Q-Tip Says His New Solo Album, 'The Last Zulu' is Coming Soon

Photo credit: Maxwell Benson

In 2014, Q-Tip announced that he signed with Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music label and was expected to release his third solo effort The Last Zulu. Four years later, still no album, but there's hope.

Over the weekend, the Abstract tweeted an update to fans, ensuring them that new music is coming very soon. Although he has not released any songs specifically connected to The Last Zulu, he did confirm in his tweet that the project is also known as “The Riot Diary.”

The proposed album will be Q-Tip's follow-up to his 2009 album Kamaal/The Abstract and will be his first full-length project in over a decade. With Teyana Taylor's upcoming album being the last of the Kanye West-produced G.O.O.D. Music projects, hopefully it means we'll get Tip's album sooner than later.

It hasn't been complete radio silence from Q-Tip. In 2016, the rap veteran reunited with the remaining members of A Tribe Called Quest and recorded We Got It from Here...Thank You 4 Your Service in honor of the late Phife Dawg, and produced on Solange's Grammy-nominated album A Seat At a Table.

The 48-year-old rhymer has joined NYU's Clive Davis Institute faculty as a professor of a course on the musical connections between jazz and hip-hop. Q-Tip will assist journalist and author Ashley Kahn on how two genres intersect with each other historically and culturally. The class will begin Sept. 5 and will take place on Wednesdays during the fall semester.

Q-Tip is also the artistic director of the Kennedy Center's Hip-Hop Culture Council and has been actively bringing hip-hop-related events to the institution. This week, the Kennedy Center will present screenings of the second season of Marvel's Luke Cage and Robert "Bobbito" Garcia's new documentary, Rock Rubber 45s.

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