Dave Chappelle Is Doing A Podcast With Yasiin Bey & Talib Kweli

Dave Chappelle Is Doing A Podcast With Yasiin Bey & Talib Kweli

More than 20 years ago, two promising Brooklyn-based rappers teamed up to make a classic album. Yasiin Bey (then known as Mos Def) and Talib Kweli were both building buzz as solo artists, but that went through the roof when they released Mos Def And Talib Kweli Are Black Star. The album launched both rappers to fame, and they continued to collaborate over the years. There’s been lots of talk of a follow-up Black Star album, but it probably won’t happen anytime soon. Last year, for instance, Kweli said that he and Bey had recorded a Madlib-produced album but that it would never come out: “Maybe y’all will get to hear this album after I’m gone.” But Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli are teaming up for a new project. It’s just not an album. Instead, it’s a podcast with Dave Chappelle.

Yesterday, Chappelle, the comedy legend who definitely did not get COVID from Grimes, announced that he’d worked with his two old friends on a new show called The Midnight Miracle, which will launch soon on the subscription podcast network Luminary. The podcasts have already been recorded; Chappelle taped them during his in-person “Summer Camp” series last summer. A press release promises “guests from among the country’s most influential cultural icons.” (Plenty of influential cultural icons showed up for those Summer Camp shows, including Common, Erykah Badu, ?uestlove, Tiffany Haddish, Michael Che, and Jon Hamm.)

Kweli has podcast experience; he’s been hosting the interview show The People’s Party since 2019. (Kweli was also suspended from Twitter for harassing a student activist last year.) Chappelle and Bey, on the other hand, are new to the medium. In a statement, Chappelle says, “Making a podcast isn’t the obvious next move for me, but it’s the right one. The Midnight Miracle gives you a look into how me and my friends process the world around us, and I think it will change the way listeners think of what a podcast can be.”

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