Tuxedo is Grammy nominated renaissance man Mayer Hawthorne (Aquarius) and Grammy nominated producer Jake One (Taurus). They are descendants of the one-word moniker family of funk, where you will find groups such as Chic, Shalamar, Plush & Zapp.

Tuxedo is Grammy nominated renaissance man Mayer Hawthorne (Aquarius) and Grammy nominated producer Jake One (Taurus). They are descendants of the one-word moniker family of funk, where you will find groups such as Chic, Shalamar, Plush & Zapp.

The Tuxedo collaboration began with an exchange of boogie funk mixtapes back in 2006. "They had a lot of the same songs on them." said Jake. "I couldn't believe there was another person in the world that cared about this style of music."

The fruits of a long- ?standing kinship were three tracks that mysteriously showed up on Internet doorsteps nearly two years ago. In between Mayer's solo albums, and Jake's productions for Drake, Fun., J. Cole, etc., these three tracks became a full album's worth of Tuxedo. The album was mixed by original disco don dada John Morales at his home studio in South Plainfield, New Jersey. "I flew out there," Mayer says. "John made me spaghetti and everything."

The duo is excited to release their album on Stones Throw Records, which also marks Mayer's return to the label since his debut release of A Strange Arrangement in 2009.