As Lateef the Truthspeaker tells it, his Latyrx reunion with fellow Bay Area rap veteran Lyrics Born was foretold by the stars themselves.

“I think the moon and the sun were in the proper retrograde and therefore it happened,” he recalls comically of the alleged astral alignment that brought the pair back together after a 16-year break.

Caught in a Northern California traffic jam with his fiancée, Lateef is the first of the group to speak with the Straight about the second coming of Latyrx, a project formed in the mid-’90s. The Truthspeaker explains that while he and his partner in rhyme had popped up on each other’s solo sets in the last decade and a half, they had to relearn how to craft an album’s worth of tag-team flows.

“What LB and I do is much deeper in terms of integration and interplay,” he notes of their heavily entwined back-and-forth. “That came back pretty quickly, but there were times where you had to kind of iron it out in terms of songwriting.”

Speaking on the line from a hotel room in Hollywood the next day, Lyrics Born notes that the gap between The Second Album and 1997’s Latyrx (The Album) changed the outfit’s lyrical outlook.

“In terms of real-life experience, we went from being teenagers together to being full-fledged adults with children and families, houses, and careers; I think that the art has kind of evolved on a parallel plane,” the baritone-voiced MC muses. “Back then I was still interested in the world, but my interests were split between that and having a ‘me’ attitude. I just don’t feel that way anymore. I look at me as a component of the whole.”

The Second Album has its fair share of fun moments, including the light-speed silliness each artist spouts atop guest producer tUnE-yArDs’ tapestry of panted vocal loops on “Deliberate Jibberish”, as well as the Red-Bull-and-vodka-guzzling vibe of the synth-screeching “Gorgeous Spirits”. But peppered throughout the set is more grown-up material.

Rapid-fire flows examine U.S. Second Amendment rights, security measures, and a rise in gun violence on “Reload”, while Lyrics Born weighs in on the dangers of racking up credit-card debt on “It’s Time”. Set to a grim, grinning, and ghostly Haunted Mansion groove supplied by Decemberists member Chris Funk, “Sometimes Why?” finds both MCs waxing nostalgic on a deceased former flame. As Lyrics Born confirms, Latyrx discussed mortality in between studio takes.

“I’m not that old, but a lot of people around me are not with me anymore, whether it be family members or friends or people we grew up with or people we used to rap with,” he states sadly. “When you get to a certain stage as a person or an artist you see how fleeting life can be.”

“We have songs that definitely come out of conversations that we’ve had,” Lateef had explained ahead of his partner about The Second Album. “If we’re talking about something and we’re tripping off something that’s going on in the world, it’ll come out in the music that we make.”

Latyrx plays Venue on Sunday (September 14).