After a six year hiatus, the musical duo of Doseone and Jel will soon return to being Themselves…and busy themsleves at that. Come next week, the acclaimed hip-hop will officially kick off a year that currently includes plans for a new studio album, mixtape, and slew of high-profile tour dates.
The Oakland natives’ return will be highlighted by the release of a their first studio effort in nearly seven years and third overall in August. Tentatively entitled CrownsDown, the followup to 2002’s The No Music is billed as a culmination of Themselves career, or as Doseone notes, “our statue – to rap as it reered us – and the arch and arrow, of what it is to be us, in a decade of music made and the temperature of these two thousands.”
But seeing as that August is still a long ways off, Themselves have taken steps to ensure that clamoring fans don’t get too antsy. In March, the group will release theFREEhoudini, a free online mixtape that will feature original music and “every rapper we have ever shared a cause with in the past decade”. Included? Slug, Aesop Rock, Busdriver, WHY?, Buck 65, Passage, DJ Baku, Alias, Pedestrian, Sole, Serengeti, D Styles and The Lionesque are among the names who lent their talents.
Of course, you can’t have two releases without some live appearances to support them, right? Duh, and as we know by know, an appearance at this year’s Coachella is already confirmed. As are stops at next week’s Noise Pop and South by Southwest in March.
Themselves 2009 Tour Dates:
02/28 – San Francisco, CA @ Noise Pop
03/18 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
03/19 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
03/20 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
03/21 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
04/17 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival