Nick Cannon is a man of many talents. He acts, he produces, he writes, he manages artists, he runs several businesses, and let’s not forget, he’s also a musician himself. While the majority of Cannon’s musical output flies beneath the radar, he has a new single out now that sounds like it could be the breakout hit he’s been looking to create for some time. “Hold On” previews an upcoming EP, and it’s perfectly on-trend with what’s happening in pop these days, while still standing apart.
We spoke with Cannon about the song, it’s influences, and what he’s got coming up in the near future (hint: it’s a lot of music). Hop to the next page to read the full interview.
You have a new single out. Is this leading up to an album?
With the music business today, it's not about a project. You're going to put out music. It's about the experience. It's about being engaged with the artist with streaming and with whatever platforms I feel I can release my music on. You don't have to go through an album cycle. For me, as somebody who is such a diverse artist… I put out an R&B mixtape last year, but then my EP is called College Spring Break Summer Fall Back. It's real fun, more party, radio type music. In between that I'm dropping a mixtape called Model Music that's more introspective, but still has a club/dance vibe, but almost emo. My album ultimately is called W.O.R.D.S. It's an acronym. It's spoken word mixed with hip-hop and everything. I'm putting all these projects together so by the time I get to the album, it's a culmination of everything that you've heard from me over the past year or year and a half.
So in a year or so you're doing an album, an EP and a mixtape?
A couple of mixtapes. I remember Future dropped something like two albums in two weeks one time. You can do things now where you just have a body of work. That's how I see things. You know what will be the big tent poles. The EP is gonna be something we focus on, but in between I’m always going to want to deliver music to certain types of fans and through several platforms, and obviously once the EP has a certain amount of attention, you start thinking about, OK, when are we going to drop the next major project? It's truly a journey. Like in the game of Monopoly, you've got houses and you've got hotels. I think of the mixtapes kind of like the houses and the bigger projects like the hotels. We're going to cover the whole board. We're going to take over, and I'm going to collect my $200 when I pass go.
Are you going to experiment with not just digital stores and the typical streaming services, but try other things as well?
Yeah. Content in general is interesting. I've been really intrigued by digital marketing. I just did a deal with YouTube where I sold them a feature film called King of the Dancehall, which is a music movie that we will be releasing music through as well.
[I’m interested in] Spotify, Apple Music, to even me being the CCO at RadioShack. Trying to put the radio back into RadioShack. Not even put it back, because I don't think it ever really left. It's more about projecting it out there and actually turning it up because those days of Tower Records and Sam Goody are no longer. That was the place where you could actually engage with your artist by doing in-store experiences and hear about new music. We have 2,000 locations in all of the neighborhoods across America. We are your neighborhood electronic and media store when you think about it. We sell everything that you can play music on from my Ncredible headphones to cellphones to speakers to CD players. You have your Apple stores and even your Best Buys, but we have that community vibe where we can connect the artist to the consumer and bring music into the experience. Whether it's streaming or in person, I've been developing a lot of things in that, using my radio background and tapping into some key relationships to bring something big across in 2017.
I'm always impressed with artists that churn out the amount of music you are talking about. How do you find the time to create that much music?
I'm gonna be honest, it's my happy place. I'll just sit in the studio and wind down. I come from across the street dealing with business all day. I love making television and doing all of that stuff, but to come here, I get to put my artist hat on and just create. Sometimes it's collaborating with other artists — I do that quite a bit. People that are signed to me directly, artists that are doing their thing. Getting it out. It's therapeutic for me.
Even the mixtape I dropped in November, The Gospel Of Ike Turn Up... I was going through so much, and I would hear all of this stuff about me on TMZ or Wendy Williams, and I was like, “Man, I would love to just say it for myself and tell my side of the story!” So that's just what I did. I wasn't even thinking about what projects work, I just wanted people to hear me tell the story the way that it actually happened.
To be able to dive into characters… As a performer, an actor and an artist. Man I was such a fan of David Bowie. How he came out with the whole Ziggy flow and even Prince. Michael Jackson. Those people became characters on their records. They told stories. They were able to give you visuals and music that was beyond “Here's a song.” It was an experience. That's the vibe that I attempt to approach.
Are you investigating or thinking of a character or going down that road?
Not that much. I've actually done that before, and that's always fun. I'll give you a fine example: The movie I did with Spike Lee, Chi-Raq. My character was named Chi Raq, and I actually did a whole album of Chicago drill music. I had the best drill producers and rappers and writers in Chicago help me build this character and cultivate it. Not only did you see the whole film, but the opening of the movie is a song that's four minutes long that's just me performing as the character. That song got so much attention and a few nominations. I got to embody a character. I get to do that with pet projects, but the journey I'm going down now, when I say character, it's more of the flow of like what Bowie would do, or what the Beatles did when they gave you Sgt. Pepper’s. They were tapping into something. It's still them, but it's them cloaked in a different frequency with a different image.
It's a different era.
Yeah. My favorite artist who does that now is Bruno Mars. He will give you something different every album. OutKast, perfect example. Every album they would give you something completely different, but there was still that common thread of who they were, but it might be Andre 3000 in a different character. He wasn't always Andre 3000. First album he was just Dre. It was Dre and Big Boi. I think it was the second album they started calling him Andre 3000. Then it was Andre Benjamin. I remember the “He Ya!” video. I thought, Man, I've been dying to do something like that. To show all of your different personalities through one album, because you never know which Nick you're going to get.
