Torae is busy.

It’s a bit of an understatement for the talented multi-hyphenate — he's a songwriter, MC, actor, and host, with gigs that include being the president of the NY Chapter of the Recording Academy, hosting Rock The Bells Radio's That Raw on Sirius XM, and co-hosting the Hard2Earn podcast alongside veteran, acclaimed journalist Bonsu Thompson.

In the decades since he released his 2011 debut solo album, For The Record, featuring contributions from Illmind, 9th Wonder, Pete Rock, and Diamond D among others, he’s expanded his reach into film, TV, and radio. He’s collaborated with legends like the late Sean Price, Diddy, Timbaland, and Pharoahe Monch, as well as R&B stars like Teyana Taylor, whom he coached during her stint on VH1's The Breaks.

But now, he’s returning to his first love, and what started his expansive journey in the business — Hip-Hop — with the release of his first project in five years, Midnight Run, a collaboration with acclaimed producer Marco Polo. Torae says it's a return to form, a natural progression from where they left off with their last album, Double Barrel, 14 years ago.

Rock The Bells caught up with the talented Brooklyn native to talk about his forthcoming album, what keeps him motivated, and why, more than a decade after he started his career, he's more inspired than ever.

Talk about what made you want to connect with Marco Polo again after a 14 year hiatus from making music together. Why is now the time to connect?

Torae: The thing about Marco and my relationship is, we're brothers. I know people throw that around, but we are. Over the 14 years since our release, we've both been doing a bunch of other things but never fell out of contact with one another and never stopped recording. We've been recording pretty much this whole time. I would go see him; he's in Brooklyn, I'm in Brooklyn. We'd chop it up, maybe do lunch, maybe make a song, maybe make two. So, just for us both kind of falling into different places in our careers, with me taking on more roles in media and songwriting and Marco really sound producing for Akai, we were super busy. He's also done albums with Masta Ace and stuff like that. So, it never was like, ‘well, we're not making an album together.’ It was like, ‘when the time is right, we'll do it.’ But the friendship and the brotherhood always remained. Then a couple of months ago, Marco called me. He was like, ‘yo, you know we got eight joints, right?’ And I listened, and I was like, ‘oh, we got eight tough records.’ So he was like, ‘yo, let's put it out. Let's make an EP.’ And I was like, ‘nah, it's been a little minute since we dropped. Let's make it a full length. I'll come through. I'll cut a couple of new records, and we'll get it together.’ And that's really how Midnight Run was born.

Okay, so you didn't have to reconnect in terms of chemistry because you guys had already been recording for that entire period off and on.

Torae: Yeah, our chemistry, so like what we do when Marco and I get together, it's kind of like we call it Double Barrel, that's like our group name. But what we do is very straightforward, you know, hard beats, aggressive, in-your-face energy as far as delivery and lyricism. So for us, that chemistry is always like, we know what type of pot we cook in when we get together. I'm not going to do the most introspective songs and he's not gonna come with the flutes... We know exactly what this brand of Hip-Hop is and so when we get together it's pretty much right to the streets.

Can you talk about that a little bit more because you had mentioned that before like you know what your brand is in terms of what you two do together and you're not really trying to stray away from that. Why is that important for you, as an artist?

Torae: I think as an artist, for me, it's just to have different outlets to do different things. When Marco and I get together, I get a chance to really drop into this aggressive like city rap. It's gritty rap. It's cold New York City nights, you know. So, I think that we've built that brand up and it's a strong brand and though it may be niche, it's needed, it's necessary. There's definitely an audience that just wants to hear that type of stuff. When I'm doing a Torae solo album, you might get a love song or you might get some real intricate detailed, storytelling stuff, but for Marco and I, we keep it true to what we've built up. This is from our time touring together and traveling across the world and doing various shows and you know, doing records. I've done records on Marco's album, he's done records on my solo album, but we just know that people love this brand of Hip-Hop from us and if we can be the ones to deliver this brand to the people that really yearn for it, then I love that space.

Can you talk a little bit about the importance to know your lane and not stray from it, and also how the current state of hip-hop lends itself to hearing more of that diversity? It seems like there are now more openings for niche and sub-genres to gain popularity. Can you share your thoughts on this?

Torae: Yes, sure. I love that there's so many different pockets of Hip-Hop because that's the Hip-Hop that I came up on and love. I loved EPMD, I loved NWA, but I also loved De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, LL COOL J, Queen Latifah, Yo-Yo. Everybody was just coming with their own thing and their own sound. One of the things that I do miss is feeling the region; it's like learning about the West Coast listening to West Coast artists. I had never been to Compton, or to a swap meet, or to Slausons. So, adventuring through the music and learning and traveling through the music was super important. We have lost that as far as regional sound is concerned. But when people hear the Midnight Run album and they say, ‘yo, this sounds like New York.’ I love that. I wear that as a badge of honor.

