Rap-Up: It’s been nearly four years since Mike Posner released his debut 31 Minutes to Takeoff. The Detroit singer has been working on the follow-up Pages, and recently caught up with Rap-Up TV to discuss everything from his love for André 3000 to his upcoming collaboration with Justin Bieber to his struggle with depression.
The 26-year-old, who attended Duke University, thought that getting a record deal would make him happy. “And of course, when I got these things, in a lot of ways it made my problems worse,” he said. “I felt very disillusioned. I had success, I had money, a lot of my dreams had come true, but I didn’t feel any happier.”
So one day while eating a “nasty sandwich” on an airplane, he was inspired to give back. “The idea was to make an album and for every album I sold, give a meal to a kid, one for one,” he explained.
He has collaborated with Big Sean on the album’s first single “Top of the World” as well as 2 Chainz, Labrinth, and Justin Bieber, who he worked with on a song called “Get Down.”
“It’s very stripped. It’s like the most minimal song on the record. One guitar, drums, and a bass, and that’s it,” said Posner, who co-wrote Bieber’s hit “Boyfriend.” “It’s all unquantized too, J Dilla style, so that’s really cool.”
One person he dreams of collaborating with is OutKast’s André 3000, whose concert he attended when he was 11.
Prior to the release of Pages, he plans to drop a new collection called …Featuring Me. “It’s a bunch of songs featuring me that I wrote and produced, but all collabs with other people,” said Posner. “For me as a writer and producer, I do a ton of different shit, so this project is kinda like me bragging in a way, like look at what I can do.”
I’m looking forward to Mike Posner’s …Featuring Me. I cannot wait to hear the Justin Bieber collab on “Get Down”! I hope that Pages drops this summer! We’ve been waiting far too long for his follow-up album. I know we’re ALL DYING to get our ears on it already. – Christina
