Swizzy is also behind the new G-Unit record "Get Down" and is in the lab working on some brand-new Jay-Z songs. "I gave him the out-of-control Swizz," Beatz said of the tracks. "You'll see. Out of control! F--- — spazzin', out of control!"
Source: MTV
Showing posts with label MTV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MTV. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Hip-Hop Photographer Jonathan Mannion Talks About Classic Shoot With Jay-Z
Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt
"I spoke to Damon Dash first [about shooting the album artwork], and he goes, 'All right, cool. Nice pictures. What are you going to charge me?' And I was like, 'I'll do it for 300 less than your lowest bid.' I was talking hundreds. ... I was like, 'Just let me do what I want to do, man. My vision.' I went with Jay on the creative stuff and had a whole list of things. Then he changed his title. I don't know if it's common knowledge, but it was originally going to be called Heir to the Throne. That was a title that was tossed around. Reasonable Doubt came around, and I came back with a whole other set of ideas. They styled themselves. I told them I didn't want the whole Versace, 'Scarface,' Miami Mafia drug-running kinda thing. I wanted the New York, the Brooklyn Mafia. Little Italy surveillance, the real business."
"I spoke to Damon Dash first [about shooting the album artwork], and he goes, 'All right, cool. Nice pictures. What are you going to charge me?' And I was like, 'I'll do it for 300 less than your lowest bid.' I was talking hundreds. ... I was like, 'Just let me do what I want to do, man. My vision.' I went with Jay on the creative stuff and had a whole list of things. Then he changed his title. I don't know if it's common knowledge, but it was originally going to be called Heir to the Throne. That was a title that was tossed around. Reasonable Doubt came around, and I came back with a whole other set of ideas. They styled themselves. I told them I didn't want the whole Versace, 'Scarface,' Miami Mafia drug-running kinda thing. I wanted the New York, the Brooklyn Mafia. Little Italy surveillance, the real business."
Monday, November 12, 2007
Samgoma Edwards [Young Hov in Roc Boys]
Celebrity Faves
Samgoma Edwards
There's Young Hov, but then there's really young Hov. Samgoma Edwards is the 15-year-old Bronx native who plays Jay-Z's corner-boy incarnation in the upcoming video for "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is ...)." Director Chris Robinson personally sought out Edwards for the role after Edwards, his brother Samtubia, and producer Chris Alvarez shot their own video project titled "The Young Hov Project," based on tracks from Jay-Z's The Black Album. Robinson saw Edwards star as Jay in the Gorilla Films videos posted on YouTube and reached out. The rest has been a star turn for the high school sophomore.
"It was crazy when I went to school [after the video came out]," Edwards told Mixtape Monday while taking a bathroom break from class to sneak in an interview. "I couldn't even breathe my own oxygen. It was wild. I only told, like, three of my friends and was like, 'Yo, keep your mouth shut about this.' I just wanted people to see it when it first came out. I didn't tell anybody."
Edwards is an admitted Jay fan, but he only began listening to the rapper with The Black Album. "The track that I liked was 'My First Song,' " he said. "It was the last track, and I thought that was gonna be his last album and everything, so I just thought, 'Yo, he's doing his thing.' "
Mixtape Monday
Samgoma Edwards
There's Young Hov, but then there's really young Hov. Samgoma Edwards is the 15-year-old Bronx native who plays Jay-Z's corner-boy incarnation in the upcoming video for "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is ...)." Director Chris Robinson personally sought out Edwards for the role after Edwards, his brother Samtubia, and producer Chris Alvarez shot their own video project titled "The Young Hov Project," based on tracks from Jay-Z's The Black Album. Robinson saw Edwards star as Jay in the Gorilla Films videos posted on YouTube and reached out. The rest has been a star turn for the high school sophomore.
"It was crazy when I went to school [after the video came out]," Edwards told Mixtape Monday while taking a bathroom break from class to sneak in an interview. "I couldn't even breathe my own oxygen. It was wild. I only told, like, three of my friends and was like, 'Yo, keep your mouth shut about this.' I just wanted people to see it when it first came out. I didn't tell anybody."
Edwards is an admitted Jay fan, but he only began listening to the rapper with The Black Album. "The track that I liked was 'My First Song,' " he said. "It was the last track, and I thought that was gonna be his last album and everything, so I just thought, 'Yo, he's doing his thing.' "
Mixtape Monday
Jay-Z Borrows The-Dream's 'Hook'
Mixtape Monday
Jay-Z told us the obvious: Just Blaze is to blame for him getting on the remix of Saigon's "Come on Baby."
"I met Saigon before," Jay said last week in L.A. "He's a cool guy as well. But Just Blaze ... that's his artist. So we had records and work like that. It's in-house.
"Big fan? Of Saigon? "Yeah, he's good," Jay added. "But I wouldn't have did it ... to be honest with you. I like Saigon. If I don't have a relationship with the artist, I'm not just doing it for the sake of doing it. If you look at my past record, I've done records because of relationship, not 'cause this guy's good or whatever."
