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2011 mtvU Woodie Awards Preview: Q&A With Chiddy Bang

Over here at MTV, we're all atwitter with excitement for the 2011 mtvU Woodie Awards, happening during Austin's South By Southwest Music Festival on Wednesday, March 16, at midnight (ET/PT)! This year's lineup is hotter than ever, with "Community" star and Woodies host Donald Glover and performances by Wiz Khalifa, Sleigh Bells and Two Door Cinema Club. We sat down for a little Q&A with three of the hottest 2011 Woodies nominees: Lil B, Chiddy Bang, and Woodies veterans Matt & Kim. This time around, we're talking to Chidera "Chiddy" Anamege and Noah "Xaphoon Jones" Beresin of the Nigeria-by-way-of-Philadelphia duo Chiddy Bang about Charlie Sheen, Philadelphia and the UK.

Q: If you guys win the Best Video Woodie this year, what is your next biggest goal?

Noah: (Laughing) Grammys? Gold medal at the Olympics? We got to go the Brit Awards this year. We weren’t nominated, so we didn’t win anything. But it was cool to see the Brit Awards, and we’ve been part of UK music more than we have here in the states, so I think it’d be cool to win a Brit Award.

Q: You guys are all about using great samples. Someone with a lot of great samples lately is Charlie Sheen. Which one of his latest sound bites would you like to sample in your music?

Noah: I think it’s a little weird how everyone is so fascinated by him. I would say "Tiger Blood" is a great name for a band, but I feel like there are about to be a hundred bands named Tiger Blood.

Q: You work with a lot of different artists through sampling. But do you have someone you would like to work with as far as production, or do a rhyme with?

Noah: The Woodies roster is a pretty good roundup of who we want to work with. But also, you see all these African dudes Kanye's been working with recently, and we want to work with them too.

Chiddy: Probably UK people. Tinie Tempeh.

Noah: I want to do something with Lil B, the Based God.

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Q: What new projects are coming up for you?

Chiddy: We just shot a dope do-it-yourself video for "Always," from out The Preview EP. It's about just going back to your "always," since the last few months have been crazy for us. So we wanted to shoot the video in our natural state, back at Noah's house. We're just chilling, cooking eggs, we got all the Philly landmarks in the background. Me and Noah haven't been back in Philly together in a minute.

Q: What were some of your favorite albums of 2010?

Noah: That Kanye album [My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy] took it away this year. It made me as a producer want to go super orchestral, put in strings. There are all these instrumental breakdowns, and he’ll have songs that are 10 minutes long, with crazy synths and psychedelic breakdowns. It made me want to get weirder and get darker and push the boundaries more.

Chiddy: Kanye's a big influence on what I do. How he puts his words together is something to look up to. And I always find myself listening to my boy Tinie Tempeh. He’s actually coming to the states to try to push his record, Disc-Overy. It's just a lot of spacey sounds, and the producer he worked with is just incredible.

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