After featuring several musical artists on the long-running comedy series, Wild ‘N Out is coming out with a mixtape of its own. Featuring the hilarious cast of the show, the musical project is taking an unexpected direction. Rather than going the comedy album route, the crew went straight Hip Hop.
Invited to watch the magic happen live, TheSource.com was present for the finalizing recording session for MTV Presents Wild N Out: Wildstyle Vol. 1. Taking place at the infamous Platinum Sounds recording studio, cast members Conceited, DC Young Fly, Emmanuel Hudson, Hitman Holla and of course, Nick Cannon were there to put their finishing touches on the project while fitting in some time to clown around, as well.
From talking to and watching the cast work, it became very apparent how much of a strong, team effort was put into this mixtape. From coming up with a song on the spot by playing off each others’ creative energy to getting hype off of the cuts they already had, it’s apparent how each cast member contributed to the project out of genuine interest and friendship.
What’s your favorite song off the mixtape?
DC Young Fly:…Man, I can’t even just pick. Collectively, all of them are kind of hard…I just think collectively the whole mixtape is a great, crazy mixtape.
Hitman Holla: Man, my favorite song on the mixtape? There’s a bunch of them. All of them cold. I guess I’ll have to go with one of mine probably. I don’t know. There’s so many, though. The one with me, Con[ceited] and Too Short crazy. The one with me, Nick, Con and OG Maco…I don’t know.
Conceited:…My favorite song is “My B*tch.” That’s me, Hitman Holla, and Too Short.
Emmanuel: …[“Saucin N ] Rockin” by Hitman, Conceited, and Nick Cannon.
Do you think the audience will be thrown off by the fact of it being a rap album rather than a comedy album?
DC Young Fly: Yeah, because I was thrown off; I thought it was a comedy album. It’s crazy because people look at Nick and think “Gigolo.” Nick kind of has the new school swag so it kind of takes everybody off guard so I think everyone will be taken off guard when they hear the mixtape.
Hitman Holla: Yeah, they’re not going to be expecting it. They won’t expect it from me and Con because we’re battle rappers so not too many people knew how good we were at making songs anyways so they’re going to be shocked as it is.
Who has the best verse?
DC Young Fly:…I think everybody collectively got their own swag on how they come on the tracks. Together, as a group, we the best.
Hitman Holla: That’s easy. Hitman, of course. Me! I try to go hard on any song because I’m on pretty much eight of them. Anytime you hear me on a verse, I’m trying to have the best verse.
Conceited:…There’s a lot of songs. There are some songs where Nick will kill it, next song Hitman will kill it. I’m sure DC and Emmanuel gonna come up with some fire. I’m going to leave that to everyone else to determine. If you want punchlines, come to me. If you want that street feel, you go to Hitman. If you’re a rich a*s n*gga, you’re gonna love what Nick’s saying.
Emmanuel: To be honest with you, you can’t really say who has the best verse because everybody in that room knows what they’re doing when it comes to music. As far as best verse goes, the whole mixtape is pretty dope. I can’t even…there is no best verse on there. That whole mixtape so far is just bangin’.
What made you guys go with a Hip Hop album versus a comedy album?
Nick Cannon: You know what, we’re fans of Lyricist Lounge and Soundbombing. Obviously, Lyricist Lounge was a funny Hip Hop show that was on MTV, but they had this whole Rawkus Crew…The Soundbombing compilations had everybody from Eminem on it to Mos Def to Talib [Kweli]; all of these cats and I was just like, “Yo, I want to do something like that.” It was just straight Hip Hop on there, but they was still being funny and still had character and stuff like that, but it felt like real Hip Hop. So, that’s kind of the vibe that we’re trying to get.
You like the balance.
Nick Cannon: Yeah, 100 percent.
On the new promo for the upcoming season [of Wild ‘N Out], it’s like a running joke [your lyricism], so what do you think is going to happen with this album? How are you going to shut people up?
Nick Cannon: I don’t care, you know what I mean? That’s one of the reasons why I created Wild ‘N Out just to be like, if people can’t see that I don’t give a damn about what other people think about me, at this point, it’s really pointless. Clearly, everybody knows I can rap; I can freestyle all day. You see it on the show. I take my spoken-word stuff extremely seriously because I feel like that’s true writing, true lyricism. Even where the game is today, cats don’t really focus on necessarily what it is that you’re saying so when people say, “Oh, you can’t rap,” I play into the joke. That’s why I’ll challenge anybody; anybody rapping, let’s go just because I know what the art form is and even when you see these battle rappers in here, they’re so skillful. It’s actually a skill. We’re like the Harlem Globetrotters of Hip Hop…The street bar cats is so nice that they ain’t even necessarily even worried about getting in a league; they just want to be dope entertainers.
And the thing is, I’ve talked to everybody and they’re all saying this has been like a team effort. I’m asking who has the best verse and everybody’s like…no one’s claiming it, for the most part…With rap, in general, it’s like, “No, I got that sh*t.”
Nick Cannon: Yeah (laughs), I mean, we all got egos and all that stuff, but it’s like we all about the squad and we all about entertaining and having fun like that’s really what it’s about. That’s what Wild ‘N Out‘s all about and everybody’s super cool so we can make jokes about each other and we can kill each other on that because we’re real friends and we have so much respect and admiration for each other that we all know the talent level is crazy because we know everybody’s scared to come on the show.
The rappers?
Nick Cannon: All of them scared to come on the show! They know the skill level and the wittiness and improv coming from the top is so ridiculous that they don’t really want to mess with it.
How did you choose people to get on to the album? I know you have E-40 on there.
Nick Cannon: Yeah, E-40 on there. That’s just fam like E-40, Too Short, Problem, OG Maco; people that we’re really fans of. DJ Drama is hosting it. It’s just one of those things where people really respect the craft and [are] fans of the Wild ‘N Out brand.
Can you talk to me about the production? Who’s on it?
Nick Cannon: My team produced a lot of it. We’ve got this kid ItsAMovie from Atlanta who’s crazy. We’ve got Zaytoven who does a lot with Future and Gucci [Mane]. He did a couple of tracks for us. Drama blessed us. It’s everybody that’s poppin’ right now. The only person we missing is Metroboomin. We got DJ Premiere; we had to put some classic hip hop in there. That’s how we get it.
If there could be at least one song, out of all of them, to really pop off [from the project], which one would you want it to be?
Nick Cannon: [It would] probably be “Snapchat #GettinFreaky,” that’s the Ncredible Gang joint with ItsAMovie. Or there’s a “Jessica” record, that one’s going to cause a lot of controversy just because of what I’m talking about on there and there’s a lot of Jessicas in my life. That’s my guy Ty Money from Chicago who’s on that joint. Then, speaking of Chicago, me and my guy Jeremih got a joint on there called, “If I Was Your Man.” That’s what’s playing on the radio right now.
Moving to MTV after airing on MTV2 for seven seasons, the eighth season of Wild ‘N Out premieres Thursday, August 4 at 10PM EST.
MTV Presents Wild N Out: Wildstyle Vol. 1 is currently out and can be heard below.
Check out some behind-the-scenes images caught during the recording session below.
