30 HIPHOP//RNB
THE GUESTLIST NETWORK | JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2011
CHIPMUNK
What’s going on? Just Chilling.
What’s happening this new year? I hear you’re warming up with this new single? Yeah, Champion featuring Chris Brown releases on the 6th of Febru- ary, it comes out at an awkward time period because you know over Christmas everything closes down. So you know the radio playlists close down early, TV playlists close down early, so all we had for a reception of what the track is doing was the internet. We put the video out on Christmas day and we got a million views in a week. So it was a good indication of something of what the public are feeling.
I see you out there with Chris Brown and doing it big. Are you the definition of doing it big at the moment in the UK? I would hands down say I am not the definition of doing it big in the UK because for me I feel there is so much more to do. You know I did take a major jump and make a major transition from album one to album two but that was from being a kid that got signed in college,
winning MOBOs before I got signed, EGC. All these things that were unheard of at the time and it was good for young black boys to see that anything is possible. But now being twenty, having more responsibility and putting more input into my music and know- ing more from myself what I want the public perceive of me you know, its been a good journey.
What is big for you now? Success is a journey, it’s not a destination. So everything that hap- pens for me, I just find god. I want to show the generations to come you know as there are so many people out there MCing that are my age and for whatever reason will believe things can’t and won’t hap- pen for them. I just say that if your not bitter towards anyone else’s success, then things will happen for you. Talent only accounts for 20% of this music business we are in so all the best for everyone. I just want to keep pushing it further and further. It’s mad that I can sit here and say that for my third album that I’m going to go for Lil Wayne and Kanye. People will actually think, raar that’s mad possible. That’s
Oshi
Back with his second album at the tender age of just 20, Chipmunk is one of the most prominent UK talents. TGN caught up with him to talk success, collaborating with Chris Brown and re- igniting his passion for beats and bars.
what I’m about. I just want to show people impossible is possible, you just got to take off two letters.
Who out there are your homies, because I see you out there repping with a lot of people? We chill at my house and drink. I still have an AR team. Wretch 32 and Skepta, those two go hard for me especially all the different opinions and what everyone has to say about me. Wretch and Skepta have been there for me to give me guidance and get past this little time path. They give me a lot of big brother advice and helped me with my style at the beginning. They’re from my town so it was good to have Wretch on the super lyrical side and Skepta on the lyrical but still working on the raves. They both helped me to find myself and guide me and take me to pirate radio, take me out of shows. Wretch and Skepta, I put it down to them. I treat my career just as serious as I treat theirs. Skepta took me to his video shoot with P Diddy over in Glasgow. It was amazing. Me and Diddy had a good one to one, half an hour conversation giving that guidance and he’s like 40 probably, I’m just
half his age. Him just telling me stuff I’ve heard before but it was good to hear it from him. Key things like be yourself, if the public love you or hate you, let it be for what you are.
I took Skepta to my video shoot with Chris Brown and put him in the video, and we are just going hard for each other. We understand that the more of us there are at this plato and successful is bearing for us. I’m preparing Transition the album and I am definitely going to Jamaica to shoot the video with Movado. That should be crazy, can’t wait for that. I’m hot on Bashment, I listen to it at home. A lot of Mavado, a lot of busy signal, the Alliance. Going back to Jamaica to do what I thought I was born to do is a moment for me. I forgot the reason why I started in music in the first place. I mean it’s easy to get rolled up in a red carpet and that is what happened to me I would openly say that. I didn’t have a break period between finishing college and going into the music world you know red carpets, paparazzi on me, all this kind of stuff. It just became too much. So I had to stop, pull myself out, look in and see what the problems
were, identify them and go in and make the music, because that is what I started for. Nothing makes me happier then writing 32 bars of illness. I had to find that again and find a way to execute that through my singles the label are going to push out because that is what the public preserve of me.
Are you worried about anyone out there right now going toe to toe with you? There’s a load of new artists in the UK that I respect lyrically. One would be Wretch. I think he’s out of this world, the words that come out of his mouth. Wretch I rate. Tinie Tempah I rate. Everyone has got something different that they are adding to the scene and the more of us out there are different. Words wise, style wise, production wise, appearance wise, it’s better for the public. The young person at home can pick and identify who they want to channel their drive towards. ‘I want to be like him, I want to be like him’. It’s good that there are more than one of us because there was a time when there wasn’t even one of us. Now to have a majority is amazing.
If you were invisible for a day, what would you get up to? I’d get up to bare things. If I was invisible for a day, there are a few meetings I would like to walk in, just to here what people are saying and what they actually feel. I would do so much, I wouldn’t know where to start.
If you could have a swim- ming pool full of every- thing, what would it be? Money, I will splash straight. Yeah a swimming pool full of money, why not. I know what I would do with it, I’ll try and leave with it.
‘Champion’ ft Chris Brown out 6th Feb, catch Chipmunk supporting Neyo in Feb/March!
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