Q: After collaborating with a huge UK rapper like Tinie, you then recorded a track with US MC Lupe Fiasco called “Break the Chain”. How was it like working with Lupe? And do you know if there are still chances the song becomes a future single?
Eric: Break the Chain was a song we wrote not long after WITS. We had been going back and forth with Lupe on several tracks writing over Skype. He was originally gonna do "Stereo Sun" but it got dropped with all the controversy with releasing Lasers.(It actually got leaked with another rapper on it by someone who got ahold of it and was tryin to shop it around under a different rapper. We were pretty sad about that cause I think we knew that if he put it on his album they'd have to do a single cause it was so vibey. It eventually ended up on Tinchy Striders album, 3rd Strike, but his album sort of got buried by some UK Rap business politics I don't understand.)We worked on a song called "Voices of Fire" which was awesome and really rootsy then finally settled on "Break the Chain." It's probably one of my favorite songs I ever wrote cause it really says what I wanted it to say. I don't know if it will be a single, difficult to predict, my "hit song" center thinks they are crazy not to release it. It's a sleeper but it would def rise up the charts, like an Adele song.
Lupe talks about what it's like to work with Eric Turner behind the scenes of their music video shoot for Eric's latest single, "Angels and Stars" feat. Lupe and Tinie Tempah.
“[Producer] iSHi and I wanted to do something with the ‘Written In The Stars’ sound, but a little bit darker,” said Turner. “I’ve been working a lot of with Tinie [Tempah] and with Lupe [Fiasco], and iSHi and I decided we wanted to do a song with both Tine and Lupe on it.
It would be one of the first songs where you got one of the biggest rappers in America together with the biggest rapper in England. We thought that would be an interesting thing.” - via HHDX
On the set of my first video feat @TinieTempah and @LupeFiasco wohhoooooo!!!!!
- Eric Turner
AllHipHop.com: How did the ‘Lasers’/’Break the Chain’ (Lupe Fiasco) link up come about?
Sway: I’ll take you back that story goes quite deep – I was in South By Southwest about 4 or 5 years ago. I never knew too much about Lupe, I had heard about him and I had heard a few tracks here and there, I had heard he was a great rapper. Someone said to me ‘Lupe Fiasco is in town and he is a big fan of your music’. I thought “that’s really cool, because this is the same time ‘Touch The Sky’ came out and this is the guy on the Kanye West record and he is interested in me!
We went up to the Hilton hotel in Texas and I met up with Lupe and we clicked straight away, he is my kinda guy. He was excited about his music; he knew about my music, he played me the album (Food & Liquor) before anyone had heard it. He said “Jay Z is gonna get behind this”. He had just shot the video for ‘Kick-Push’, there was just great synergy between us, we chilled, we had a laugh.
You know, we have both had a lot of good moments and bad moments within the industry and we relate on a lot of different levels.
My Mum’s Christian and my Dad’s Muslim – he’s a Muslim as well; we speak about that, different aspects of life. We’re very similar and we click.
When it came to ‘Lasers’ – he hit me up Twitter, even though he’s got my number, saying; “Sway, I wanna get you on a verse for the album” (‘Lasers’). I was like “cool lets do it!” no questions asked. Whatever the tune was going to be about I was going to do it, because it’s Lupe and he’s my people and I respect him and I respect his judgement musically. He gave me the record and it was produced by Ishi and features Eric Turner.
(ED: this is the same production/vocal combination as the Billboard 100 top 20 hit and UK number 1 smash for Tinie Tempah, ‘Written In The Stars).
I was like; “It’s got me written all over it” and he said the same thing. “You are the only person I could think of to be on this record”. I didn’t even know that I was the only (other) rapper on the album – it was only until he made the press release that I was like “woah!”.
01. Letting Go (Feat. Sarah Green)
02. Words I Never Said (Feat. Skylar Grey)
03. Till I Get There
04. I Don’t Wanna Care Right Now (Feat. MDMA)
05. Out Of My Head (Feat. Trey Songz)
06. The Show Goes On
07. Beautiful Lasers (Two Ways) (Feat. MDMA)
08. Coming Up (Feat. MDMA)
09. State Run Radio (Feat. Matt Mahaffey)
10. Break The Chain (Feat. Eric Turner & Sway)
11. All Black Everything
12. Never Forget You (Feat. John Legend)