Long time collaborators Madlib and MF Doom of Madvillain fame have hooked up again to bring us Knock Knock. Surprising everyone with only a few hours notice, the track dropped earlier today and is a preview track for the soon-to-be released Bad Neighbor. Not quite a Madvillain track though, MF Doom is only featuring on a larger collab between M.E.D, Blu and Madlib. With a distinctly Los Angeles flavour the track opens with Doom’s verse, and if that is anything to go by, the record is going to be scorching.
With a star studded cast of features, Bad Neighbor is set to include contributions from Hodgy Beats, DâM-FunK, Oh No, Aloe Blacc, Mayer Hawthorne, and Phonte, amongst others. In an interview with Rolling Stone M.E.D and Blu discuss the upcoming record, the origins of the collaboration, and how they managed to get some of the featured artists. Most interestingly though is M.E.D’s explanation of the wait between records for he, Blu and Madlib. It gives a little bit of insight into the improvisational nature of these collaborations and the work that is put in over time to craft such dynamite singles.
From Rolling Stone:
You know when you’re dealing with Madlib, he’s such a creative cat. He has so many projects going on at once. Me and Blu actually recorded about 30 songs. We’re going to possibly manage to do something with some of the other leftover joints. Madlib always figures out things to do with songs and stuff.
Med also enlightens us on the crafty nature of Blu in managing to entice AMG:
Blu got collab-happy, man. I ain’t gonna lie. He told me, “I got AMG.” And I was, like, “Bitch Betta Have My Money AMG?” And he was, like, “Yo, he’s trying to charge a crazy number.” And I was like, “We don’t got that in the budget.” Somehow Blu pulled it through
The album Bad Neighbor is out October 30th via BangYaHead! and is available for pre-order here.
You can stream Knock Knock here, or check out the video below for MF Doom’s verse and a clever animation.