After a three-year hybernation period, PPP, formerly known as the Platinum Pied Pipers, is finally back! It is all worth the wait as the new album takes music production to the next level. After a long searching process, the core PPP — consisting of Detroit-bred, now Brooklyn-based duo, Waajeed and Saadiq — found some outstanding musicians to match their talents for this highly-anticipated album.

July 8th marks the release date of On A Cloud, their first single from their new album Abundance. The title track features new vocalist Karma Stewart, a singer whose powerful vocals recall Aretha Franklin’s soul-shaking force, while the beautifully layered instrumentation blends elements of Led Zeppelin-esque rock tunes, soul and gospel-flavored melodies matching Detroit’s Motown legacy with high energy horns and drums into a sound that is super fresh and is so characteristic of PPP’s pioneering musical experiments. On the flip side is Angel, boasting a similarly big sound inspired by another Detroit roots, Funkadelic. Angel features their brilliant St. Louis-based new vocalist-songwriter-poet Coultrain, who wrote the majority of the songs for the album.

Waajeed means both “finder” and “seeker”, and it was probably not accidental that he was given this name by an elder. As he describes the making of Abundance, “this new album is as much about the process as about the outcome” — as much about the process of seeking to realize this new project as about finding the perfect vehicle for it.

You can catch Waajeed doing a DJ set on Thursday, July 10th at Sutra (16 1st Ave, NY), with old-time friends, T3 of Slum Village and Dwele.

Europeans are ahead of the game, PPP have already begun touring the old continent with the album, but if you’re lucky you can catch them live at their home-base on Saturday, July 12th at Southpaw (125 5th Ave, Brooklyn) as they will provide the highlight of the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival at the Official Afterparty, along with DJ House Shoes, Invincible, and DJ Parler. Not to be missed, people!

Make sure to peep the PPP page for the rest of their concert schedule.