Anderson .Paak says fans can expect his third studio album — the follow-up to 2016’s widely-acclaimed Malibu — to be released sometime this year.

During a recently published interview with Australia’s triple j radio station, .Paak also revealed that label boss Dr. Dre has been heavily involved in the album’s creation.

“[Dr. Dre] had a heavy role in this new album that’s almost done as well,” he said. “Just going through the mixing phase. I won’t say any dates but you can definitely expect it this year, sometime … It’s dope to be around like legends like that and you can feel the mutual respect. That’s what I always did it for, I wasn’t really thinking about money or fame, I just wanted the respect from the people I look up to musically. It’s amazing.”

AD

AD LOADING...

.Paak heavily contributed to Dr. Dre’s 2015 album, Compton: A Soundtrack by Dr. Dre, featured on six of the LP’s 16 tracks. He signed to Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment in January of 2016.

Elsewhere, .Paak also spoke about working on the Black Panther soundtrack, which is executive produced by Kendrick Lamar and TDE boss Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith.

AD

AD LOADING...

.Paak — who appears on the album’s “Bloody Waters” song alongside Ab-Soul and James Blake — reveals he recorded his part remotely in South Africa.

“We were in South Africa, we had literally just got off the plane and I got a text from Kendrick, he was like ‘I hear you on the song I don’t hear nobody else on it,’” he said. “I just go to South Africa, ‘I’ll try my best to get it done’. So we just booked a studio that night and I recorded it and sent it back – he loved it. Couple weeks later it was on the soundtrack.”