Maryland rapper Redveil has quietly built an impressive grassroot following over the past couple of years, which saw him play Camp Flog Gnaw in 2023, tour alongside such standouts as Denzel Curry and Freddie Gibbs, and garner widespread critical acclaim, with his last album, 2022’s Learn 2 Swim regarded one of the year’s best.
Today, Redveil announced the long-awaited follow-up to that album, releasing a video for its first single, “Lone Star.” The album is called Sankofa, a Ghanaian word meaning “to go back and get it.” In its proverbial use, sankofa means reflecting on history and using it to inform the present and prepare for the future. Another proverb using the term translates to “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” The idea has core meaning for the Pan-African movement, which revolves around rediscovering the traditions and cultural knowledge that were systematically stripped from descendants of enslaved Africans by their captors.
Like his prior albums, Redveil’s latest will be entirely self-produced, but with added dimension and a clear sonic growth. You can hear the beginnings of that growth in the lush instrumentation and R&B-inspired vocals of “Lone Star.”
Watch Redveil’s “Lone Star” video above.
Sankofa is out on 12/4. You can find more info here.
