Kate Bush once famously took a 35 year hiatus from performing on stage. The iconic British singer and producer is among music’s most notorious recluses. And despite the 2016 Before The Dawn live album, has not released any music since and any news of future releases has remained consistently absent. Until now…
Appearing on The Fader Uncovered Podcast with Mark Ronson this week, Big Boi dropped a bombshell so to speak, that he had not only recorded a song with Bush (whom he idolizes), but that it’s “…a monster hit with Kate Bush — that I’m just holding.” He explained on the show that in 2014, around the time of the Outkast 20th anniversary tour and when Bush came out of that 35 year performance retirement for a 22-date run of shows at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, he and his wife went to see her live. He met Bush backstage after the show, exchanged numbers and stayed in touch. “She’s a very, very, very classy lady,” he said.
Big Boi then details a dinner he went to with Bush at a pub where they sipped “almond cognac,” before eventually working on this mysterious song. “It’s a dream come true and the people are gonna f***ing love it. It’s f***ing incredible,” he says. But he stayed coy on the song’s release, stating that “Whenever I think they deserve it, I’m gonna give it to ’em.” He also intimated that the song could be “that perfect art piece” to go with a visual component necessary for a release as an NFT.
The news of this collaboration really came out of left field, but not so much considering Big Boi looked up to Bush growing up. He revealed that Bush was one of the reasons he got into making music and that he would ride his bike to school as a kid listening to “Running Up That Hill.”
“The world gotta hear it cause it’s uplifting,” he said reflectively of the song. “It’s the last piece of the puzzle as far as my legacy goes.”