Photo: Antoine Lyers
Phonte and Rapper Big Pooh are preparing to hit the road as Little Brother for the last time.
On Monday, April 7, the North Carolina-based duo shared the dates for the upcoming "Curtain Call: The Final Tour." The veteran MC's will begin their final trek at the Artscape Festival in Baltimore on May 24. They plan to hit up Bams Fest in Boston in June before they hit up other major cities like Atlanta, Brooklyn, Chicago and more. Little Brother will deliver their final performance in their home state at the Lincoln Theatre on October 24 before they close out the tour on the Rock The Bells Cruise the following weekend.
“I wanted to let people know, me and Phonte, we super good,” Pooh said in a statement to AllHipHop. “We had a chance to reconcile, come back and, I believe, put Little Brother to bed the proper way. We was able to do it the right way and I believe that’s one of the things we both thought was important—not that when we knew when that day would be, but it was still important to have that moment and allow our fans to have that moment, too.”
“Pooh said it beautifully," Phone said. "We came back after a decade and got our first No. 1 record, we did our own movie, we did our own block party and regained control of our catalog. Our work is complete. Our mission as Little Brother is complete. Pooh and I were really able to not just rebuild but also cement our brotherhood. That was the most important. That was the God of it. Our work as Little Brother is done. Our lives as Phonte and Thomas will go on forever.”
Phonte, Rapper Big Pooh and producer 9th Wonder formed Little Brother in 1998 while they were in college at North Carolina Central University in Durham, N.C. They put out their debut single "Speed" in 2001 and released their first studio album The Listening in 2003. The LP helped establish the group as pioneers of Alternative Hip-Hop. They dropped their sophomore album The Minstrel Show in 2005. 9th Wonder left the group in 2007 due to creative differences before Phonte and Pooh dropped the duo's third album Getback.
Little Brother dropped other projects like ...And Justus For All (2007) and Leftback (2010) before they went on hiatus. Phonte and Pooh released numerous solo projects until they reunited for their comeback album May the Lord Watch in 2019. The duo discussed their trials and tribulations in the recent documentary May the Lord Watch: The Little Brother Story.
Tickets for Little Brother's final tour are on sale now. Check out the full list of dates here.