Tunde Adebimpe, the frontman of the critically acclaimed Brooklyn-based band TV On The Radio will be releasing his long-awaited, highly-anticipated solo debut Thee Black Boltz Friday (!) through Sub Pop Records.
The Adebimpe and Wilder Zoby co-produced album features additional production and contributions from TV On The Radio’s Jaleel Bunton and Japhet Landis and more. The album’s material will not only showcase Adebimpe imitable voice and visionary soundscapes, but is a nod to his propensity to write and sing about the human condition — in all its form, under all its stressor, both big and small.
Thee Black Boltz isn’t a TV On The Radio album. But for Adebimpe, in a lot of ways, the excitement of doing something on his own for the first time ignited a similar creative spark as during the early TVOTR days. The songwriting process is the same, he says, but with his bandmates, Adebimpe always knew that have didn’t have to complete his musical ideas. “I’ve been doing this thing with this group of people for so long, that I can just have a vague sketch of a concept and I know Jaleel or Kyp will have five brilliant ideas on where it can go,” he says. “But for Thee Black Boltz, I didn’t have that scaffolding to hang on. That was both terrifying and exhilarating.”
The album’s title is Adebimpe’s response to the macro unease of a post-pandemic world careening towards violent authoritarianism and the immense grief that has come from deeply personal losses, specifically the sudden passing of his younger sister while making it. In many ways, Thee Black Boltz is the TVOTR frontman’s desperate grasping of small moments of joy amidst the dissonance, chaos and sadness in any way he could. And understandably, the album was a way of processing everything in his life. “It was my way of building a rock or a platform for myself in the middle of this fucking ocean,” he says.
As he writes in his notebook, “The sparks of inspiration/motivation / hope that flash up in the midst of (and sometimes as a result of) deep grief, depression or despair. Sort of like electrons building up in storm clouds clashing until they fire off lightning and illuminate a way out, if only for a second.”
“Also,” he adds. “it’s a good name for a cool metal band, and I think that most people would describe me as akin to a very cool metal band.”
Earlier this year, I wrote about the Jahpet Landis-produced “Drop,” a meditative and deeply introspective song featuring looped beatboxing, shimmering and strummed bursts of guitar, whistling and skittering beats serving as a dreamy and subtly uneasy bed for Adebimpe’s plaintive delivery questioning the purpose of it all, when things seem so brutally nonsensical.
Thee Black Boltz‘s fourth and latest single “Somebody New” is a dance floor friendly synth-driven bop that recalls 80s synth pop — i.e., Nu Shooz “I Can’t Wait,” Depeche Mode‘s “I Can’t Get Enough,” Yaz‘s “Situation” and the like — but while rooted in modern thematic concerns.
The Adebimpe-directed video for “Somebody New” is a feverishly trippy and surreal bit of time travel back to the days of Soul Train and American Bandstand as we see the TVOTR frontman performing the song in a crowded room of beautiful young people dancing — and a glammed out Gritty-styled puppet.
“I’m positive I fell asleep on a couch with the TV on sometime in 1982 and fever dreamt this exact thing,” Adebimpe says of the new video.
Thee Black Boltz is available for pre-order HERE.
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