Ghost­face Kil­lah per­forms “I Declare War” off the new Twelve Rea­sons to Die album with Adrian Younge on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Check out this Fuse inter­view with Adrian Younge as he sheds some light on The Art­form Stu­dio Record Store and talks about his own vinyl collection:

This Sat­ur­day on Soul Cir­cle Radio:

Shafiq Husayn grew up in Oak­land, Watts, South Cen­tral, Texas and the South Bronx where he expe­ri­enced Hip Hop in it’s infancy, joined Zulu Nation and ran with pio­neers Afrika Bam­batta and Afrika Islam. He has con­tributed pro­duc­tion to Ice-T’s O.G. Orig­i­nal Gang­ster, worked with Don­ald D on his Let The Horns Blow record, King Tee on Tha Tri­flin Album and IV Life, and assisted Lord Finesse on his album The Return Of The Funky Man.

In the mid-90’s, Taz Arnold paid a visit to LA with a CD of Dilla beats. After hear­ing it, Shafiq insisted they join and cre­ate a move­ment — Sa-Ra Cre­ative Part­ners Pro­duc­tion Com­pany. Sa-Ra trans­lates to “the chil­dren of the pow­er­ful and infi­nite force in the uni­verse.” Om’Mas Keith joined the group, adding his musi­cal­ity and multi-instrumental tal­ents. In 2007 Shafiq began work­ing on Shafiq En’ A-Free-Ka, flesh­ing out exist­ing beats and cre­at­ing new music. ‘Ka’ refers to the spirit in the Kemetic lan­guage. Shafiq En’ A-Free-Ka rep­re­sents Shafiq in a state of men­tal and spir­i­tual free­dom that is in turn reflected in the music. Shafiq Husayn has always main­tained inno­va­tion and growth as his pur­pose and focus. From pro­duc­ing with Ice-T to pen­ning songs for Erykah Badu to inno­vat­ing as part of Sa-Ra and now cre­at­ing his own music, Shafiq Husayn strives to con­vey who he is through his music.
Shafiq Husayn has made var­i­ous state­ments about his art which on the sur­face are self-contradictory. On the one hand he urges his lis­ten­ers always to be forward-thinking; on the other he sum­mons a long train of ances­try. While the unini­ti­ated might see plays on the words ‘Free’, ‘Africa’ or ‘Freak’ in the title, the Kemetic term ‘A-Free-Ka’ actu­ally means infin­ity, and bound­less­ness. But his solo debut is also grounded right here on earth.

‘Sa-Ra’ is another Kemetic term, mean­ing son of the sun or child of the cos­mos. As a mem­ber of Sa-Ra Cre­ative Part­ners and a musi­cal col­lab­o­ra­tor in his own right, Shafiq has musi­cal con­nec­tions direct and indi­rect with the likes of J Dilla, Kurupt, Quest­love, Plat­inum Pied Pipers, N*E*R*D, James Poyser, Jill Scott, Talib Qweli, Jay Elec­tron­ica, and not least Erykah Badu, who has said he is the only per­son she will allow to write lyrics for her. And then of course you could say he makes other kinds of musi­cal con­nec­tions, direct and indi­rect, with a dias­pora of artists from Duke Elling­ton through Her­bie Han­cock and Fela Kuti right up to rel­a­tive new­com­ers like Fatima, Jimetta Rose and Noni Limar.