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Aretha Franklin Recruits Andre 3000 And Babyface To Produce "Divas" Cover Album

Lenny Kravitz, Grace Jones, Lauryn Hill, Lion Babe, Thundercat, SZA & More Rock The Afropunk Festival 2015 in Brooklyn, NY.

UPDATE: The long-promised super collaboration between Andre 3K and Queen Aretha appears to finally be coming to fruition, as both a concept and release date for the project have surfaced. Mr. Benjamin will be producing the entirety of the album, which has been refocused as a "Divas" cover album, adding her powerful vox to classics like Gladys Knight's "Midnight Train To Georgia", Donna Summer's "Last Dance," Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do With It" and apparently a take of Adele's "Rolling In The Deep." All of this has been done and will continuer to be done under the watchful eye of Clive Davis, as he took the reigns as executive producer for project. We don't have an exact date yet, but it seems slated for a September release as of now. Keep it locked fam, we'll have plenty more as we creep up on the album's release.

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Aretha Franklin --The Queen of Hitsville Soul-- and Andre 3000-- one of the many kings of southern wordplay-- are teaming up for Aretha's next album, alongside Babyface. The royal Miss Franklin is celebrating her 72nd birthday tomorrow and to help her get on the good foot, Franklin got the festivities started this weekend with a bit of a get together at the Ritz in NYC where she was asked about the latest recordings. Aretha confirmed "Babyface is working on the tracks" and then also confirmed that "...Andre 2000 - is it two or three? 3000 is going to be doing some of the tracks with him."

There's nothing to listen to yet --as the album hasn't even been named--so you'll just have to imagine what Andre's Southern draw would sound like over the cool, clean 90's R&B of Babyface's production styles and the powerhouse vocal treatments of the one and only Miss Aretha Franklin would sound like on the same sonic calling card. We'll have plenty more on the project as details turn up, so just keep it locked for more on this blockbuster collaboration. Long live the Queen.