Chef Mike and Sankofa have a new album coming: Belle Isle's Abandoned Zoo drops on October 8, 2026 via Bandcamp. It is their second full-length in under a year, after 43 Ill Laimbeer in November 2025.
Detroit Meets Fort Wayne
Sankofa is a Fort Wayne, Indiana rapper with an unusual path. He was born in Australia, grew up partly in California, and has released music since the late nineties, including a run in Sweden with producer Kashal-Tee. His Bandcamp page holds around 80 releases, almost all of them collaborations with producers and rappers from his wider circle.
Chef Mike is the beat side of this duo and part of the Common and Normal label orbit. The two go back at least to the 313260 EP from 2020, a title built from the area codes of Detroit and Fort Wayne. Chef Mike also produced every beat on Sankofa's 2025 album Masters of the In Between and released his own project Out of Step in August 2026.
The Title
The working title was "Detroit's Alchemist Stunt Double", Sankofa's nickname for Chef Mike. That name now opens the album as track one. The final title comes from Belle Isle, the island park in Detroit. In the album notes, Sankofa writes that he runs there whenever he visits the city and always stops by the old abandoned zoo. He frames the songs as a memory guide.
The Detroit theme runs through both albums. 43 Ill Laimbeer was named after Bill Laimbeer, the center of the Pistons' Bad Boys era, which makes this duo a natural fit for a blog that covers rap and basketball side by side.
Tracklist
- Detroit's Alchemist Stunt Double
- Tooth Fairy at the 7/11
- Thalidomidas
- Buffet Plate HWY feat. Defcee
- Flat Stanley at the Cleaners
- Another Text from the DNC
- Wonder Twins Activate feat. JON?DOE
- Fertilizer Breadth feat. Dirt Vonnegut
- Clea Duvall vs. Steven Seagal
- Soleil's Moon Fryer feat. G Fam Black
- S1W to W-2s
- Faded Press Clippings
- U.N.C. Status
- Orphanage Dad Jokes
The guest list stays close to home. JON?DOE forms The Silversmiths with Sankofa, and G Fam Black worked with him on the Monster Factory projects. Defcee and Dirt Vonnegut round it out. The track titles read like a pop culture scrapbook, from Public Enemy's S1W to Wonder Twins and Steven Seagal.
Why I Am Posting This
This is the part of underground rap I like most: small circles, steady output, physical releases for the people who care. If you know the Common and Normal sound from my post on 8greg2 – Hornhub, Chef Mike sits in the same neighborhood.
){kind=link}