Anderson.Paak and Cordae Announce Joint Album Heavy Is the Crown

Anderson.Paak and Cordae have announced a joint album. Heavy Is the Crown drops on October 23 via the labels Apeshit, Mass Appeal and EMPIRE. The collaboration marks the next step in a partnership that has been building for years but now finally results in a full joint project.

The two first worked together on the track "RNP," which appeared in 2019 on Cordae's debut album The Lost Boy. Since then they have kept finding their way back to each other, releasing the tracks "Two Tens" and "Summer Drop" together, sharing a stage at the BET Awards and performing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Heavy Is the Crown builds on that shared history and feels like the natural payoff of a collaboration that has been taking shape for years.

The announcement comes with a teaser showing the two in argyle sweaters, posing for a studio photo that strongly echoes the movie poster for the 2008 Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly comedy Step Brothers. In the clip the duo starts bickering, with.Paak pushing Cordae's hand off his shoulder before a brief scuffle breaks out. The fact that neither of them is wearing pants goes unaddressed..Paak wrote on Instagram: "We can't wait for y'all to hear this one." Cordae, for his part, simply posted the album cover on his own account.

Physical copies of Heavy Is the Crown are already available to order, including an Amazon exclusive vinyl version. Meanwhile.Paak is keeping himself plenty busy on other fronts: he is currently opening for Bruno Mars on The Romantic Tour, performing under his alter ego DJ Pee.Wee before joining Mars later in the show for a run of songs from their joint project Silk Sonic. Cordae's most recent solo album, The Crossroads, came out earlier in 2024, while.Paak has also recently appeared on tracks by Fred Again.., Amber Mark, Summer Walker and Disclosure, and put out a second NxWorries album.

For Dutch fans of hip hop and neo soul, Heavy Is the Crown is a release well worth getting excited about. Both.Paak and Cordae have proven that they can blend sharp, rap driven music with soul and funk, and a full joint album promises to explore that chemistry even further.