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Fire Starter: Huey
He has a no-frills name, but Huey seems to have found the ingredient to make his fellow teens drop it like it's hot. The 19-year-old is preparing to release his debut LP, The Notebook Paper, in a few months, but the album's first single is getting fans really familiar with him. The song is called "Pop, Lock & Drop It," and please don't try it if you don't have strong calf muscles and/or coordination. Just like his friend Jibbs, Huey is from St. Louis.
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— Shaheem Reid and Joseph Patel, with additional reporting by Rahman Dukes and Bridget Bland
Artist: Amerie
Representing: D.C.
Mixtape: Because I Love It: Volume 1
411: The mixtape game got shaken up last week with all the drama surrounding DJ Drama and DJ Cannon. Everyone's a little nervous out there. Some DJs are falling back, some are regrouping, and everybody knows them boys are watching. Fortunately, with any hard times that may or may not be looming, music will get us through. This week, it's an R&B singer, not an MC, who's laying down the game for a mixtape.
Amerie's official album is titled Because I Love It and will be out this spring. But her first single, "Take Control," and its B-side, "That's What You Are," are also on the mixtape. The singer says she spent a good amount of time sitting at her kitchen table writing lyrics for this joint. "I had just written my album then sat down for the mixtape, so it was like I had written two albums," she said.
Amerie teamed up with DJ Clue for her first mixtape and says she had been thinking about working with DJ Drama for the next one. "I was in creative rush and I didn't want to stop writing," Amerie said. "There were so many songs on the radio that I liked, I was like, 'It would be cool to flip some of this stuff just for fun.' We got on a roll and did 10 of them."
Joints To Check For:
- "Weekend Girl." "We were thinking about just replaying the sample [of the SOS Band's 'Weekend Girl'], but we used the track Cam'ron had already used [for his track 'Weekend Love'] with the sample in it already," Amerie said. "The song is basically taking the original song and flipping it. It's knowing I'm busy. I didn't write the song from the perspective of being an entertainer; I did it from the perspective of an average person who works 9 to 5. We all can relate to that. When you're in those situations, a lot of the extracurricular activities you want to do have to be done on the weekend, because you're trying to work overtime, save up for something or whatever. Then everything you do is on the weekend. But when you're in a relationship, sometimes that's not enough time. It's not that I don't wanna be with you, but I have stuff to do right now."
- "Money in the Bank." "I like [Lil Scrappy's] 'Money in the Bank' a lot," Amerie said. "At first I had to think about what to write about because I don't like writing about materialistic things. I wanted to keep the hook, so I was like, 'How am I gonna keep the hook and sing about money in the bank?' I tried to make it a song about numbers. Even though it was talking about the material things a little bit, it wasn't really about the material things. It was about the wordplay. 'I push the 745, then I got the LI, graduated 750, then I got the Michigan blue.' "
- "Blow." "Rick Ross' 'Blow' beat is hard. I love that track," Amerie said. "There's eight bars in every verse. In every bar, I wanted to start out with the number. The first bar was one, then two, and so on. So I had to think of a creative way of starting out the bar with that number and making it fit into a sentence. Like, 'One day, I had a dream to make it to the top/ Too many times people wanted me to stop.' All the way down to eight. The second verse, I counted back from eight and made it make sense in a sentence. It was lyrical gymnastics. The countdown is there, and it's my story of how I was trying to make it in the industry."
Don't Sleep: Other Notable Selections This Week
- DJ EV - Bitch I'm From Cleveland
- DJ Mickey Knox - From the Hoods to the Suburbs Part 3
- DJ Rhumble - The Top 25 "Real" Hip Hop Joints for 2006
- Garcia Family - Been To Humble
- Industry Co-Sign 3: The Difference
- Shogun - Blend Man Returns
Click here for more of Mixtape Monday ...
'Hood's Heavy Rotation: Bubbling Below The Radar
- Chamillionaire (featuring Kelis) - "Not a Criminal"
- Ciara (featuring R. Kelly) - "Promise" remix
- Mya (featuring Lil Wayne) - "Lock You Down"
- Fabolous (featuring Lil Wayne) - "Diamonds on My Damn Chain"
Celebrity Faves
Singer Avant, who is traveling as part of the play "Love in the Nick of Tyme," is looking for a new record label. One of the people he is feeling right now is Sean Combs, so maybe we'll see Avant on Bad Boy in the future. "I'm just checking around. There's a lot of different people I'm talking to," Avant said. "Diddy is definitely in the talking. Me and Diddy been talking. It's a blessing to be able to talk to and work with your peers and people you look up to."
