True Story

May 29, 2006


You know how toys under the Xmas tree take on a life of their own and start getting into mischief when the lights go out? The same shit happens when you close the pages of a FADER mag. Indie rock dudes and upstart rappers from Gen F start dippin into the dranky dranks reviews and raiding the record collection from Vinyl Archaeology. Next thing you know they’re throwing game at the cover girl. For serious though, we love it when this kind of musical incest produces a record or remix that we can claim to be the godfather of. Case in point: Edwin "Stats" Houghton’s features on Baby Cham & Akon. The two had both been in the studio for years with dancehall maestro Dave Kelly, no thanks to us—the first glimpse we had of Akon’s future greatness was a white label joint on Kelly’s “Fiesta” riddim, passed to us by mutual brodog Max Glazer. But by the time of our ‘artist at work’ feature, Cham and 'Kon had been off each other’s musical radar for a minute, and despite much respect all around, had no plans to get up anytime soon. During the FADER interview (right after the Konvict mentioned how he’s gonna make a straight roots album one day), Stats remarked to Akon that a “Ghetto Story” Part II — with 'Kon fleshing out the NY side of Cham's "gone a foreign" narrative—was a must. Akon replied with something generally positive but firmly non-committal: “Yo. That’s real.” Fast-forward to today, when our favorite dancehall-minded publicist Jacquie Juceam sends us an mp3 labeled: "Ghetto Story (Remix)" by Cham f Akon (right click, save-as). Koinky-dink?

Posted: May 29, 2006
True Story