Flying Lotus and Thundercat know that what they have is precious. The creative partnership between the visionary producer and the eccentric singer-slash-bass-virtuoso — born, respectively, Steven Ellison and Stephen Bruner — spans more than a decade and a stack of era-defining albums, including Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (on which both worked), Flying Lotus’ heady 2010 beat-collage masterpiece Cosmogramma, and Thundercat’s Grammy-winning, Lotus-produced 2020 prog-funk opus It Is What It Is (his fourth solo album on Ellison’s Brainfeeder label). Through all that activity, various outside projects, and massive jumps in profile for both along the way, they say little has changed.