The Audacity of Dope

Yes y’all, Seeing Sounds drops today and I highly recommend you cop it. Pharrell, Chad, and Shae did a great job and there are some instant classics on the album. It’s pretty much had a monopoly on my stereo this past week, so apologies to any artists that sent me music recently. I’ll check y’all out as soon as I’m done spazzing.

A few bonus tracks hit the net yesterday, so I thought I’d use this reminder post to toss up all the stuff that’s online that didn’t make the US album.

N.E.R.D. ft. Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, and Pusha T – “Everyone Nose (Remix)”

N.E.R.D. – “Everyone Nose (DJ Ice Freeze’s Baltimore Style Mix)”

N.E.R.D. – “Everyone Nose (Live In NYC, 5-13-08)”

N.E.R.D. – “Spaz (DJ Freakii’s I’m Right Herre Mix)”

N.E.R.D. – “Spaz (Live at SXSW)”

N.E.R.D. – “Laser Gun Carrying”

N.E.R.D. ft. Santogold and Julian Casablancas – “My Drive Thru”

Res – “You Know What (Demo Reference Track)”

That last one is Res singing one of the best songs off the album, apparently as a demo reference track for Pharrell to finish later. Props to 2DopeBoyz for digging that one up.

Speaking of joints that made the final cut, one of my favorites is “Yeah You.” It chronicles an overzealous relationship Pharrell got himself into, and – *shifts into Concrete Loop/Miss Info gossip mode* – it turns out it’s all true. When N.E.R.D. came through Sound Session last month, he mentioned he had a stalker off the air. Later on, we were talking to his assistant and she told us the full scoop.

Apparently P met a super wealthy Japanese girl who went to college in Boston backstage at one of his shows. She had a rep for being crazy (“Niiiiiigo told me don’t do it”), but he figured she could be that night’s jumpoff. Little did he know that she was completely psycho, and afterwards, she ended up calling/emailing/texting him literally a hundred times a day…for months. The assistant stepped in, thinking she could handle the situation (“my friend asked me for your email address, she said she’d take it from here”), but the girl just moved on and is now stalking her. As of a month ago, they were still getting annoyed by the girl. I’m not sure writing “Yeah You” about her will help though, but at least it makes for an interesting story. Just like in the song, she’ll just hit pause and give him a call.

And since I can’t end this entry on some completely worthless gossip ish, check out this great article about Seeing Sounds, written by the homegirl Phayde. She was there with us when N.E.R.D. came through and got some real interesting info on the creation of the album out of the fellas. Here’s a part where Pharrell talked about “Anti Matter”:

Anti Matter
Pharrell: “That’s where we found the subject of ADD and ADHD. A lot of kids become discouraged because it’s a fairly new concept in elementary schools. All they want to do is give you Ritalin but they don’t really want to talk about it. It’s funny, because when a kid has the right parental environment, and the parents are on them quick, that kid with ADD that nobody wants on any sports team usually becomes one of the most successful chairmen of corporations … or a super incredible multi-tasker. The beat is kind of metaphorical for the way those kids perceive things. You’ll see that the beat is very simple in the beginning but then it transforms into this fast-paced thing because that’s the way they hear things.”

You can read the full article in the upcoming issue of Pound Magazine, or online right now…right here.