The legendary keyboardist Herbie Hancock, is planning a follow-up to 2010’s The Imagine Project with quite a few surprise contributors adding to the project. Though the direction is still undefined, Hancock told Billboard, “I don’t have what one might normally define as a clear-cut architecture of the record.” Also adding, “There’s several ideas that are passing through my sights. But I’ve been trying to do a new album for four years, and there’s been little bits and nibbles but no time to do a record. It’s been going on way too long so I finally said, “OK, enough of this’ and I’m not gonna do anything else but (the album) for awhile.”

Among the potential collaborators on Hancock’s line-up, Pharrell Williams is reportedly working on something special for the jazz composer, and is said to embark on a concrete sound that will lead the direction of music for the following year. In addition, Hancock has also started working with Flying Lotus and his right-hand bassist Thundercat, who Hancock refers to as his kindred spirit in music with plenty common sounds to experiment between them. “There’s a scene that’s happening, kind of an underground movement that’s given partially to a connection to jazz or a new form of jazz,” Hancock explains. “It’s very difficult to definite because what’s involved is very often hip-hop and rap and electronics and jazz elements, classical elements. It’s pretty broad-based, very open. It touches on the experimental while at the same time touches on the street. So I’m very intrigued. I feel I have something that I might be able to kind of bring along and add a little bit to the sauce with a lot of these young voices, so let’s see what we come up with.”

Meanwhile, plans to produce a forthcoming album follow Hancock’s recent honoring to receive the 2015 Outstanding Contributions to the Arts from Americans for the Arts during a ceremony in New York, as part of National Arts and Humanities Month. “It’s a very impressive organization. They do things to help insure there are avenues for people in various communities to be able to have access to the arts, which is so important,” Hancock says.

Read the complete interview over at Billboard.