The Pirate Signal broadcasts again

It’s been four years since anyone’s heard a recorded peep out of Denver’s The Pirate Signal, but it hasn’t been for lack of trying: A schism split the hip-hop act a few years back, and an ex-member refused to turn over the final copy of a just-recorded album. It was definitely a setback, but what remained of the group—MC Yonnas Abraham and DJ A-What—continued to push ahead without the album. “At first, we were a little broken up about it because it was so personal to us,” Abraham reflects. “[But] we kind of saw it as an opportunity to make a record that was gleaned from the experiences that we had just been through.”

Now after all these years, The Pirate Signal has finally announced the completion of its debut full-length No Weak Heart Shall Prosper, to be released May 1 at the Marquis Theater. With a clean slate, and that festering time between releases, the Pirate Signal has had to completely reinvent how it approaches recording. “I used that as ‘What kind of record do I need to make?’” Abraham says. “Not that I had some A&R sitting in telling me what song to make. It all came from a pretty honest place. I was consciously in my mind about being utilitarian about this, making records that I could use and songs that would break boundaries for us.”