I just wanted to shed light on this article. It is VERY WELL DONE ON. There is one part in particular that I think everyone needs to know. It is where Phonte and Nicolay address doing outside projects. A lot of you speak on being 'pure to the music' or not doing it for money right? Well here is the epitome of it to me.
Link:UTM-Let me detour from FE for a minute to ask about outside collaborations: how do you decide who to work with and why?
P- When I get tracks and requests to do stuff, I just don't do every cameo that I'm asked to. There's a lot of work that I turn down, stuff that I don't feel the need (to collaborate on). If I don't hear a place for myself on it, I'll be honest and tell the artist 'look, I don't think you really need me on this.' When I worked with Mint Condition on their track, for example ("Somethin," from their 2008 CD eLife), they sent me the joint and I was like, 'okay, it feels good and I can hear a rap on this.' My goal is to serve as another instrument in the song, to just give it another color, but not everything needs a f***ing rap on it. I understand a lot of artists do it for marketing purposes but to me, it just doesn't feel right if it doesn't fit the song. No matter how big the name is. It's like 'dude, why the f*** did you ever feel the need to do that?' I never wanted to be that rapper, the one you listen to and think, 'why the f***is he on that song?' (laughs)
N- The format of an album allows for far more deep expression and material, so for me personally, FE is my first priority and I think that as a production team, we are both interested in expanding our brand to include others that might work well with our approach to music. That's what we are trying to focus on.
