Fabolous’ Def Jam
debut, tentatively titled From the Bottom to the Top, has been pushed back
until February 2007, according to the Brooklyn, N.Y., rapper. Due
to conflicts with the original October release date, Fabolous said the album was
pushed back to December and is now slated to hit stores next year, featuring production
by Just Blaze, Jazze Pha, and Kanye West, among others.While
Fabolous remained tightlipped about the cameos on the album, he revealed that
many of the tracks were crafted by up-and-coming producers."We
got a lot of new producers, because it’s not really about names," the rapper
told AllHipHop.com. "Some of joints on the album that are dope are by guys
you may not have heard of, or heard them on a smaller scale. I took joints from
everybody."Fabolous
also took advantage of new technology, by auditioning producers using popular
Internet sites to find new and untapped talent. "I
set up a MySpace page and put a Gmail [Google mail] account where anyone could
send beats and I checked them out," he said. "Of course it got to be
too much to handle, but at first I got to listen to a lot of the beats on there.
It was definitely helpful, even if I didn’t get to use them on the album. I will,
for future mixtape stuff as long as they are cool with that."Fabolous’
most recent effort, Real Talk, spawned the single "Breathe,"
his highest-charting single to date as a solo artist, but failed to match his
previous successes, selling only 500,000 units. His
platinum-selling 2001 debut Ghetto Fabolous generated the hit singles "You
Can’t Deny It," featuring Nate Dogg, and "Young’n," while 2003’s
Street Dreams has also sold over a million copies.Slow
sales of Real Talk and a rift in his relationship with Atlantic prompted
Fabolous to leave the label last spring and sign a deal with Def Jam, which is
headed by fellow Brooklyn MC Jay-Z. "There
are no hard feelings. Our business relationship over there [at Atlantic] went
sour," Fabolous told AllHipHop.com. "I moved on and it’s time to do
some new deals."Fabolous
plans to precede his Def Jam release with the second installment of his mixtape
Loso’s Way, which will arrive in December."I
wanted to do it during December when people are home from work and school,"
Fabolous said. "Give them [fans] a chance to zone out, to get them hype for
the February release."
