[Cover photo credit to Iliana Kanellopoulou]
London-based Grammy and MOBO nominated Jazztronica duo Blue Lab Beats have announced their long-awaited new album and full-length Blue Note Records debut Motherland Journey, out February 25th. The announcement comes with the album’s title track featuring Ghanaian producer KillBeatz and vocals of the late Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti.
The album has been years in the making, starting as over 70 demos and whittled down to the 17-tracks that remain. The LP includes several previously released singles including “Labels”, “Blow You Away (Delilah)”, and “Sensual Loving”.
There are many star-studded collaborative tracks on Motherland Journey, like the title track, co-written in Accra, Ghana with Ghanaian production talent KillBeatz.
Blue Lab Beats introduces the album:
“Motherland Journey is an extremely special album to us. This album took us two-and-a-half years to finish, our longest process to make an album, but it was so worth it. On this album you’ll hear many fusions of genres and inspirations that we gathered throughout that time frame and especially to work on so many of the songs during the first lockdown it was a test in itself. We had to figure out so many different ways to achieve what we exactly wanted sonically and having Blue Note to help us achieve that was an absolute blessing. Many of the vocal features and instrumentalists on this album are great friends of ours and it’s just so amazing to have family on this album.”
