On his upcoming second album, Overgrown, UK electronic saviour James Blake includes a collaborative effort with Wu Tang Clan pack leader RZA in what is a stand out track on an album filled with stand out tracks. Blake's flirtation with hip hop has been long withstanding and it seems that now he has finally hooked up with a hip hop artists everyone is seemingly after a piece of the young producer.

James Blake
James Blake can hopefully expect to pick up a few more awards with the release of Overgrown.

Hip hop's fastest rising star, Kendrick Lamar, is one of the names being thrown around the rumour mill more and more and thanks to an article from PigeonsAndPlanes.com, it is looking more and more likely that the two young upstarts may be heading to a studio together sometime soon. Blake's collaborator on the newly launched label 1-800-Dinosaur, Dan Foat, spoke with the website about the potential for a collaboration and whilst he said that at the moment both parties are too busy to agree on anything, there is still widespread interest among the two groups to work together. He said, "The TDE setup is inspiring and something I’d like to replicate with 1-800, they’re like a modern day Death Row. It’s a long ball game."


'Retrograde' is the first single taken from the upcoming album.

Similarly, Blake has also been linked with hip hop heavyweights Kanye West and Jay Z for their follow-up to Watch The Throne as well as the undeservedly massive Lil Wayne. Whilst these rumours are still only murmurs within the hip hop community, Blake has already completed another collaboration with one of hip hop's elite: OutKast's Big Boi. The song, which may appear on Overgrown, is called 'Every Day I Ran' and is just about everything you could expect from a collaboration between Big Boi and Blake and given how good 'Take A Fall For Me' we can only hope we get a chance to hear more hip hop collaborations in the near future.

Overgrown, the second album from electronic music's most promising prospect James Blake, is released on April 8. You can read our review for the album here.