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Over the past month, rap group Below Zero has been featured all over mass urban media sites for their song “New Era” (coincidentally, they also have an endorsement deal with New Era – the renowned headwear manufacturing company). However, there’s an interesting back story to this song. A while back, the multi-platinum rap artist, Lil Flip, was involved with the song but was later removed due to industry politics. So Dubcnn caught up with Below Zero to get the 411…
DUBCNN EXCLUSIVE: BELOW ZERO STATEMENT ON LIL FLIP
“The song “New Era” was written by Below Zero and produced by Skinny Beck, Joel Hopper, and Breadman. At the time we recorded the song, we were in a joint venture deal with Kingpin Ent. Group out of New York, owned by Sandy Lal (Sandy is Lil Flipﾒs lawyer and manager). Sandy loved the recording and wanted to put Flip on it because he thought having an established artist on the record would help with radio and breaking the record.
As it turns out, a lot of DJ’s and radio stations didnﾒt want to touch the record because they felt Flip wasnﾒt hot anymore. And, at the time, he was leaving one label and going to another, and the label [he left behind] flexed their muscles and damn near black-balled Lil Flip.
This is when we, as a group, learned that this is a ﾑwhat have you done for me lately?ﾒ type business.
People thought Below Zero was affiliated with Lil Flip and Clover G and wanted us to take sides in his beef with TI. We expressed that this wasnﾒt our beef and we had nothing to do with it but, eventually, we had to make a business decision to take Flip off the record and move in another direction for our career.
That is the reason why he isnﾒt in the “New Era” video and is no longer on the radio version ﾖ donﾒt get us wrong, Flip is a cool ass dude. He done the verse on love and we have toured together and was real cool and always shouted out during his set. But, ultimately, we had to make the best decision for our career.”
Watch the “New Era” video on their official MySpace page.
