Wiz Is ready to go to Neptunes! Well not exactly. But he is in the studio with Pharrell. The super producer is also working with Busta Rhymes, Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller.
‘Justin killed it,’ Twist tells MTV News of ‘Wherever You Are.’ By Rob Markman Justin Bieber Photo: George Pimentel / WireImage It’s been a long time coming for Lil Twist . The Young Money rap rookie was supposed to see his debut album Don’t Get It Twisted drop in 2011, but after a few false starts, the Dallas MC is looking forward to a March 20 release. Already, he has dropped a ton of singles and high-powered collaborations with Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes and 2 Chainz. Next up, Justin Bieber . “We’re getting ready to drop that record ‘Wherever You Are.’ Y’all will have that real soon,” Lil Twist told MTV News of the high-powered collaboration. “It’s a fun record. Justin killed it. He’s, like, rap-singing on it; another different sound for Justin.” Twist, who built his fanbase thanks to pop-rap joints like “Little Secret” with Bow Wow and “Love Affair,” has been developing a harder edge lately. His recently released video for the Busta Rhymes-assisted “Turnt Up” focuses more on the 18-year old’s rap bars rather than his penchant for catchy hooks. His Golden Child mixtape, which he dropped in December, also shows a similar growth. But with “Wherever You Are,” Twist just promises a good time. “It’s gonna be great. It’s a cool summer record,” Twist told MTV News last August. “It’s a party song. Straight for the sun. It’s a Miami record.” While the record has been in the works for some time, Twist is almost ready to let to go. “Just me and Justin, people been waiting on that,” he said of his bond with the Biebs. “That’s my brother right there. It’s just been a long time coming. Now that we been had the record done, it’s time to put it out.” Are you anticipating Lil Twist’s “Wherever You Are,” featuring Justin Bieber? Tell us in the comments! Related Artists Justin Bieber Lil Twist
Every few years, acclaimed Hip-Hop lyricists catapult a new liquor trend with rhymes that take over the radio waves and infiltrate the hottest club scenes. In the 1990′s there was Jay-Z and his Roc-A-Fella crew rapping about Cristal while, at the turn of the millennium, Busta Rhymes was known to “pass the Courvoisier.” Over the past few months artists like Drake, who represent the future of Hip-Hop , shouted-out lyrics about Moscato wine… Continue
‘Of course we can get together, he got hot beats and I got dope rhymes,’ T.I. tells MTV News. By Rob Markman, with reporting by FLX T.I. poses with Beats by Dr. Dre Photo: Ben Rose/ WireImage No matter your stature in rap, working with Dr. Dre is a pretty big deal. Newcomers like Kendrick Lamar and Slim the Mobster have seen their careers grow considerably after working with the good doctor, while veterans like Busta Rhymes and 50 Cent have marveled at Dre’s in-studio work ethic. For T.I. , however, simply working with the West Coast production king isn’t enough. He wants to develop a tighter musical bond. On Tuesday (December 28), Tip leaked a trailer for the mixtape F— da City Up that showed him and Dre working together in the studio. “Dre was here. He sent for me over to the spot. We really just turned up more than anything else. It was about creating chemistry,” T.I. told MTV News while he was in Atlanta preparing for the New Year’s Day release of the mixtape. This isn’t the first time that the King of the South has collaborated with the California legend. A few years ago, “Topless,” a song that was said to be recorded for Dre’s oft-delayed Detox , leaked onto the Internet. According to T.I., their most recent session was a fruitful one. “Of course we can get together, he got hot beats and I got dope rhymes, so we can always get together and make music,” Tip said. “But for people to feel what we’re sayin’ and for it to sound like a party comin’ through your speakers, you gonna have to create some chemistry. So that’s what we spent more time doin’ than anything else; developing that chemistry.” Related Artists T.I. Dr. Dre
Skrillex collaborators tell MTV News, ‘We all feel like rocks stars now.’ By Akshay Bhansali Nero Photo: MTV News While Skrillex might be the face of hard-dance EDM in the U.S. this year, his friends and collaborators from the U.K. Nero are quickly becoming popular. In fact, Nero’s Daniel Stephens and Joe Ray, joined by frequent vocal partner Alana Watson, have five stellar hit singles across the pond from their debut album, Welcome Reality, which is now available in the U.S. Notably, here in the States, fan support has surged, with strong Stateside gigs, a recording deal with Interscope and their single “Me & You” even being used in a Beats by Dre commercial featuring the good doctor himself. It’s another endearing success story spawned from a genre that, in the past, catered to a very few, but today, the masses clearly can’t get enough of. “We’ve had songs off the album that have