I want to give people different projects, and I have them all already. I don't know when I'm going to release this mixtape. Maybe this summer. It's called The Reincarnation of Iceberg Slim. The record is complete. I worked with everybody. E-40, Too Short, 2 Chainz, Snoop Dogg, DJ Quik, Ice Cube, and it's just sitting there waiting. It's a whole different vibe.
I'm in a position where I've been blessed enough to explore and experiment. It's a blessing and a curse, because I have to captivate them first. They think they know me from a certain thing, so I have to show them that you may have been introduced to me because of this role in this film, but let me bring you into the artist. Once I can engage with you as an artist, then I can take you on a journey with me. I've been a musician since I was a child and I've been DJing since the '90s. I have such a vast knowledge of music and I am ready and willing to explore that as an artist. It takes a minute though. Most people, specifically a lot of fans who have grown up with you in a way, they want to see you the way that they know you. Whether it was a movie or a TV show or even music you used to make, it takes time to bring them in and say “Grow with me.” When you get them, you've got them. That's what good music is.
So the single that was just released, that sounds like nothing I've heard, but a hit. What's the plan for that?
When I dropped “Hold On” and when I created it in the studio, I wanted to do something completely different. Everybody has been on that Caribbean vibe. Ed Sheeran just did it. We've been watching Drake and Bieber and Rihanna all move to it. I wanted to do that bounce, but with a different cultural spin to it. I've been enthralled in the dancehall culture for the last few years before that stuff even started jumping. I was telling people that dancehall was coming and that it was going to be crazy. Then it happened. I knew that pop culture was going to embrace it, and I got that feeling again with the world of Bollywood. It's something that we all know has been around, but I just have a feeling that it's coming.
I had the opportunity to go to Mumbai to shoot the video. There are one billion people over there on their own wave, on their own frequency. As Americans a lot of times, we get so self-centered and we think the world revolves around us and that we are the ultimate power. It's not like that. There are billions of people around the world that are moving the way they want to move, and that was my concept. This is a song about living life the way you want to live it and having a good time. That's where the vibe came from.
It's been taking off online in a major way, and it feels organic. DJs have been vibing to it and doing their own remixes. Tiësto is working on now, same with Eva Shaw, but the regular track just feels so right.
Going back to what I said about how the music industry operates now… You let the fans dictate how they want it, and you provide it for them. The fact is that this is the one that reared its head, so we are just going to keep pushing it. Young people have been responding to it like crazy, making their own videos and dancing to it. At the same time it has the vibe where you could hear it all over the radio and in commercials. It's been in a few commercials. It's going in the direction we want it to go in.
What was the impetus to go into Bollywood culture?
I've been studying that world for a while now. Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Eastern philosophies, it's all been really attractive to me. The music... I love a vibe. I referenced the Beatles, when they had the opportunity to go over there they did the same thing. I connected to that. I want to jump on that frequency and figure out how I can get my chakras in line. That's how it started, and then I started hearing the music, started falling in love with all of the women. It's a sexuality you don't get to hear in every style of music. I think you hear it in dance and you hear it in the Indian culture. That's what resonates with people. Sometimes in pop culture we borrow, but we never pay homage or say where we got it from. I'm in this world, I'm researching, I'm learning, and it would be really dope to actually bring something together.
It's just such a beautiful culture. The young people… It's how positive they are. Spending time over there, they're such a peaceful, loving, nurturing people. Nobody's hating, nobody is in disarray. It feels different. It's weird to speak on it, but when we go over there, as many people as there are over there in the class system that is definitely different from ours… But it still feels like it's all love. Even the people who are lesser than when it comes to finances, they still have beautiful spirits and they are rich in their culture. You don't get to experience that as much in the States, so I was hoping to borrow from that and bring that back home and that idea when creating the song.
Who is the female vocalist on that?
She's awesome. She is a 19-year-old lady by the name of Sahiba I signed to Ncredible. You know I always have my business hat on. Her tone was so crazy, and the fact that she was organic to the culture.
Is she Indian?
Yeah. She's in the video too. It felt right, it felt authentic. Even with her speaking Hindi at the beginning of the record, we were like, “Yeah, you have to put that in there!” That's a lot of people’s favorite part of the song. I have no idea what she's saying, but they love when she says it. And that's when you know the people want to learn about new cultures.
I think we're going to start a new wave with this. I think she's going to grow to be a humongous star. I consider myself something of a curator when it comes to finding talent. Somebody that I discovered dropped an album recently, Kehlani. She did her thing. I thought, I have to follow that up. I'm always on the lookout for and scoping for new talent. Giving people opportunities. I don't even wish to benefit off of anything they do. As an artist, all I want to do is light the flame and pray that once I light their candle they light another candle until the whole world has been enlightened. That's the goal when I try to get on my euphoric artistic speak. Ultimately, as a businessman, it’s about being able to feed the industry with new and exciting and different things. I have yet to see a female pop star with the Indian background really take over. I think she could do it. I'm hoping that this record opens many doors.
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