Abstract Mindstate - A Wise Tale - The Industry Cosign

Abstract Mindstate – A Wise Tale

ABSTRACT MINDSTATE DELIVER YZY SND DEBUT DREAMS STILL INSPIRE FULLY PRODUCED BY KANYE WEST

They still inspire as well as anyone can. Abstract Mindstate coming back together is a celebration. The pain is gone, the love is back. – ROLLING STONE

…an incredible piece of music…it’s so good. – NPR

you can definitely hear the effect that these two rappers had on West – STEREOGUM

an amber-encased throwback to Chicago rap’s breakout era. – FADER

sounds a lot like old times, with Olskool Ice-Gre and E.P. da Hellcat trading playful, sage-like verses – ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

expert lyricism – HOT NEW HIP HOP

Photo Credit: Mike Quain

Abstract Mindstate – the Chicago rap duo from the late ’90s / early 2000’s consisting of E.P. Da Hellcat and Olskool Ice-Gre have delivered YZY SND’s first official release Dreams Still Inspire. The album was produced in full by Kanye West, the first album he has fully produced that was not his own since 2005. Dreams Still Inspire features West, Jonquia Rose, Luka Sabbat, Tony Williams and Deon Cole (full tracklisting below). The release is accompanied by a new, Neesin directed video for the album’s lead single “A Wise Tale”. The visual follows E.P. and Olskool Ice-Gre emerging from the pages of the leatherbound A Wise Tale, advising unfideliously-curious young couples to take heed to their words of wisdom.

The group had originally broken up in 2005 with no intention of releasing anything else but 13 years removed from their heyday Olskool got the call before dawn on a Tuesday morning in 2018: Kanye wanted Abstract Mindstate back together. He wanted an album on YZY SND, and he wanted to produce it. And he wanted E.P—who’d found a rewarding career as a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst—on a plane that day. It took until the weekend for her to get out to Calabasas, and to Kanye’s multidisciplinary creative space the Energy Center, where he and Olskool—Ye’s close friend and creative partner since his transition from producer to artist, and A&R for GOOD Music—were working together on GOOD’s marathon early-summer run of almost-real-time EPs. Abstract Mindstate offer a return to Golden Age fundamentals for the grown rap fans who’ve been tuning into Verzuz battles in droves. (Call it Adult Contemporary Hip-Hop.) Culled from 25 songs recorded over three years, Dreams Still Inspire is the album the pair were born to make.