Yasiin Bey & The Alchemist Announce New Album “FORENSICS” With Live World Premiere

If hip-hop fans weren’t looking forward to 2025 before this weekend, then they definitely are now. Yasiin Bey – formerly known as Mos Def – and The Alchemist recently announced their group name and self-titled album FORENSICS for a 2025 release, which they will preview via a January 25 live world premiere at Le Trianon in Paris. Tickets are available via the DICE platform, and it looks like the album will still come out via more traditional formats later in the year. However, this isn’t super clear, so don’t get your hopes up too high. This follows Bey’s Money Christmas EP from just a couple of weeks ago.

The Alchemist also released some new material recently, namely the collaborative album The Skeleton Key with Roc Marciano. It forms part of a prolific run as usual for the producer in 2024: Gangrene’s (his group with rapper and beatsmith Oh No) Heads I Win, Tails You Lose, his The Genuine Articulate solo album, and the Big Hit and Hit-Boy collab Black & Whites. With all this in mind, FORENSICS with Yasiin Bey should make for an amazing experience that we’re very much looking forward to.

Other than that, both hip-hop leaders have kept busy in the year with performances, fan events, and other endeavors outside of their musical releases. The Alchemist is always on go mode, whereas Yasiin Bey is sometimes more elusive but nonetheless captivating and active, even if it’s from more of a behind the scenes festival. That wasn’t the case for a Sudan and Gaza benefit show in London, though, where he performed along with artists like Earl Sweatshirt, King Krule, Mustafa, Blood Orange, Ramy Youssef, and more. So they’ve both been honing their craft and making magic happen, which makes the lead-up to FORENSICS all the more exciting.

Meanwhile, apart from Yasiin Bey, The Alchemist has also hinted at many more big things to come in 2025, which can only mean good things coming from Uncle Al. He already had a heck of a year with a diss track beat that shook the world and loads of amazing music on top of that, so to see this crossover with another rap legend is a true treat. Even if it’s just for this live setting or if FORENSICS drops in a limited capacity, we’re simply happy and content to witness this.