One good guy Jay is feeling is an artist under his Def Jam label, The-Dream. Dream (a Fire Starter alumnus — told you so, haters) is smashing the game with his "Shawty Is a 10," in which he's feeling himself so much he proclaims he doesn't need a chorus on the song: "I don't need no hook for this sh--!" Jay took his non-chorus chorus for the American Gangster song "No Hook."
"I was working on this song and it just keeps going and I get down to how many bars the verse is, and I'm like, 'What's gonna be the hook for this?' " Jay remembered. "Then I was like, 'I don't need a hook for this.' That, of course, led me to the Dream song, and I was like, 'I'm just gonna take that.' "
"When he played all the records [off his album] and I heard that record and he's saying, 'I don't need no hook,' I was like, 'That's crazy,' " The-Dream gushed. "This is Jay saying this? It's a whole 'nother level of respect. It's crazy. I remember when Jay was playing it at the 40/40 club. Like, 'Y'all don't know nothing about this.' People was calling saying, 'Jay ran the song back six times.' " ...
Jay-Z told us the obvious: Just Blaze is to blame for him getting on the remix of Saigon's "Come on Baby."
"I met Saigon before," Jay said last week in L.A. "He's a cool guy as well. But Just Blaze ... that's his artist. So we had records and work like that. It's in-house.
"Big fan? Of Saigon? "Yeah, he's good," Jay added. "But I wouldn't have did it ... to be honest with you. I like Saigon. If I don't have a relationship with the artist, I'm not just doing it for the sake of doing it. If you look at my past record, I've done records because of relationship, not 'cause this guy's good or whatever."
One good guy Jay is feeling is an artist under his Def Jam label, The-Dream. Dream (a Fire Starter alumnus — told you so, haters) is smashing the game with his "Shawty Is a 10," in which he's feeling himself so much he proclaims he doesn't need a chorus on the song: "I don't need no hook for this sh--!" Jay took his non-chorus chorus for the American Gangster song "No Hook."
"I was working on this song and it just keeps going and I get down to how many bars the verse is, and I'm like, 'What's gonna be the hook for this?' " Jay remembered. "Then I was like, 'I don't need a hook for this.' That, of course, led me to the Dream song, and I was like, 'I'm just gonna take that.' "
"When he played all the records [off his album] and I heard that record and he's saying, 'I don't need no hook,' I was like, 'That's crazy,' " The-Dream gushed. "This is Jay saying this? It's a whole 'nother level of respect. It's crazy. I remember when Jay was playing it at the 40/40 club. Like, 'Y'all don't know nothing about this.' People was calling saying, 'Jay ran the song back six times.' " ...
Monday, October 22, 2007
Nas Reveals 'Crazy Joint' With Jay-Z
Nas wants to drop his first single for n!gga two or three days after November 6, which is the day his greatest-hits LP and Jay-Z's American Gangster drop. Nas appears on Hov's set via the track "Success."
"The record with Jay, that's a crazy joint," he said. "Homeboy is laser-sharp with his sh--. And he's got a crazy album. I'm really proud of him. It made me proud. Yeah, I'm on the joint. I'm on there." ...
Mixtape Monday: Nas Reveals 'Crazy Joint' With Jay-Z
"The record with Jay, that's a crazy joint," he said. "Homeboy is laser-sharp with his sh--. And he's got a crazy album. I'm really proud of him. It made me proud. Yeah, I'm on the joint. I'm on there." ...
Mixtape Monday: Nas Reveals 'Crazy Joint' With Jay-Z
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Saigon says Jay-Z is 'Rain Man'
Saigon says Jay-Z is Rain Man (MTV)
"He's gone now!" Saigon's rap career is finally fast-tracked now that he has an official single from his debut LP, The Greatest Story Never Told. "Come on Baby" has been burning up the mix shows, and a video is forthcoming.
"Being that it's rock-influenced, I wanna get a rock band. Remember [Run-DMC's] 'Walk This Way'? I wanted to do it just like that," he explained of a treatment he has in his head. "Me and Just [Blaze] in one side of the studio, doing some rap stuff, they doing their rock stuff [on another side], then we banging on the wall. We wanna use 'Walk This Way' as sort of like a blueprint. The record is real rock-influenced, let's incorporate that into the video, instead of us just being in the club.
"It's just me braggin' about being good on the mic," he added about the record, which samples the J. Geils Band. "I was like OK, I put 'Pain in My Life' out. People know I'm a serious artist. But to get more of a graduation-scale introduction to the world, a bigger scale, I wanted to let them know I like to have fun as well. I'm a human being. I'm not just a preachy type of guy. 'Pain in My Life' was a little preachy, I wanted to show diversity. I don't want to be typecast and put in a category of just a backpack rapper or conscious rapper or gangster rapper. I'm one of the rappers you can't typecast because I can do a song with Dead Prez, I can do a song with Uncle Murda, then do a song with Jay-Z."
Sai has a remix of "Come on Baby" (which you can hear a snippet of in this video) in the works that Jay has already laid vocals to. "Yeah, Jay's on my album. He's on the remix to the single, he aired it out. I still gotta go back and rewrite my verse," the Yardfather told.
