S. Samuel
With his new Breath of Fresh Air project still enjoying a strong mixtape buzz, EPMD's Erick Sermon recently chopped it up with SOHH to discuss the motivation behind dropping new music.
Breaking down the project’s title, Sermon said it was time for him to drop some new tunes to break away from hip-hop’s norm.
“The Breath of Fresh Air was meant to come out for people to have another place to go to for music, to get away from hearing the same exact stuff that they’re hearing every day with the same conversation and no type of content,” Sermon told SOHH. “Not saying I have a preachy album, but I’m giving you something that’s away from the norm. I have my friends on the CD. People I consider friends are Rick Ross, Too Short, Lloyd, Redman and Method Man, of course, 50 Cent and the new guys like Fred the Godson. It was just something that had to be heard because it was music that was missing, in my opinion.” (SOHH)
He also spoke on the recording process, having secured big collaborations in a short period of time.
“Artists always talk about a breath of fresh air, it’s just meaning that it’s something different,” Sermon added. “It’s something new, different from what you’re used to hearing. That’s the standpoint I was coming from. I had the idea way before the heart attack. I wasn’t working on the project that long. I had the idea but when it came time to put it together, it took me about a month or so because you don’t have to worry about going in to the studio with people because everyone has their own studio. For me, friends can make exceptions for friends. I was able to send some of the records through e-mail and they came back quick.” (SOHH)
The new mixtape features collaborations from The LOX’s Sheek Louch, KRS-One and more.
Hip hop artist Erick Sermon recently released his mixtape “Breath of Fresh Air.” Coast 2 Coast Mixtapes and Def Squad present the project, which is now available for free download. “Breath of Fresh Air” features Erick Sermon on tracks with Jamie Foxx, Sheek Louch, 50 Cent, Keith Murray, Too $hort, Lloyd, KRS One, Redman, Method Man, Fred Da Godson, Swizz Beatz, Rick Ross, and more. (PR Web)
The new release comes just months after Sermon suffered a heart attack.
“I scared myself, man, it’s crazy,” Sermon told radio host Sway in November 2011. “I was downstaris on Wednesday night, I was making this record — I went upstairs and I sat on the sofa and I had got two sharp pains on my lefthand side and I said, ‘Maybe I’m sitting wrong,’ so I positioned myself differently on the sofa and I sat there and watched the TV. … Around twelve o’clock [on Thursday], I got the same pains on my lefthand side, so I said, ‘You know what, let me go to the emergency room’ — when I got there, as soon as I hit the door, my whole leftside kind of cramped up on me — I started getting those pains again, so they put me to the back to get a blood pressure reading and my blood pressure reading was 200 over 190. … If I didn’t make it there in time, I would have suffered a stroke first — so when I got to the emergency room, they figured out that heart attack was a mild one and they took me in the back and I’m still here. I’ve been here for about five days.” (“Sway In The Morning”)
Check out the Breath of Fresh Air mixtape below:
