(AllHipHop News) By the end of 2000, both Dr. Dre and D’Angelo were celebrating their most successful albums of their careers and 14 years later, they have never released another album. D’Angelo has been the most reclusive of the two, but according to manager and legendary music exec Kevin Liles, D’angleo’s new album will come this year.

Last year, D’angelo performed a Brothers In Arms show at Brooklyn Bowl with ?uestlove a month after ?uestlove informed Billboard that D’Angelo’s new album was “99 percent” finished. Liles explains to Billboard today (June 19th) why D’Angelo’s album was not released last year:

Here’s the thing: with D’Angelo it was a process. He didn’t perform for 10 years and he’s been working on an album for the past 12 years. I actually got him to go out and do 30 shows [in 2011-2012], and then we did some ‘Brothers in Arms’ shows. I said, ‘We have to get motivated around what people want to hear from you, and what does it mean to come back to that space?’ He very bluntly put it, ‘Kev, the studio and the stage: that’s my lifeblood. Now that I’ve touched it again, now that I see it again, I wanna be sure that the baby I’m about to have — the album — that I take it to the point where it’s all it can be.’

Liles later claims that the new album has a tentative title that he could change. Liles says the album is done with all recording and even gives a tentative number of tracks for the album:

There’ll be an album this year. There’s 14 records so far, we might have a couple of bonus records, but all the recording is basically done and we’re mixing and mastering now. Definitely, he’ll be back.

Liles revealed that D’angelo will be having an international tour in October and will have a North American leg following the international leg.

Check out D’Angelo’s performance at Brooklyn Bowl below: