Around this time last year, Daniel Radcliffe was a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and he performed an impressively competent cover of “Alphabet Aerobics” by Blackalicious. That accomplished three things: It gave Fallon a hit viral video (it’s accumulated over 47 million views), it drew interest around Radcliffe’s film Horns, and it introduced Blackalicious to a whole new audience.
The only bummer there was that the Sacramento hip-hop duo–rapper Gift of Gab and producer Chief Xcel–hadn’t had a new album since 2005’s The Craft. Finding out about an exciting new artist only to realize they aren’t exactly active anymore, in terms of recorded output, can be a drag, but great news: Blackalicious is set to release their fourth album, Imani Vol. 1, tomorrow (September 18).
Even greater news, at least for us: we have the privilege of debuting a brand new song from that album, so check out the video for “The Blowup” above.
The clip was created by AnimalRobot, who also made, among other fantastic things, the Rick and Morty/Eminem mash-up video that made the rounds a few months ago. This time, George Clooney is involved: Blackalicious’ track, which sounds refreshingly old-school with its main piano melody and simple-but-dynamic production, is mashed-up with clips from Fantastic Mr. Fox. It turns out centered one-point perspective camera angles and one of rap’s most missed groups go together like Wes Anderson and quirky characters.
Imani Vol. 1, which the duo is self-releasing, is available for pre-order here, and you won’t have to wait too long after that to actually get your hands on it.