Given the swift changes in technology and the industry, can you discuss how you’ve grown as an artist and adapted to these changes since your first releases?

Torae: You've got to adapt; staying stagnant is equal to death. You just gotta flow with technology. I'm a physical CD, liner note reader, a vinyl, drop the needle on the wax spinner. But what I love about streaming is that every day someone can discover a new song is a new possibility for a new fan. Digital gives us the long tail, whereas physical you sell X amount of records in your first few months and then it dwindles out. If you make great art, when other people discover it, it's a brand new record. So, timeless music is just that, it’s timeless, and this is where the industry, artists, and creators can benefit from where we are in technology.

When you decided to release new music, what was your thought process and what did you want to accomplish?

Torae: It was about timing. The break or the hiatus that I was on from releasing my own music didn't mean I stopped making music. I delved more into songwriting and had success as a songwriter, doing radio and being in the media. With social media, people ask every day, ‘Where's your new music? Where's the album?’ So, the fact that there's still a demand for music is a testament to me building up an audience and a core of people that want to hear what I do. The timing was perfect because I had accomplished so many things that I had on my bucket list. It was time to come back around to the foundation of it all.

Do you find interesting intersections in doing music as an artist and engaging in your other endeavors, like being in radio and movies?

Torae: For sure. Being a true songwriter is understanding how to create a full song, right? It's about melodies, catchy choruses, and hooks, things that people are going to remember even if they hear the song one time. It helps me become a better writer overall. The opportunity to grow every day, travel, learn more, and do different things in different fields is amazing. It's a unique position that I find myself in. It gives me the opportunity to tap into all of the creative energy that I have and not allow myself to be boxed in by my own thoughts or anybody else’s. I’m a talent and a creative and I just want to do that in every way possible.

At what point did you realize that this was like a viable lane for you? Can you discuss when you decided this is something you could do and talk about that process of getting to that point?

Torae: I guess it was maybe stubbornness, or hard-headedness, or being headstrong. There was never anything else I was gonna do, you know? The blessing is to be talented and be able to adapt and do anything. You can put me any place on the planet, and I'm gonna figure it out. But I've never wanted to do anything else. When some of my friends were going into various fields, I was like, "that's cool," and I did what I had to do to put food on the table and make ends meet. But the ultimate goal was [being on a] path to this place. I think that I was fortunate that early on I knew exactly what I wanted to do, so I never deviated too far off the road to get to this place. Any job I ever took was to get studio money so I could go into the studio to make records. When I got my credit card, it was to do vinyl, you know what I'm saying? Like everything that I did just kept me aligned with what I felt my destiny is. So for me, there never was a revelation like, "oh, I think I could," it was like, no, I'm gonna do this. And I'm gonna figure it out by any means.

So beyond time and just kind of getting schedules together, did you run into any challenges with putting this project together?

Torae: The only challenge with putting a project together was figuring out how we were going to put it out. With what Marco's been able to do over the course of his career and what I've been able to do, a lot more doors opened; there were a lot of different opportunities out there. So it was like, do we wait longer and go through the process of shopping it and talking to different labels? Or do we just kind of build it as it comes along? That was really it. Scheduling is always a thing, especially with Marco traveling with the great Masta Ace and with me moving around doing all the different things I was doing. It was really more like, "Well, what's the date? Are you gonna be in town? Am I gonna be in town? When can we shoot the video?" That was really the only kind of bumps in the road. But again, our brotherhood and our chemistry allowed us to just get it together and figure it out, so I'm excited for the people to hear it.

What do you want people to take away from the album?

Torae: I want to give them that feeling, you know. I'm not trying to convert anybody. I'm not trying to convince anybody that Marco has dope beats or that I can rap. Either you get it or you don't, and that's cool either way. But I just want people to walk away with that, "Damn, that's that shit, I miss that shit, that's that shit I want to hear." And if it gives them an opportunity to open up Pandora's box and see all the other things that I have my hands in, that's great. We love that cross-branding, that cross-marketing. Just for people that love Hip-Hop, for people that are into dope beats and bars and feel like, "Oh, hip-hop has changed, it's not this or it's not that," I just want you to see that there are a ton of people out there still making that shit. And even though it might not be widely spread to the masses, if you pull back one or two layers, it's right there for you.

Do you have any plans to tour with this project?

Torae: So we're in conversation about touring. The difference between now and years ago when I was putting out music, music was my primary source of everything, of income. So it was a lot easier just to get up and go, because I had to. Whereas now, obviously, there’s the writer's strike and the SAG-AFTRA strike, so I'm not filming anything. But with my radio obligations, and I'm the president of the Recording Academy in the New York Chapter, so my Recording Academy obligations and just a lot of family life obligations. The tour has to just make sense, you know, schedule-wise and everything else has just got to make sense because I have so many kind of pots on the stove cooking, I just got to find a burner for it.