(AllHipHop News) After premature leaks, label politics and intriguing promotional tactics, West Coast MC and the hip-hop blogosphere’s sporadic genius, Blu , plans on officially releasing his lost major label debut album, No York!. On March 26th, Fat Beats Distribution and Nature Sounds will give No York! a proper retail release with special CD edition and Vinyl packaging.
The CD release will arrive with a 12-page booklet as well as a poster, and the vinyl release is packed with a soon-to-be-rare four-LP set with three bonus tracks not found on the CD release. The album can be pre-ordered at Nature Sounds and each pre-order comes with an instant free download link. Production on this album is helmed by notable producers such as Flying Lotus, Dibia$e as well as longtime collaborator Exile and many others. The features seem to retain the same guests as the leaked version with Wu-Tang’s U-God, west coast hip hop mainstays U-N-I and Pac D## joining a diverse cast of contributors.
The history of previous “releases” of this album range from truly altruistic to quite odd. After originally being slated for release through Sire/Warner Brothers Records, Blu handed out free copies of the album to the audience at Rock The Bells in 2011 because of company turmoil according to Blu. Following that “release”, Blu made No York! available for release through UGHH.com back in 2011. Also, there is currently a No York! mixtape streaming on DatPiff with the same tracklisting as the one that has been circulating since the album’s initial premature release.
Blu has been an eccentric underground hip hop wordsmith since him and Exile’s classic debut mixtape, Below The Heavens sent hip hop into a frenzy in 2007. Back in December of 2011, an unmixed version of Blu and Exile’s follow-up, Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them was released on Bandcamp. Following the release and label interest, a fully mixed and mastered version of the mixtape was re-released on September 4th, 2012.