It was kismet for Saba and No ID, both from Chicago, to pair up for their first collaborative album, which was released on March 18. But the journey would be five years in the making.

The Midwest wordsmith and occasional producer were putting the finishing touches on his 2018 sophomore album, Care for Me when approached by No ID, formerly Executive Vice President of Capitol Records. Tapped in with Saba’s catalog, including his ambitious 2016 album Bucket List Project, No ID went into his A&R bag, wanting the independent artist to join the label. While the signing wouldn’t happen, they remained in contact, with No ID eventually scouring through his beats for the two to co-create “From the Private Collection.”

“I remember I went to visit him one day, he had just hella beats and he had done them all like that week or that two weeks span,” Saba tells BET.com. “He was like ‘Here go 100 beats. How many you want me to send you?’ And I was like, ‘I don't know, send them all.’ I didn't expect him to do it, but when he actually did it, I felt like that probably wasn’t a normal experience that other artists were having.”

Although challenging, as Saba was preparing to tour and would eventually spend nearly two months recording, the album reflected a musical collage of the rapper returning to his beat poetry origins. The symbiotic tie between Saba and No ID would make for the rhymer’s fourth and lyrically strongest LP, despite him already being in the modern conscious rap pantheon.

“I feel as though I went into it with something to prove almost,” he says. “It was like right after I had put my last album out–I was gearing up to go on the tour for A Few Good Things, and I was seeing how he worked, which is very different from how I worked.”

He continues, “It was just like, Okay, how can I warm up on the road and just keep recording as much as I can? I came back with 14 songs over his beats and that was like the predecessor to the album that we actually ended up with.”

Like his earlier works, Saba ended up with a triumphant album devoid of missteps. The interpolation of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “You’re All I Need to Get By” fits the vintage-sounding testimony of “Every Painting Has a Price.” On “Westside Bound 4,” Saba revisits his family’s rich musician history and continues epitomizing his birthplace. The frenetic handclaps of “head.rap” finds him in a slice-of-life moment, pondering his new Los Angeles surroundings and ever-changing locs. The rapper expresses himself without bounds with No ID’s soulful production specifically curated for Saba.

“Coming from ‘Care for Me’ and then ‘A Few Good Things,’ I kind of felt myself starting to be almost typecast in terms of how people receive the information that I'm giving them. Like, No f**k that. I'm about to bar out,” Saba recalls.

In working with No ID, Saba stands among other rap legends who’ve linked with the producer on entire projects, including Jay-Z, Big Sean, and fellow Chi-Town native Common. But Saba doesn’t see these giants as competition but rather as helping him see his singular authenticity.

“Because I've been doing music my whole life, the aura around rappers is like… I see myself how people see them,” Saba says. “I think for me it was like, Okay, I guess this is an opportunity to prove that to yourself. I felt like I was in good company. I'm like, I'm where I belong. I'm supposed to be going this path.

But Saba admits to having faced self-doubt, or imposter syndrome, unsure if being praised matches his output. On the pensive single “How to Impress God,” Saba examines himself from a bird's-eye view, his hubris being critiqued by a higher being.

“I thought [about] the pursuit and just receiving some of the things that you always dreamed of having, I thought it would feel different,” Saba explains. “It's like anything else, once you reach a certain goal, it's not like, ‘Oh, job well done. You're finished now.’ It's like you just have new aspirations, you get new goals, so it almost starts to feel like nothing happened.”

As he still makes sense of “How to Impress God,” the fullness of “From the Private Collection” has enriched Saba, even when the album originated as a sample-utilizing mixtape. The rapper went with the flow to assess what a deeper part of him wanted to convey.

“I think I make a lot of music for my younger self. My younger self had his sights set on X, Y, Z, equalling, All right, I'm cool now,” Saba shares. “Once you do all of those things and you still have deeper aspirations, you’ve got to constantly have conversations with yourself and remind yourself [of] whatever path you’re on.”

Along the way, Saba rubbed shoulders with collaborators like BJ the Chicago Kid, Eryn Allen Kane, Smino, and Ibeyi. But in collaborating with Kelly Rowland and Raphael Saddiq on the romantic neo-soul groove of “Crash,” the Saba found a mentor in the Tony! Toni! Toné! frontman.

“It was dope like building a relationship with him because sometimes I'll get to the studio and it's just him and No ID talking,” he says. “And I just sit down and set up, get on my laptop and I'm just hearing them. I'm like, Man this s**t feels like a South by Southwest panel or something like, something that I'm supposed to pay $300 to get this information.”

In rediscovering his craft through hundreds of No ID selections, Saba fine-tuned his pen and masterfully created an album he didn’t know would pour out of him. “From the Private Collection” will be well-loved by longtime Saba fans while representing the rapper’s creative growth.

“A lot of those records that I initially intended to be a part of this, I didn't end up using at all. So it's cool I'm very happy that's the direction that it went in,” he admits. “I got to make something that I could bar out on, but it also feels like me. it's melodic and it’s hits a certain scratch in my brain that I always want for music, but I'm like, F**k it, I gotta just make the music that I want to hear at the end of the day.”