The Source Magazine had the opportunity to attend a very intimate listening hosted by Jennifer Lopez at the Beats store in New York. You can read Part 1 of our report here.
JLO gave us the scoop on some of the tracks on her new album. Read the exclusive highlights below:
1. A.K.A. (Feat. T.I.)
Let’s start with the title track. The name of the album is “A.K.A.” We were finishing the album, in the mastering stages. We were sitting there and at this point I know I’m calling the album “A.K.A.,” I know I had this song, we were listening to “A.K.A.,” the mix is sounding great, and I go, “It’s just not finished, it’s not done. It needs something, it needs somebody. It needs a thing.” And we’re all sitting there and of course everybody starts getting that worried look like “Damn it Jennifer, we were done!” and I go, “What about T.I.?” … It’s always such a big deal to get an artist down to the studio, to find them, to make the time, make the schedules work.
It was also 2 in the morning. Jilly who works with me says, “well you just worked with his musical director the other day, he was the one that was playing the piano in the ‘Emotions’ video.” I was like “Oh, okay,” She’s like “Let me call him, even though it’s 2 in the morning.” She calls him, he was sleeping, and she goes “Is T.I. in town? Do you know where he is? Would he want to do something with Jen?” He goes, “Well let me call him and see.” He was in Los Angeles so that was good. He calls back a few minutes later, he says “He’s right around the corner he’ll be there in 10 minutes.” … Literally three minutes later T.I. walks into the studio. I was like “Oh, hi! Hey, How are you?” and he’s like “Yeah, my boy called me, said you had something for me.”
I said “Ok, it’s the title track of the album, it’s an important record for me, I’ll play it for you.” I was super nervous because I didn’t know how people were going to react, and it was so spur of the moment, spontaneous. I said “If you don’t like it, it’s fine. I don’t care, you can leave and no hard feelings, but if you like it, I’d like you to be on it.” He said “ok,” and I played it for him and we’re listening and I’m watching him, and he goes “Do you want me to do it right now?” I go ” YEAH! YES! Right now!” and he went in and he did the rest is history.
“A.K.A.” was produced by Roccstar, he came in at the last minute with four records. He played a ton of records but I was like “I’m going do all four of these records, it’s going to take up four spots on my album right now.” His energy … I told him how I was feeling and what I wanted to say and he just captured it and really brought together the whole album at the last minute.
This is “A.KA.”
6. Emotions
The next song I want to play you is one of the first songs that I actually did for the album, we call it kind of the mascot of the album because again, I told you it took like a year and three four months to do this album. So you can imagine how many producers and big people I recorded with, went to the studio with, the twists and turns and different things. There are just certain songs that you do in the beginning that at the end of the project you’re like “Yeah, this still holds up.” A year later we still got to put this on, this song was written by Chris Brown … really great song writers. It was produced by Sham. It’s called “Emotions.”
5. Acting Like That (Feat. Iggy Azalea)
This next song is called”Acting Like That.” It has Iggy on it … I know you guys are just getting to know her now, she’s somebody that I’ve known for a while, she’s just a great girl. When I called her up to do the record she was like “YES! Just send me everything you want me to do!” We just really hit it off and I think she did a great job on the record.
3. Never Satisfied
This is a song, again, when you’re in the process of making an album, sometimes once people find out you’re making it and you’re in the studio, they start sending you tons of stuff. Tracks from everywhere, from all the producers, A&R people, they’ll send you a whole CD with like 40 songs on it. You’re like “Yikes.” … from new writers, new producers. I got one of those CDs over Christmas last year, and I went home with my family, and every year …. My mom – I don’t know if you guys know this – is a big gambler, she won like millions of dollars on a slot machine … it was years ago when she did that. She still loves it, she’s still a big slots player, like I’m sure a lot of your moms are and so she’s always trying to get me to go to the casino with her, but I don’t like to go to the casino …. But every year at new years, I take her, and my dad, and the whole family and we go to a casino, of all things. So we were driving to Long Island, we had a long drive … I was taking everybody to Mohegan Sun and on that long ride, I said “Let me just pop in this CD.” We’re listening to it and every song was like … and then this song came on and I was like “Oh, little Christmas present for me.”
9. Worry No More (Feat. Rick Ross)
This one is a track, I don’t know if you guys know “I Luh Ya Papi” was a song I did with Detail, he also did one other records on this album called “Worry No More,” and it’s featuring Rick Ross.
12. Troubeaux (Feat. Nas)
I worked with Nas before on “The Remix” album we did “I’m Gonna Be Alright” we did a remix to that – one of my favorite songs of all time, one of my favorite videos, too. Again the music always kind of dictates and when you hear the song “Troubeaux” it has the sample of the Pete Rock & CL Smooth “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)” on it and I don’t know it just was like … this needs Nas it needs somebody like Nas or Nas. And he came in and I actually played him a couple of records I wanted him to maybe get on another record … but he so responded to this. It’s so in his wheelhouse, it’s just the perfect collaboration honestly , it’s called “Troubeaux” and when you buy the album you can hear it. (laughs)
10. Booty (feat Pitbull)
This is a passionate project for me, I love every single song on the album just as much as the other. They all … have a lot of my heart and my feelings in it. I know you people know me. It’s hard not to, I’m just out there, I wear my heart on my sleeve, it is what it is. I’m going leave you guys with a little bit of fun song, I performed it the other night at the Bronx concert for the first time … it’s called “Big Booty.”
