The Roots are currently working on their 11th studio album called And Then You Shoot Your Cousin. In an interview with XXL, Black Thought goes over some of the details on what to expect from the album.

“It’s conceptual; it’s another concept album in the spirit of undun, but it’s not just about just one kind of character, we create quite a few different characters in this record. It’s satire, but in that satire it’s an analysis of some of the stereotypes perpetuated in not only the hip-hop community, but in the community. I don’t know if that makes any sense.” 

Thought even details that just like undun, ATYSYC will be a short album.

“Hopefully you’ll get something new from it every time you listen to it, you’ll hone in on something different,” Thought said. “It’s short enough to do that, to take in, to digest in one sitting, so to speak. I think right now it’s at maybe 34 minutes; there may be one or two musical things added on to the record that I know is the record at this point. But I don’t think it will be any longer than 36 or 37 minutes in its entirety. So in that, it’s short enough to digest, but it’s gonna be dense. So dense that maybe in one sitting you’ll listen to it and only listen to the piano and string arrangements, and then you’ll listen to it again and you’ll get into the actual words that are being said, and you’ll listen again and get into some of the other musicality. There’s very many layers to this record, but it doesn’t take place over very much time.” 

The album is scheduled for a May 20th release, but you can pre-order the vinyl here. Listen to the first single off the album, When The People Cheer.