Showing Out

Soulja Boy has arguably become the biggest teen sensation to hit rap music in recent memory, and like any soldier who rolls with a team, he’s paving the way for the rest of his associates. Ja-Bar (nee Justin Benjamin Alex Rucker), a 19-year-old Atlanta native, is the first artist signed to Soulja Boy’s S.O.D. Money Gang label to step out from Soulja Boy’s shadow and release his debut solo album, the first of what’s slated to be a handful of releases from the imprint. Ja-Bar, slated for a Spring release, sees the rapper teaming up with a heavy roster of emcees that includes Missy Elliott, Gucci Mane, Ludacris and the S.O.D Money Gang crew (Soulja Boy and Arab) as well as producers like Super Ced, K.E. and the Young Boyz.

It’s a pretty big step for a rapper who once put his dreams of stardom on the backburner after fielding criticism from those around him who claimed that he might not have what it takes to make it to the top. After focusing his sights on fashion and starting up his own clothing label Ja-Bar & Cupid, he decided to pick back up the mic, heading out on the road with Soulja Boy on Lil Wayne’s America’s Most Wanted tour and recording in the tour bus booth. With his first single “Daze” gaining some momentum and the album on the way, Ja-Bar hopped on the phone with Showing Out to discuss how the album’s shaping up, what it was like going on tour with Weezy, what he cooked up for Missy Elliott, how Soulja Boy’s co-sign has helped his career and what he’s looking forward to in the immediate future.

Read the rest of this entry »

England has seen its fair share of singers coming out of the woodwork and heading Stateside in recent years, with the most successful of the bunch erring on Motown soul or thrashing rock (in the vein of Adele, Amy Winehouse, The Noisettes - the list goes on). But Carmen Reece, who hails from the U.K., is going the pop route. Having teamed with vet producer Marc Feist (he’s worked with everyone from Beyonce to Celine Dion to Brian McKnight), Carmen set out to deliver her pop&B debut album Love in Stereo, an album that she insists will deliver on the promise of her lead single “Right Here.”

With Marc putting the finishing touches on the album at the moment, Carmen is keeping busy doing the radio promo run, taking some time out of her busy schedule to chat with us about her upcoming album and more. While in New York City, Carmen spoke on how much her album is split between tales of heartbreak and ones of romance, why she’s got love for Stevie Wonder, what it was like working with these industry vets, why she decided not to go the neo-soul route and what else we can expect from her before the album drops. Hit the jump to see what she had to say.

Read the rest of this entry »

Keke Wyatt has gotten a raw deal in the music biz over the past decade. With her first major appearance on Avant’s “My First Love” in 2000, Keke belted her way onto the scene with a bang, soon following her chart-topping duet with her debut album Soul Sista in 2001. But after her album spawned the successful single “Nothin’ in This World” featuring Avant and receiving gold certification, Keke hit a wall.

Three years after she released Soul Sista, Keke parted ways with MCA Records and headed to Cash Money, a move that saw the release of her new single “Put Your Hands on Me” but resulted in her sophomore album Emotional Rollercoaster being shelved after the track failed to catch on, leaving her to part ways yet again with her label and resign with TVT Records in 2006. But after recording more tracks for her next album Ghetto Rose, TVT bit the dust and Keke’s album was yet again left on the cutting room floor.

Determined to keep her career alive, Keke finally resigned with Shanachie Entertainment last year, and her official sophomore album Who Knew? is finally slated for release on February 23rd. In anticipation of its release, Keke spoke with Showing Out about why she almost quit the music industry (and what made her come back), why she’s let all the drama go from her history with record labels, how her new album Who Knew? showcases sides of Keke that you’ve never seen before and what else you can expect from the golden-voiced soulstress in the near future.

