By Kyle Eustice for Rapstation.com
Kool Keith has announced his next album, Black Elvis 2, will arrive June 16 via Mello Music Group. The 16-track project includes a song called "The Formula" featuring Ice-T and Marc Live who happen to be members of The Analog Brothers. Needless to say, it's at least a partial reunion of the experimental Hip Hop group. Formed in 2000, the lineup initially consisted of Black Silver, Ice-T, Kool Keith, Marc Live and Pimp Rex. They released two early projects together, including 2000's Pimp To Eat.
As for Black Elvis 2, additional guests include Raaddrr Van, Dynamite, L’Orange, J. Stylez and Agallah. Speaking to RAPstation's Kyle Eustice in 2017, Kool Keith talked about why he keeps his collaborators limited.
“Features kill an album,” he said at the time. “I think an artist nowadays can’t hold an album by themselves. I was on the whole [Dr. Octagon] album, maybe [Sir] Menelik was on a couple tracks. Production was all Automator. It wasn’t two tracks from this person and two tracks from that person. Kool and the Gang was all Kool and the Gang. James Brown was all James Brown music. It wasn’t a feature over here and feature over there, and if there was a feature, it wasn’t a predictable one. Those are good things. Most commercial features are pretty much predictable. That’s cool once in awhile, but I think people get carried away with that stuff.”
Kool Keith has shared "Black Elvis 2 (Intro)" to coincide with the announcement. Preorders are available here. Listen to the track below.