King Of Hearts, Camu Tao’s posthumous release out today August 17 Full album streams on AOL Listening Party & CBS’ The Street Date CAMU TAO: KING OF HEARTS (Definitive Jux/Fat Possum; August 17)

King Of Hearts, Camu Tao’s posthumous release out today August 17 Full album streams on AOL Listening Party & CBS’ The Street Date CAMU TAO: KING OF HEARTS (Definitive Jux/Fat Possum; August 17)

The legendary MC, producer, and singer Camu Tao’s life was tragically cut short after a protracted battle with lung cancer in May of 2008. Today, August 17, 2010 his debut solo album and final statement, King Of Hearts, is posthumously released as a collaboration between Definitive Jux and Fat Possum Records.

At the time of his death, Camu Tao was working on what his friends and colleagues anticipated to be his breakthrough solo record, King Of Hearts initially scheduled for release on Definitive Jux in 2008; but was left incomplete in the wake of his cancer diagnosis. Pieced together from the demos and home recordings he left behind (which have subsequently earned him fans amongst such esteemed peers as Dangermouse, Kid Cudi, and many others), the new release offers a privileged view of a magnum opus in the making by a blossoming visionary who was denied the opportunity to bring his unique masterpiece to fulfillment.

Camu got his start in the late 90′s alongside RJD2 and Copywrite in Columbus, OH’s seminal hip hop group MHZ whose releases were issued by Bobbito Garcia’s legendary vinyl only label Fondle ‘Em Records. After dropping his cult classic solo debut 12-inch Hold the Floor on Definitive Jux in 2001 he went on to become a central fixture at the label, his distinctive contributions playing a key role in The Weathermen (his crew with Aesop Rock, Cage, El-P, Yak Ballz, Tame One and Breeze Brewin) and as one half of S.A. SMASH (alongside Keith “Metro” Lawson) on their 2003 Def Jux full length album Smashy Trashy. As a producer his brilliant contributions are evidenced on Cage’s seminal album Hell’s Winter, and The Perceptionists’ Black Dialogue, as well as appearances on Aesop Rock’s Danger, Fire & Knives, El-P’s Fantastic Damage and Collecting the Kid, Prefuse 73′s Surrounded By Silence, and many, many others.