charted very well in the U.K.,” Stephens recently told MTV News. “And we come over here wondering — because they are not on the radio and not charting here — we wonder if they’ve translated over to the U.S. market, and we are always really shocked and amazed when they go off just as much over here.” Watson added, “For the crowds here in the States, ‘Guilt,’ ‘Promises’ has had a massive reaction, with obviously Skrillex doing a collab remix of that for us, which is amazing!” Of the group’s live performances, Stephens explained, “You can’t really hear Alana. When we play live now, she’s just drowned out by the crowd. It’s very humbling when you got a whole massive room of people just singing your songs back to you. We all feel like rocks stars now.” Welcome Reality is a cinematic, electronic opus inspired by colleagues like Daft Punk and ’80s sci-fi films like “Blade Runner” and “Aliens.” Nods to the music and pop culture of the ’80s are no more prevalent than on their latest single, “Reaching Out,” which features ’80s recording legend Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates, who recorded original vocals for Nero, and bits from the Hall & Oats classic “Out of Touch.” “A guy that works in the office just next to our studio, he produced [Hall’s] most-recent album,” Stephens explained. “So, he said, ‘Oh, I know Daryl. I can sort that out for you. He’d probably be up for singing some new material on the track as well.’ “So, back and forth through emails, he agreed that he would re-sing that passage and sing a whole brand-new fresh chorus for the track. So, it’s all original Daryl Hall material, which is amazing! And he still just sounds so great. It’s incredible.” Though Nero and Watson have yet to meet Mr. Hall in person, collaborating with the ’80s icon proved to be a career milestone for the trio. “Just having this ’80s legend, it wasn’t an obvious way to go,” Stephens continued. “So for us, that felt really special. We got this guy that we love, but also this fresh thing to have on a dance track. No one else had really done that.” The video for “Reaching Out” is, fittingly, as stellar a nod to the era as the song, a “Miami Vice”-meets-“Scarface” short film of Miami ’80s opulence comprised of stock footage from the decade. Welcome Reality also features U.K. hit singles “Innocence,” “Me & You,” “Guilt” and “Promises.” Related Artists Daryl Hall
Busta says new collabo with Breezy, ‘Why Stop Now, ‘ was ‘organic.’ By Rob Markman, with reporting by Matt Elias Busta Rhymes Photo: MTV News Could Busta Rhymes and Chris Brown be developing a long-lasting chemistry? The pair, along with Lil Wayne and the Dungeon Dragon, ruled airwaves in 2011 with their collaborative hit, “Look at Me Now,” and now they’re hoping for similar results with Busta’s new single “Why Stop Now.” Though the title may suggest that the two singles are somehow related, Busta insists that his latest song with Breezy wasn’t as methodically put together as people may think. “I wasn’t actually trying to capture the energy of [‘Look at Me Now’] and bring it into this project,” the newly signed Cash Money MC told MTV News while on the song’s video set. “I just think that for me, especially at this stage in my career, I only do records with people that I respect.” The Diplo and Afrojack-produced “Look at Me Now” peaked at #1 on Billboard ‘s Hot R&B/ Hip-Hop Songs Chart and was voted #9 on MTV’s Best Songs of 2011 list. The Colin Tilley-directed video remained among the year’s best, receiving multiple nominations at the 2011 VMAs. Not a bad track to build a blueprint off of. The bass-rattling “Why Stop Now,” which was produced by Sham “Sak Pase” Joseph, is reminiscent of “Look at Me Now,” mostly because it features the same type of speed-rapping by Bus. But rather than a retread of a tried-and-true formula, Busta says the new collaboration came about much more organically. “It was just fortunate that I had something that worked well for what we do to be able to have another collab with him,” he said. “If I didn’t have that record, then we wouldn’t be doing this video and we wouldn’t have had another song out together. “I’m just about making sure that the music ultimately speaks in the most organic way possible,” he continued. “It doesn’t just seem like something that we threw together to try and capitalize off of a momentum that was there.” Related Artists Busta Rhymes Chris Brown
