Wiki’s new album, 14K Figaro, arrives after a slew of collaborative projects released alongside the likes of The Alchemist and MIKE, Navy Blue, Subjxct5, and NAH. As much as it represents a return to his solo platform, it’s also a return to the ethos he initially embraced years ago when he was a gap-toothed latchkey kid balancing graduation with looming legend.

The album is produced entirely by Tony Seltzer, a longtime collaborator who helped soundtrack his earliest efforts — including No Mountains in Manhattan, his 2017 debut album for XL Recordings, and Oofie, its potent 2019 follow-up.

14K Figaro is the footprint of a more mature Wiki, eschewing the brash rhetoric he entered music with in favor of a more nuanced, process-oriented vision. “On this tape, it’s not like I’m all good,” Wiki says. “It’s more a document of me going through it.” Compared to his earliest efforts, which casted him as a vexed protagonist navigating a city and an industry — both unforgiving — this record is less about someone fighting against the world and more about someone living in it. As Wiki steps further away from days of having to prove himself, his city-bred tales are getting more breathing room than they’ve ever had before. 14K Figaro is a snapshot of its creator’s career-long dichotomy: at the same time that he’s a living legend, he’s also a person you can dap up on the street. 

Features include the World’s Fair MC Remy Banks, the Bruiser Brigade spitter Zelooperz, and the prolific D.C. native WifiGawd. More than ever, Wiki stands as an anchor between past and future — for New York, for hip-hop, and for himself. The album drops Nov 10th.