that one day, but the cats convinced me," he says. "I won't be out on the whole tour but I'll be out on some shows."

As for whether he's worried about his new album getting leaked before release, Bilal says he's changed his attitude. "I'm just trying to have that mentality like I don't really own this music," he explains. "It's just something that comes through me, so if things don't go my way, I still see the beauty in it."



http://www.billboard.com/...0271.story

GREAT NEWS!

But I learned how to take a good pinch of salt when it comes to these mofos,,,,,they talk a good game but when its time to release their projects *crickets*

...

Kool!!!




...