Q-Tip has been quiet as of late, but he breaks his silence and tells EW that he is producing for new albums by Drake, Esperanza Spalding and Santigold, and his own multilingual solo album The Last Zulu. Below is an excerpt.

“I feel like my fans have been so gracious over the years,” Q-Tip says. “They’re so smart that I want to extend the grace back to them and speak to them in their tongues.” One slight problem: The Abstract Poetic is fluent in neither French nor Spanish. “I’m going to have to brush up!”

He plans to start seriously focusing on The Last Zulu in February, with a tentative release target of late 2011/early 2012. Here’s hoping it doesn’t fall victim to the label shenanigans that delayed 2008′s The Renaissance for so long.

So far Q-Tip has a few rough ideas for songs and a general concept involving vintage rhythms. “It’s going to take us back to the days of when it was breakbeats, when [Grandmaster] Flash and [Afrika] Bambaataa was throwing on them hard beats. It’s going to have a lot of that energy, and it’s going to feel really big and anthemic. It’s going to be unlike anything I’ve done before.”

Previously: Q-Tip Reveals New Album Title