It’s almost been a year since we last touched base with Phonte and Nicolay, a.k.a. The Foreign Exchange. They’d just released their critically-acclaimed album, Leave It All Behind, and were looking forward to promoting it. Eleven months later, they’re still touring and have added another record, Nicolay’s City Lights Vol. 2: Shibuya, to their repertoire.

In addition to doing music, Tay and Nic are developing their business acumen as they work to build their Foreign Exchange Music imprint, which will be releasing two projects by Three Stars alum Zo! within the next several months.

The music partners took time out of their schedules to talk to us about what they’ve been up to and where they’re going as they get ready for their show this Sunday at the Black Cat.

We spoke around this time last year, right after the release of Leave It All Behind. How has the past year been promoting the album? Have you all been able to breathe?
Phonte: Not really. It’s been a lot of work. There hasn’t been a lot of relaxation. Once we finish one project we pretty much go and start on another one.

Nicolay: It seems like there’s been so much going on. We’ve gone to a lot of cities we didn’t think we’d go to. Outside of that, we’ve really been pushing the album, thinking up cool ways to promote it. We’ve been recording. The year’s really flown by.