 |  |   | | | | | MTV: Tell me a little bit about your "Untitled" single, because people are going crazy over that song and that video.D: Thanks. Well, it's a sexy song, a song I did with Raphael Saadiq at Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios, in New York. It just came together. I love that song and the video. You know, we had a whole bunch of ideas before the video, a whole bunch of scripts talking about how we wanted to bring in these models and make a million-dollar set, and it was mentioned to my manager that maybe it should just be me, singing to the camera. And I thought that was the best way to go.MTV: And who suggested you with no shirt on?D: My manager. We'd been in the studio and at rehearsals, and when it gets to the end of that song, that energy, that intensity right there -- I just love to sing that. It was great. I felt totally comfortable doing it. And the more I think about it the more I like it, because when we started working on the album, I wanted the whole mood and the whole atmosphere of it to be raw and bare bones, and visually I feel that we're doing the same thing. It's just raw.MTV: Talk a little bit about the voodoo theme of the album.D: The idea came to me from a whole bunch of different sources, but the main reason that ties everything together is that I had so many visions of ceremonies or things that had to do with being in a trance, or being possessed by a spirit, and it all being done with or through music, song, and dance. I wanted to really make a statement about how powerful music is, that music is a spirit within itself, and that music can be a bridge to a spiritual realm. I just feel that today we've lost that concept, so I wanted to make that connection.MTV: It had to be inspiring to work at Electric Lady.D: Yeah, man. Everything tied in together. I mean, we were working in Jimi Hendrix's studio, the "Voodoo Chile's" studio. And all that happened spontaneously. I feel like nothing was planned, but it was all planned, you understand? So I didn't know what else to name it but "Voodoo." The forces were just right.MTV: I know that at one point you were based in Virginia. But you must have been living in New York most of the time working on this album.D: Yeah, I was, and it's definitely a different element from where I was raised. You're surrounded by concrete, traffic, and things like that, so it does bring a different atmosphere to mind. It made the mood of the music a little darker, and a little grittier. It definitely had an influence of the sound of this project.MTV: Do you have another single coming, and do you know what it's going to be? Although it's not like you need to rush one out, because the first one is still doing so well.D: We're wrestling with a couple of them, but we don't know exactly which one we'll follow up with.MTV: Finally, I wanted to come back to the album's liner notes again, which sort of take aim at hip-hop MCs. Not in a really bad way, but just sort of questioning what's going on with hip-hop these days.D: Well, I don't think it attacks hip-hop MCs. As a matter of fact, I think it glorifies hip-hop MCs, in a way. Or at least honors what hip-hop really is about, what it really stands for. It doesn't really stand for commercialism, or exploiting the culture for a dollar. That ain't what hip-hop is about. Hip-hop to me is like an underground railroad, and it was always at its most potent and most effective when it was underground. I think the motives behind most hip-hop music nowadays are kind of screwed up. We need to get back to actually enhancing the craft. You know, it used to be about skills. Brothers used to battle. It was a way of life. Now, I'm not saying that we're not living the life today. But I do think we just gotta check ourselves. Music reflects what we're going through as a people, and when you get down to it, hip-hop has to say something about what we're going through as a people, now, today. 
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