Elton John reveals the advice he gave to Young Thug.
Elton John is currently prepping the release of his 32nd studio album “The Lockdown Sessions” which is scheduled to drop on October 22nd. The project will feature guest appearances from Dua Lipa, 6Lack, Lil Nas X, Stevie Wonder, Nicki Minaj, Young Thug, and more. During the promo run, Elton John sat down with Billboard for a new interview.
The 74-year-old talked about his meeting with Young Thug in 2018 when the duo collaborated on the song called “High”, which sampled John’s “Rocket Man.” “He wanted to meet me…and we shot the breeze for 40 minutes,” says Elton. “He said, “What do you think? What advice would you give me?’ I said, ‘Did you sing in the choir?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, of course I sang in the choir. Gospel choir.’ I said, ‘Sing more. Don’t just rap, sing more, because the mixture of rap and musicianship and melody is what really makes rap take off.’ And he’s doing that now.”
Then he shared details about getting blow away by Young Thug’s rapping skills during the “Always Love You” recording, which he compared to his good friend Eminem. “I mean, I’ve seen Marshall [Mathers] do it in Detroit, but I’ve never seen someone like Thug come in and do that,” he said. “In the end, I had to leave because I think he felt a bit intimidated that I was there and I just wanted him to relax. But it’s just an amazing moment in my musical life… I have no understanding of how rap records are put together and it’s fascinating to watch.”
Their upcoming collaboration “Always Love You” will also feature Nicki Minaj. Young Thug is also preparing to drop his new album “Punk” which will come out on October 15.
With “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)” featuring Dua Lipa from The Lockdown Sessions, John returned to the Billboard Hot 100 after a two-decade hiatus. The song is his 68th career entry, with a 51-year gap between “Cold Heart” and “Border Song,” which debuted at No. 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Aug. 15, 1970.
“You can imagine how I feel,” John says. “A lot of it is, of course, due to Dua Lipa’s popularity and the brilliant Pnau remix, but I feel very very content and happy that I’m relevant. I’ve always tried to be relevant. I think a lot of that is due to the fact that I do my own [Apple Music] radio show, [“Rocket Hour]. My object when I do that is to play new music by new artists. I’ve come into contact with them, promote them and become friends.”
John has written music for several Broadway shows, including Aida, which won a Tony Award in 2000 for best original score. His most recent endeavour, creating the music for a 2006 movie version of The Devil Wears Prada, is now being workshopped in New York with the intention of premiering in Chicago in July after being postponed due to the epidemic. “It’s in really, really good shape. I’m very, very happy with it,” John says. “David [Furnish, John’s manager/husband] will be going to New York twice before Christmas to see workshops on it. It’s mostly all women involved in it. It’s a woman’s story and it should be told by women: we have a woman director, a woman playwright, a woman lyricist, a trans choreographer. I’ve never worked with a woman lyricist before and Shaina Taub has been remarkable to work with. I’ve enjoyed every single second of working with her… I haven’t been this excited about something I’ve written for a long, long time as far as something for the stage.”
Check out Elton John’s full interview here.
