FSD Feature: Da Internz: Higher Learning

Hip-Hop is often criticized for sounding redundant. Producers find the sound of the moment, gravitate towards it, then use it and abuse it. Sounds come and go in this fickle industry — one day you’re here, baby, and then you’re gone. Exempt from this category, however, are Chicago production duo Da Internz. Hip-Hop, Pop, R&B — they deliver across the board. Their sound evolves with each and every hit.

FSD: You guys have had an impressive past year. All over radio, killing the charts. What else is new with Da Internz?

Kosine: We came back to Chicago to celebrate with our family and friends for going double platinum with Big Sean’s “Ass” — which is incredible. We’ve celebrated big before, but this was definitely the biggest we’ve ever done. We also did the Write Ya Life music conference, which is an annual thing — maybe semi-annual — that we do at Columbia College, my alma mater. We fly in some of our executive friends to speak to the students. We brought in J. Cole’s manager, a rep from Atlantic. It was absolutely incredible.

Tuo: Yeah, shout out to Lumen and SuSu over there. We had to celebrate the two-times platinum award, and it was crazy up there. We had to come home to celebrate, we had to bring it to the city. At the conference, we actually received our plaques, so it was a great feeling all around.

FSD: Would you say “Ass” your biggest record to date?

Tuo: As a single? Yes. Biggest record to date as a single. But I’m going on record to say that by next week, we’ll have the number one record in the country with Rihanna’s “Birthday Cake.” We’re number two right now, so we’re almost there. [Ed. note: at press time “Birthday Cake” holds the number one slot on the Billboard Hip-Hop/R&B chart]

FSD: “Birthday Cake” might go bigger than double platinum…

Tuo: We’ll see, man. The only problem is, they haven’t released it on iTunes yet.

FSD: What? How is that even possible?

Tuo: Only the interlude is on her album, and that’s selling like crazy. But we don’t have the full-length version of the remix available to purchase legally anywhere. It’s a business thing right now. Both parties can’t come to an agreement, so it’s kind of in limbo. It’s doing its numbers on radio, but it isn’t backed by any label. The record is taking off completely organically.

FSD: How did that collabo with Rihanna come about?

Kosine: Shout out to our manager. She took us to Karen Kwak at Def Jam, and we played her some music, and she loved the track. Karen is super cool with The-Dream, so she sent it over to him. Dream loved it so he passed it on to Rihanna. She was finishing up her album at the time, and she heard the record at the last-minute and wrote a monster to it. She loved it, but it was in the fourth quarter of her album being completed and it had to be turned in immediately. So unfortunately, she only had time to cut half the song.

She loved the track so much that she insisted that it went on her album, even if it was only an interlude. So yeah, a lot of people were upset that their favorite song on the album was only an interlude. So after seeing the reaction that the record had, Rihanna agreed to do the remix. We met her for the first time one night in the club, and she came up to us like “Oh my God I’m so excited to meet you guys” and gave us a big hug. Then she told us she was thinking about putting Chris Brown on the remix and we were like “Ohhhhhhhhh shit” [Laughs]. Then she actually went and did it.

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