Fabolous talks about his approach to his upcoming album, "Loso's Way 2", speaking on his feature process, remaining competitive without trend-hopping, and the new era of New York rap.
Fabolous is hard at work on his upcoming album. We've already heard two cuts from his sequel to Loso's Way, the New York anthem "So NY", and the crossover smash with Chris Brown, "Ready". While the album is still not quite complete, Fab has a clear vision for what he wants it to be, and where it will fit in with the constantly changing world of hip hop.
Fab confirmed that the album is nearing its final stages, but feels last minute changes are a definite possibility. "Iâd say it's 80-85% done. Iâd even give some of that 15% to working daily until Iâve got to turn it in. You may come with a record thatâs urgent, that has to be on that project, the day before you turn in. " he said.
When discussing the difference between his albums and his mixtapes, Loso talked about the importance of consistent production, citing Kendrick and Drake as masters of creating a seamless sonic landscape on their albums. "Some of the projects we call classics are sonically good. Kendrick Lamarâs album was a great sonic piece of music. It went together, not just skit-wise, but the music of the album went with each other. Iâm trying to do that with my project as well. Drake did it with Take Care as well. He had a sonically dope album where you could ride smooth through it. His project showed a lot of growth and what he does with the fusion of singing and rapping"
Fab talked about the changes happening in New York rap. He congratulated A$AP Rocky, who he feels is a pioneer of a new, more diverse New York sound. "Thereâs a change in the generation between the old and whatâs going on now. You canât make music for what people want N.Y. to be. Youâve got to make what you want. I think between him, French Montana and others, youâre going to hear different kinds of music coming from N.Y. It shows the diversity."
Fab also talked about the video for "Ready" and how he doesn't want to try to capitalize on the recent "Ratchet" trend. "It's the ratchet era right now. Ratchet is really mainstream. There aren't many songs like "Ready" in that area. So for the video I want to take it away from a lot of the ratchet party type videos." he said. " I want to bring back the illusion and sense of fantasy, not just do the ratchet shit that everybody else is doing."Â
Loso recognized the fact that it would be difficult to remain competitive in the mainstream without following trends, but decided to have a more organic approach to features rather than grabbing guest-spots from of-the-moment rappers. "A lot of the collaborations I did were with either friends of mine who I've worked with before or guys I hadnât worked with in the past but if youâve heard them on a few joints you havenât heard them with me. I think itâs still fresh when you hear two people collaborate that havenât done so over and over and over. " he said.
Whether or not they'll make the record, Fab mentions he's recorded tracks with Rick Ross, John Legend, Future, Ne-Yo, Trey Songz, and Young Jeezy, among others. He also revealed there may be a legendary NY collabo in the works, saying, "I even got a text today and was speaking to Nas about doing something as well."
Loso's Way 2 does not yet have a release date, but is planned to drop sometime in the spring.
[Via]