‘They know how to let artists be artists,’ Busta tells MTV News. By Rob Markman, with reporting by Matt Elias Busta Rhymes Photo: MTV News Busta Rhymes most certainly respects the Cash Money conglomerate. Some scratched their heads when the Dungeon Dragon announced last month that he had signed with Cash Money Records . Critics couldn’t fathom why the East Coast rap vet would ink with Birdman’s Southern-based, youth-driven label, but for Busta, the deal makes perfect sense. “It’s real fortunate to be able to have a 20-year career run and partner up with the most powerful record company in the business 20 years later,” Busta told MTV News on Tuesday from the set of his Hype Williams-directed “Why Stop Now” video. Bussa Bus began his career in 1991 as a member of the four-man Long Island, New York, group Leaders of the New School but went solo after the crew disbanded in 1993. The gravel-voiced speed rapper has since dropped eight solo albums and given hip-hop a number of memorable party anthems. Not only were “Woo-Hah! Got You All in Check,” “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See” and “Pass the Courvoisier Pt. 2” huge radio hits, each song also had high-priced, creative music videos attached to them. Combining his hitmaking ability and strong visuals has made Busta one of rap’s greatest and most unique artists. The veteran continued to dominate this past year thanks to his scene-stealing verse on Chris Brown’s Grammy-nominated smash “Look at Me Now” and his guest spot on Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV. At this point in his career, he was looking for a home that would continue to fuel his fire. “They understand. They know how to nurture the music, they know how to let artists be artists, they know how to let you reach your fullest capability creatively,” Busta said of Cash Money. Back in 1997, Lil Wayne was an oft-overlooked kid rapper, but he has steadily grown into a bankable soloist and the mega musical star he is now. Busta factored in Weezy’s trajectory when deciding on where he should sign. “Wayne is a perfect example. He reached his apex a little while ago, and he just continues to grow,” Busta said. It isn’t just Tunechi, though. While officially signed to Young Money, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Lil Twist and Tyga all fall under the Cash Money umbrella. With a stable of successful artists, why wouldn’t Busta want to join the YMCMB team? “It feels good to see that,” he said of the label’s success. “It feels good to be a part of that.” What do you think of Busta joining Cash Money? Let us know in the comments! Related Artists Busta Rhymes
Words By Hafeez Raji Rarely do pioneers stay relevant some twenty-five years after coming on the scene to redefine a genre as one William Griffin, aka Rakim bka The R. Over two decades ago my only knowledge of hip hop–or better yet “rap”–revolved literally on my first vinyl album, a compilation of the Sugar Hill Gang’s record label greatest hits featuring Grand Master Flash, Whodini, The Sugar Hill Gang and a cast of others not even worth mentioning. That album would take a back seat to the only album that mattered to me for years to come and still ranks on my top 10 of all time. Paid in Full by all accounts did what Nirvana’s Nevermind did to the music landscape back in 87 and is widely considered to every bit as influential and important as the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band . Musically it broke open the vault to every James Brown beat ever made and all but killed the common theme of sampling disco and rock albums to create the music for hip hop artists to rhyme to. Before Rakim blessed the mic, the themes of hip hop were fairly light-hearted concentrating primarily on party themes and less thought provoking rhymes. While Run DMC was screaming about being Kings of Rock , Rakim challenged our minds and challenged emcees to put more thought and emphasis on lyrics while charting his way to being labeled God Mc. “I take 7 emcees put em in line, add 7 more brothers who think they can rhyme, it will take 7 more before I go for mine and that’s 21 emcees ate up at the same time.” – “My Melody” Few other hip-hop albums have been sampled more or listed in the top ten as Paid in Full . Stetsasonic, Gang Starr, 2pac, NWA, Lord Finesse, Warren G, Smif-N-Wessun, Birdman, Lil Wayne, Girl Talk and so on have all sampled Paid in Full . Back in ‘87 hip-hop still had a negative view from the critics and was really thought to be a fad that would soon die. It was perceived as crude noise with no real background or foundation for credibility when compared to other genres, which at most had their ties to soul, jazz or rock. Like Punk Rock the previous decade you had a lot of acts and crew who just simply had no talent or business picking up a microphone hopping on the scene and further contributing to the assertion that the fad would soon die. Paid In Full ushered in a new era of rap by throwing out all the whack conventions and made emcees go back and rethink their careers. Almost 25 years later Rakim still ranks up there in every artists top list of G.O.A.T. Kanye and Jay-Z may have you watching the throne but all kings and queens ( you can decide who’s who) must answer to a higher power. Paid in Full, is the best and most influential album ever made and there’s nothing wrong with coming in second to it. RELATED POSTS: Sonia Sanchez Gives Props To Hip-Hop At Black Film Festival [VIDEO] VIDEO: Rakim On The Turntables @ B.B. Kings Rakim F/ Busta Rhymes, Jadakiss, Styles “Euphoria”
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