"He really does the 'Rain Man' thing, he doesn't sit down and write," he continued. "For mad years, I was like, 'He's too clever, I don't believe he don't write [lyrics] down. He's too on point.' But with this beat, when he came to record to it, he never heard the beat before and his rhyme went so perfect with the beat. I was like he couldn't have wrote this at home, he couldn't have had this in the stash. Maybe this dude do got more brain cells than everybody else. I tell him all the time, 'You an alien, man.' "
"He's gone now!" Saigon's rap career is finally fast-tracked now that he has an official single from his debut LP, The Greatest Story Never Told. "Come on Baby" has been burning up the mix shows, and a video is forthcoming.
"Being that it's rock-influenced, I wanna get a rock band. Remember [Run-DMC's] 'Walk This Way'? I wanted to do it just like that," he explained of a treatment he has in his head. "Me and Just [Blaze] in one side of the studio, doing some rap stuff, they doing their rock stuff [on another side], then we banging on the wall. We wanna use 'Walk This Way' as sort of like a blueprint. The record is real rock-influenced, let's incorporate that into the video, instead of us just being in the club.
"It's just me braggin' about being good on the mic," he added about the record, which samples the J. Geils Band. "I was like OK, I put 'Pain in My Life' out. People know I'm a serious artist. But to get more of a graduation-scale introduction to the world, a bigger scale, I wanted to let them know I like to have fun as well. I'm a human being. I'm not just a preachy type of guy. 'Pain in My Life' was a little preachy, I wanted to show diversity. I don't want to be typecast and put in a category of just a backpack rapper or conscious rapper or gangster rapper. I'm one of the rappers you can't typecast because I can do a song with Dead Prez, I can do a song with Uncle Murda, then do a song with Jay-Z."
Sai has a remix of "Come on Baby" (which you can hear a snippet of in this video) in the works that Jay has already laid vocals to. "Yeah, Jay's on my album. He's on the remix to the single, he aired it out. I still gotta go back and rewrite my verse," the Yardfather told.
"He really does the 'Rain Man' thing, he doesn't sit down and write," he continued. "For mad years, I was like, 'He's too clever, I don't believe he don't write [lyrics] down. He's too on point.' But with this beat, when he came to record to it, he never heard the beat before and his rhyme went so perfect with the beat. I was like he couldn't have wrote this at home, he couldn't have had this in the stash. Maybe this dude do got more brain cells than everybody else. I tell him all the time, 'You an alien, man.' "
Monday, August 06, 2007
Jay-Z Sews Up Venture With Eminem, Young Jeezy
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
mtv.com
Superman can fly, the Joker loves a good laugh and Jay-Z gets paid. These things are common knowledge. Still, Hov says he doesn't take his success for granted and even takes time to reflect on it.
"It's something I look at quite often and say, 'Wow,' " said the man who recently clocked in at #9 on the Forbes list of top-earning entertainers. "Of course, it's very humbling. Starting out, you believe you're gonna have success, but it's no way to imagine the type of success I've had. There's no way to dream that out. I've passed every goal I set for myself, but it's still hustling at the end of the day. Legal hustling. You incorporate that same type of go-getter attitude. It's just part of my personality."
Jigga's flip game has been so proper that Rocawear now has co-ventures with Eminem's Shady clothing line and Young Jeezy's 8732 apparel.
"It's a thing for us," Jay said. "All of us, we had the same type of struggle to impart some of that wisdom. I may know a little bit more about clothing at this particular time than Jeezy, but he's flying lower than me, so he may know more about what's going on in the streets a little quicker than I. Not much quicker, but a little quicker." ...
mtv.com
Superman can fly, the Joker loves a good laugh and Jay-Z gets paid. These things are common knowledge. Still, Hov says he doesn't take his success for granted and even takes time to reflect on it.
"It's something I look at quite often and say, 'Wow,' " said the man who recently clocked in at #9 on the Forbes list of top-earning entertainers. "Of course, it's very humbling. Starting out, you believe you're gonna have success, but it's no way to imagine the type of success I've had. There's no way to dream that out. I've passed every goal I set for myself, but it's still hustling at the end of the day. Legal hustling. You incorporate that same type of go-getter attitude. It's just part of my personality."
Jigga's flip game has been so proper that Rocawear now has co-ventures with Eminem's Shady clothing line and Young Jeezy's 8732 apparel.
"It's a thing for us," Jay said. "All of us, we had the same type of struggle to impart some of that wisdom. I may know a little bit more about clothing at this particular time than Jeezy, but he's flying lower than me, so he may know more about what's going on in the streets a little quicker than I. Not much quicker, but a little quicker." ...
Monday, May 21, 2007
Tidbit About the new Rocawear Campaign
Ciara was toasted by Jay-Z and Young Jeezy Thursday night in New York as the Atlanta singer celebrated being named the new face of the Roc-A-Wear ladies' line. Ciara follows in the footsteps of Naomi Campbell and actress Zoe Saldana. The new campaign will be titled "I Will Not Lose" and feature testimonials by a number of personalities who've overcome various hardships, including Amy Steele, the editor-in-chief of Virginia Tech campus newspaper The Collegiate Times. ...
via MTV.Com
via MTV.Com
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