Read the rest of this entry »

OK, so we all know that Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all-time and won the weekend box office for the seventh time this past weekend, but we know you can’t help but wonder how much the James Cameron film made on Imax screens (where, you know, it’s best seen). According to THR, Avatar grossed another $6.02 million from 179 domestic Imax screens and $4.3 million from 83 international Imax screens, upping its overall cume on Imax screens alone to $152.9 million. That accounts for a healthy portion of the $2.045 billion that the film has grossed worldwide since it was released last December, and we have a good feeling that the money pile is going to continue to grow - especially since we think we’re finally going to get around to seeing it this weekend (*ducks*).

Love him or not, you simply cannot knock R&B singer/songwriter Ryan Leslie’s hustle. After he dropped his eponymous debut in February 2009, he relentlessly promoted the album with a string of multimedia releases and built himself a heavy online presence that helped make him one of this decade’s saving musical graces. Not long after his debut spread across the hip-hop world with its fresh, crisp sound, his sophomore follow-up Transition hit retail in early November, building on the debut’s momentum with a beefier, slicker musical palette to offer Leslie-hungry fans that came to love him for injecting some much needed life into R&B’s withering veins.

And like with his debut, Transition sees a multimedia treatment that Leslie’s got laid out in his mind, with the Anthony Mandler-directed video for “You’re Not My Girl” having already been released and more clips for “Something That I Like” featuring Pusha T, a new version of “Never Gonna Break Up” (someone leaked an early version of the clip), “Zodiac,” “I Choose You” and a whole lot more in the works. And he isn’t just stopping there. Leslie says that he’s already got plans to release his third album Les is More (the “Les” stands for Leslie) in summer 2010, and promises that he’ll man the boards for a “best of both worlds”-type album between Ne-Yo and Fabolous. Speaking with Showing Out, Leslie discussed why he feels he was snubbed by the Grammy Association (he uses Pleasure P’s nod as a reference point for where their loyalties lie), what sort of plans he has in store for promoting Transition and what he has in the works for release in the immediate future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Soul singer Angie Stone has gone through several incarnations throughout her career. Setting things off in the early ’80s, the South Carolina native got her kicks as one-third of the legendary group The Sequence, a group that helped set the framework for the early stages of hip-hop. But it wasn’t until 1999 that she decided to take the solo route, trading in her rap roots for sugary neo-soul on her debut album Black Diamond. And over the past decade, Angie has gone on to sell millions of records, with her 2007’s The Art of Love & War acting as the peak of her career, with her Stax Records debut bowing at number one on Billboard in its first week on shelves.

Angie is still going strong with the recent release of her fifth studio album Unexpected, an album that sees her keeping up with the Joneses and getting her modern R&B swag on. Though the record is mostly upbeat soul, Angie even plays into her love of T-Pain by throwing some autotune on the track “Tell Me,” a track that Angie used to prove to the world that even a real singer can take the conventions of today and mix it with music that plays like a perpetual nod to the past. With a tour set for sometime in 2010 and hopes for a remix to her track “Hey Mr. DJ” with T-Pain, Angie Stone hopped on the phone with Showing Out to talk about how she keeps her music relevant in a digital world.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mullage has got an origin story that’s probably never graced a hip-hop and R&B act. Braelon “B Town” McMullen and Marquez “B Boi” Hutchinson, who both hail from Atlanta, Georgia, were doing their thing as solo acts before shipping off to the Navy where they served for four years. But it wasn’t until they were in the Navy that they found one another and began to perform together. Even after they came back from the Navy, they hadn’t yet begun their career as Mullage, soon taking the advice of friends to band together and try to make it as a duo.

Mullage officially formed back in December 2008, when B Boi and B Town signed a deal with From The Ground Up Records, under which they’re currently recording their debut album The Element of Versatility. Though they’re only a third done with recording, they’ve already generated a nice buzz for themselves with the eclectic pre-album mixtape Elevators (download here), which saw the pair teaming up with heavy hitters like Wyclef Jean, T.I., Juvenile and a host of others. Before their album drops next year, Mullage hopped on the phone with Showing Out to discuss when they decided to join forces as Mullage, why their debut won’t feature that many guest stars, how they work together in the studio and what else we can expect from them in the near future.

