Saba and No ID‘s long-awaited joint album From the Private Collection of Saba & No ID is finally here — check it out below.
Clocking in at 15 songs, the project boasts appearances from a couple of R&B heavy-hitters in Raphael Saadiq and Kelly Rowland, as well as frequent Saba collaborators such as Smino, BJ The Chicago Kid, Jean Deaux and Eryn Allen Kane.
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The Chicago rapper’s Pivot Gang crew is also well represented, with MFnMelo, Frsh Waters and his brother Joseph Chilliams making appearances.
Behind the boards, the legendary No ID handles the bulk of the production duties with help from Saba, daedaePIVOT and Daoud, among others.
Stream the album below.
Prior to its release, From the Private Collection of Saba & No ID had been years in the making and faced a number of obstacles along the way.
The album started out as a mixtape in 2022, three years after the Chi-Town natives first met when No ID unsuccessfully attempted to sign Saba to Capitol Records, where he’s served as Executive Vice President since 2017.
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That year, No ID sent Saba 100 beats which he whittled down to over a dozen songs while on tour. The project may have seen the light of day much earlier had it not been for Saba’s pursuit of musical perfection, the death of his uncle, the producer Tommy Skillfinger, and a hail-mary mission to clear a Janet Jackson sample.
According to Audiomack’s Brian Zisook, Saba and his team tracked down Jimmy Jam, who co-produced Jackson’s “I Get Lonely” with Terry Lewis, at a music industry event in Anaheim, California in January 2025, the day before From the Private Collection… was initially supposed to drop.
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During their conversation, Jimmy cautioned Saba that getting Janet’s approval would be difficult, but a phone call between the Grammy-winning hitmaker and No ID was enough to seal the deal. The sample, which was used for the song “Breakdown,” was eventually cleared a month later.
“The amount of relief I felt that day… I can’t even really explain it,” Saba told Zisook.
As for the concept of the album itself, the 30-year-old MC told Billboard: “I would say that this idea of The Private Collection is almost like snapshots; each song has its own texture. They all feel different, so I guess they’re only connected in the sense that it is a private collection.
“I think all of these songs are like small worlds of their own. That’s part of the mixtape nature of it; it’s an album now, but I didn’t want it to be like my other albums that are so concept-based. This one, the concept is just me and No ID having fun through the artform, showcasing how we hear Hip Hop in 2025.”
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From the Private Collection… is Saba’s fourth studio album following acclaimed releases such as Care For Me and Few Good Things.
For No ID, it’s just the latest in a long line of projects he’s worked closely on, an esteemed catalog that includes JAY-Z‘s 4:44 and The Blueprint 3, Nas‘ Life Is Good and several Common albums like Resurrection, The Dreamer/The Believer and Nobody’s Smiling.
