Statik Selektah Toasts 'Champagne Wishes' With Ab-Soul, Raekwon and Freddie Gibbs — and Che Noir Links Black Thought for 'Fame & Fiction'

By The News Desk, Previously

October 17, 2026

New Music Friday is usually a numbers game — the biggest names take the biggest oxygen. But October 16 quietly belonged to the lyricists. According to SpitFireHipHop, renowned producer Statik Selektah released “Champagne Wishes,” a new single featuring Ab-Soul, Raekwon and Freddie Gibbs, while Buffalo-born, Atlanta-based rapper Che Noir dropped “Fame & Fiction,” her collaboration with Black Thought of The Roots. Two records, zero compromise, and lineups that read like a syllabus for anybody who still believes the posse cut and the pen game are hip-hop’s highest arts.

A Toast From Statik Selektah

SpitFireHipHop reports that “Champagne Wishes” is the new single from Statik Selektah’s forthcoming album Expensive Taste, which will be released on November 6, 2026 via Mass Appeal, and that the track is now available at all DSPs. HotNewHipHop, in its own review of the single, confirms the album title, the November release window and the October 16 release date, describing the record as a laid-back turn built on wavy, looped production. Where some listeners on X expected a remake of Kanye West’s “So Appalled,” HotNewHipHop notes, the record instead settles into something smoother — Ab-Soul opens the proceedings before Raekwon and Freddie Gibbs take the baton and navigate the production, in HotNewHipHop’s words, with masterful precision.

The single follows “The Louvre,” the earlier Expensive Taste preview that, per SpitFireHipHop, assembled Joey Bada$$, Westside Gunn, Stove God Cooks and Rome Streetz. It is a deliberate pattern: Statik Selektah is building this album the way he has built his reputation, one heavyweight lineup at a time. HipHopRapInfo, covering the release, reports the album is also set to feature 2 Chainz, Killer Mike and Styles P, among others. The Source, carrying the same announcement, adds that Statik recently previewed the single and album during Mass Appeal’s takeover of New York Comic Con 2026, appearing alongside Ms. Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Busta Rhymes.

In comments carried by The Source and SpitFireHipHop from the album announcement, Statik Selektah said “Champagne Wishes” really sets the tone for the album, continuing what “The Louvre” started: “I told Ab-Soul the theme and he really set it off and took the hook exactly where the feeling needed to be. Rae came through with a classic luxury verse and Gibbs went above and beyond a 16-bar verse, with what I think is one of the best verses of the year.” He added that the album’s title represents “the lifestyle of quality and enjoying the fruits of all this work,” rather than the price of material things. SpitFireHipHop frames the record’s themes the same way — success, ambition, and the realities that come with both — over soulful production that gives each MC room to bring his own perspective.

There is a cross-generational logic to the casting. Raekwon carries the Wu-Tang Clan’s luxury-rap blueprint; Freddie Gibbs is arguably the most respected pure spitter of his own generation; Ab-Soul brings the Top Dawg Entertainment lineage of dense, inward writing. The producer’s whole career — from his Showoff foundation to his long run of collaborative albums — has been an argument that the DJ-producer as curator is hip-hop’s most underrated authorship, and “Champagne Wishes” is that argument at full strength.

Che Noir Builds Her Village

If Statik’s single is about assembling stars, Che Noir’s is about earning a seat beside one. SpitFireHipHop reports that Che Noir — described by both SpitFireHipHop and BroadwayWorld as a Buffalo-born, now Atlanta-based multi-hyphenate who has spent the last several years building one of the most quietly formidable catalogs in independent hip-hop — has released “Fame & Fiction,” featuring the legendary Black Thought and produced by the Wu-Tang Clan’s Mathematics. BroadwayWorld confirms the single is now available at all DSPs and identifies it as the last single before her new album, It Takes A Village, arrives on October 23, 2026.

The rollout has been methodical. According to SpitFireHipHop, “Fame & Fiction” follows “Urban Essence,” produced by Mobb Deep’s Havoc, and “Grandma’s Cookies.” The Hip Hop Democrat, in its coverage of the release, calls “Fame & Fiction” the album’s third and final single and describes the Mathematics production as soulful, while According2HipHop notes the collaboration reunites Che Noir with Black Thought following their previous appearance together on “Hustle Don’t Give.” That history matters: this is not a purchased feature but a return engagement, the kind that only happens when the first record convinced a master that the pairing was real.

The album behind the single is stacked with intent. Both SpitFireHipHop and BroadwayWorld report that It Takes A Village features guest appearances from Black Thought, Havoc, Ransom and Bruiser Wolf, with production from Conductor Williams, Mathematics, Chuck Strangers and Nottz. BroadwayWorld calls the album Che Noir’s most personal and fully realized project to date, and both outlets note the lineup reflects the deep respect she commands from across generations of hip-hop’s most respected names. For an independent artist to hold that room — Roots royalty, Mobb Deep lineage, Wu-Tang production, and architects like Conductor Williams — without a major-label machine is the story underneath the single.

Taken together, the two releases sketch a map of where serious rap actually lives in late 2026: not in a single scene, but in a network — New York to Buffalo to Atlanta to Gary to Los Angeles — of artists who treat features as covenants rather than transactions. Statik Selektah’s Expensive Taste lands November 6, per SpitFireHipHop and HotNewHipHop. Che Noir’s It Takes A Village lands October 23, per SpitFireHipHop and BroadwayWorld. The champagne, in other words, is just the toast. The village is the meal. For more of this week’s music, see our New Music Friday roundup, our story on MC Lyte’s road to the Hall of Fame, and the latest on Chris Brown and Usher’s cancelled shows.