Rudy Love & The Encore have announced the upcoming release of their album 11, available exclusively on vinyl starting June 11th, 2025 as part of the Buy Before You Stream initiative. This model gives fans the chance to own a tangible piece of music ahead of its digital release on July 11th. The album’s lead single, “Burnin’“ is out now.

Buy Before You Stream, created by Midtopia, enables artists to sell vinyl editions of their albums directly to fans before they hit streaming platforms.
 
Frontman Rudy Love Jr. carries forward musical legacy as the son of Rudy Love Sr., a Soul singer, session musician, and songwriter whose work has been sampled and recorded by artists ranging from Jay-Z to Little Richard to Eric Clapton. The album 11 is “both a personal and artistic reckoning with that legacy—and a declaration of independence.”

Rudy Love Jr. says about the vinyl-first release plan:

I’ll never forget the first time I saw my family’s music on sale, and we didn’t even have a copy ourselves. It was a wake-up call about how the system works.

That kind of thing stays with you. It makes you realize how important it is to have control over your work, to own it, and to make sure you’re compensated fairly.