Read the rest of this entry »

If the G-Funk era is dead and buried, then consider West Coast trio Pac Div the phoenix rising out of the ashes. Consisting of Like, BeYoung and Mibbs, the group has taken a few cues from G-Funk musicality and sprinkled them into their music, which plays like the left coast version of ’90s backpack rap - only fresher. The trio has released a few releases that have earned them quite a nice buzz on the blog circuit, with efforts like last year’s Church League Champions mixtape and their eponymous debut EP kicking the hype machine into full gear.

Now, the ex-basketball players are getting it in in the studio to put down the bulk of their debut full-length Grown Kid Syndrome, which is slated for a release in the first quarter of 2010. The album, which features production from The Neptunes and their in-house producer Swiff, is shaping up to be a tightly woven debut, with only a few guest appearances intended to appear on the final cut (the group has the perfect song for Jamie Foxx, but don’t expect any Jay-Z guest appearances). Ahead of their album’s release, Pac Div hopped on the phone with Showing Out to discuss who was the meanest player on the basketball court, how the album will compare to their previous efforts, how they plan on shedding off that tour weight (they don’t want to be called “Fat Div”), what surprises they have in store for Grown Kid Syndrome and what else we can expect from them in the near future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hell Rell might be a lot of things, but no one can refute the fact that he’s one of the most prolific emcees out there. The Diplomats member has released four solo albums - Get in Line or Get Lined Up, Hard as Hell, Hell Up in the Bronx and, most recently, Live from Hell - this year alone, making him not only one of the most arduous emcees out there, but one of the most consistent. Each release has captured the raw, gritty street sound and mentality of Rell’s daily life, which Ruga credits as one of the many benefits of having a studio in his own basement.

That go-hard-or-go-home mentality has been the driving force for Rell’s career, which began with him as a key member of The Diplomats, a group consisting of Cam’Ron, Jim Jones, Juelz Santana and more that found mainstream success before splintering apart over the past few years. Not giving up on his hood dreams, Rell signed with Koch Records in 2006 to release his solo debut For the Hell of It the following year, earning him a gold plaque on his wall and setting the stage for his future. Having just released his latest album Live from Hell last week, Rell spoke with Showing Out about why he doesn’t feel he’s over-saturating the market with all these releases, whether or not he still talks to Cam’Ron, what members we can expect to return on the forthcoming Dipset compilation, what to look for in his new movie Paper Chasin’ and what else we can anticipate from Ruga Rell in the near future.

Read the rest of this entry »

English musician Space Cowboy might be a new addition to the public’s consciousness with the release of his latest album Digital Rock Star, but he’s already made a nice name for himself over the past decade with his various releases. As far back as 1996, Space Cowboy (then known as DJ Supreme) released a single dubbed “Tha Wildstyle,” a track that managed to crack both the UK and US charts but failed to take his career to the next level. In the years that followed, he decided to change his name after a studio owner nicknamed him the moniker based off his knack for Marlboro cigarettes; released three albums overseas; remixed tracks for the likes of Paul McCartney, The Darkness and Fergie; and started up his own independent label Tiger Trax UK for the release of his sophomore album Big City Nights.

But it wasn’t until he got a call from Lady Gaga last year to join her tour as the resident DJ that heads started to pay attention. After he released his third album Digital Rock in 2007, his single “My Egyptian Lover” piqued the interest of Cherrytree Records (the same label that houses Gaga), prompting them to sign him to a deal as he toured around the world with Gaga. What was supposed to be a two-month stint on the road turned into a yearlong journey, giving Space Cowboy the experiences that he funneled into recording his recently released breakout album Digital Rock Star. Now, Space Cowboy is riding high off his newfound success, with a solo spot on the LMFAO-headlined Party Rock Tour and a whole lot more. Taking time out of his hectic schedule, Space Cowboy chatted with Showing Out about why he thinks people are finally starting to pay attention to his solo career, why he relinquished production control to Red One and Cherry Cherry Boom Boom on the album, what it’s like working in the studio with LMFAO and what else we can expect from him in the near future.

Read the rest of this entry »