MUSIC NEWS: TIMBALAND TO PRODUCE NEW JAY-Z ALBUM / LUDACRIS WORKS ON 6th LP / BOBBY VALENTINO INKS A NEW DEAL

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Seems as though our boy Jay-Z is gearing up to release a new album, a follow-up to 2007’s American Gangster. And it seems as though Jay-Z has signed on Timbaland to take on the helm of the project.

Keri Hilson stopped by MTV’s TRL on Monday with Timbaland, and apparently he gave some insider information about working with Jay-Z on the upcoming album.

“He wants me to do the whole thing this time around,” Timbaland said Monday during a visit to the MTV News office.

“I’mma make it a classic too. You better believe it. It’ll be a monster! I always say this: ‘You get a first single from me, I’mma get you up to gold.’ And it’s hard to get you up to gold in this day and age.”

Timbaland will be hitting Jay-Z off with a more “worldly,” international sound, which definitely should be an interesting task for Hova to take on.

“We wanna go to the world,” he added.

“The world is ‘Big Pimpin’.’ ‘Big Pimpin’ ‘ is an international hit, so we wanna do 10 of those. Meaning, some of the songs gonna sound like M.I.A. would rap on some of the beats. You gonna be like, ‘Whoa!’ But it’s Jay on ‘em. That means it reaches everywhere. I’mma have songs with bagpipes. The music is gonna be so worldwide, he’ll be able to tour the rest of his life, maybe, off just this one album. The Jay-Z album is gonna be phenomenal. You know why? We don’t care. We’re doing great music just to do it. We doing it for our fans who love us to say we ain’t quit. I’m doing it ’cause that’s my homeboy.”

Ever since Timbaland jumped on with Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake for his “production comeback,” he really has been going strong. I think it’ll be interesting to see what they come up with. I’m also excited to see what he’ll be doing for his next album, Shock Value II.

Ludacris is currently in the studio putting the finishing touches on his forthcoming album, Theater of the Mind. The new project, which is Ludacris’s 6th studio album to date, will be a conceptual album. That seems to be a trend this year.

Theater of the Mind is set for an October 21st release.

“The whole album is theatrical, conceptual-wise. Every song you hear sounds like a scene from a movie,” Luda tells MTV News.

I’m interested in seeing what Ludacris is coming up with for this concept album.

Bobby Valentino has inked a new deal with EMI/Capitol records, after being allegedly dropped from Def Jam, and leaving Ludacris’s Disturbing Tha Peace label.

Bobby released an independent album via iTunes after the release of his last album, Special Occasion, which didn’t do as well as I think Def Jam expected it to. But it seems as though the release of the independent album, Come With Me helped Bobby obtain the new record deal with Capitol Records.