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
Styles P hurt his leg after a recent run-in with a man filled with road rage, but it's not stopping the MC from recording. Styles says the new LOX album is almost done, and he's working on his next solo album as well. SP is a free agent and wants to drop again right away. "I'm off of Ruff Ryders and Interscope," he explained. "I'm still there as the LOX, but as a soloist, Styles P, I'm gone. I give it a smile. I get to do a lot of work. I get to let loose.
"There's a lot of people hollering right now," he added about where he might land a new record deal. "But to tell you the truth, I don't even want to speak to anybody in the majors until I speak to everybody independent. I don't even know if I will speak to any of the majors. ... Then again I will, just because there's some people I respect. I've been through a lot of ups and downs. I want to get properly paid for my work. I think I'm too street for them to ever put me on a high industry pedestal. I don't see that coming. I get respect 'cause I'm a made man, because of the work I do."
Styles said after a long talk with Dee Dean from Ruff Ryders and Interscope head Jimmy Iovine, everyone decided amicably it would be best if they sever business ties — at least when it comes to the album Styles is doing by himself.
"I'll be critical of myself. Maybe I was real anal on my project as an artist," he said of his recently released Time Is Money. He did say he was upset that Ruff Ryders/ Interscope didn't give him a single or video to support the project's release, and the LP was pushed back several times over an almost three-year period. "I don't just handle my project as an artist. I'mma try to handle it as a CEO, a businessman.
"I guess it's hard to market me," he continued. "I may rap one way one day and make 'I'm Black,' then another way another day and make 'Favorite Drug.' I had to spread my wings and do what I do. You can look to hear from me hard in March or April. I will be right back. I haven't thought of an album title yet. I'm still smoking and pondering on it. But I'm the Phantom now; the Ghost is over with. If you're my friend, you can call me the Ghost. But as far as MCing … and don't call me a rapper no more. Call me an MC." ...
Speaking of injuries, L.A. Lakers forward Lamar Odom has been on the mend for the past few weeks, but he'll be back on the court soon. Besides cheering for Kobe Bryant and the rest of his team on the sidelines, L.O. has been getting his business right. The Queens, New York, native started an independent label called Rich Soil and has a couple of guys he grew up with as his flagship artists: mixtape DJ Supastar Jay and rapper Ali Vegas.
"We got it off the ground," Odom said of the label, which has a distribution deal through Asylum. "We got Veg, he's one of the brightest young stars in the game right now. He just hasn't had the opportunity to let the world hear his voice. I'm just trying to bring that to him with all my connections throughout the world and corporate world."
Odom said he was inspired to start his label a couple of years ago when he changed teams and coasts. "I'd been watching [Vegas] go through his deals," Lamar told. "He was signed to Trackmasters, Casablanca, Sony. ... When I went to the [Miami] Heat and got traded back to the Lakers, I felt it was for a bigger reason. [L.A.] is one of the biggest markets in the world. With us being from New York and having a connection down here in L.A., it's kinda strong. As soon as the trade happened, it was like, 'I think I'mma do a label myself.' ... In rap, nobody wants to give up that spot. So we trying to move some dudes out the way, because everybody knows how good he is."
Rich Soil will probably release Vegas' solo LP sometime this year, and Supastar Jay has a compilation LP on tap as well. "We just trying to get strong, get our strength up," Odom said. "We're trying to lock the streets down and all that." ...
When you get a call from a legend, you better sit back and listen. Bun B hit us up last week to say what's up. The new UGK album is on the way (nah, for real this time. It's coming).
Bun also said he's been indulging in his other love, movies. The Underground King is an avid movie collector, and he's been selected to present a film as part of a Houston film series going down at Houston's Fine Arts Museum. His co-presenters include ex-Astros skipper Larry Dierker, filmmaker Richard Linklater ("School of Rock") and former First Lady Barbara Bush. Yes, George W's ma. Kinda crazy. Bun is showing "Style Wars."
For other artists featured in Mixtape Mondays, check out Mixtape Mondays Headlines.
For a full-length feature on the role of mixtapes in the music industry, check out "Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry."
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Photo: MTV News
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