The border city is currently home to many genres of music, and as it continues to evolve, it jumps on a whole level when mixing genres – creating a new sound that find itself on the come up – this includes music collective ‘For Life In Paradise’, who’ve combined their talents to create highly energetic music, mixing R&B, Hip-Hop and Afrobeats.
Over the summer, FLIP artist Teebee released his debut EP ‘West African Love Story,’ which also included the featured assist by fellow artists Jdotds and Gyebi. The drop was followed with his short-documentary “Love In Paradise,” which featured Shay of 4Twnty. Later in the fall, Teebee also dropped the music for his track ‘Pilolo’ off of his EP.
Jdots kept it busy by dropping several singles this year, starting it off with his track “Raindrops,” featuring Teebee. Jdotds maintained the vibe with his summer release ‘Overnight.’ For the fall season, FLIP Records dropped their track collaborative track ‘Somebody Else’ with Gyebi, Jdotds and Teebee – which received great reception at their FLIP Show at Phog Lounge in September.
FLIP’s latest release is their music pack ‘You Deserve A Break’ by Teebee and Jdotds, which includes the tracks ‘Party’ and ‘Be My Lover.’ The drop was also followed by their lively music video for ‘Party,’ directed by Yao – which shows off FLIP truly “partying like it’s 1999.”
We got the chance to interview artists Teebee, Jdotds and Gyebi of For Life In Paradise for our special first city edition of XMPL. Check out our interview with For Life In Paradise and listen to ‘You Deserve A Break’ by Teebee and Jdotds below:
XMPL: How did you first come together to start For Life In Paradise?
They say when you hit rock bottom, the only way is up. That was the situation for most of us and through just casual hangouts and sessions it all just happened before our eyes. Started with only 3 members but shorty after we got a crew full of artists and producers.
What is the meaning behind the name FLIP?
For Life In Paradise! Coined by our manager Derrick, which basically meant that anything we decided to do moving on from that time of our lives was literally for life in paradise, to be happy.
Over the fall, you dropped your single ‘Somebody Else’ a highly energetic track, how was the overall reception for this song?
The reception was crazy! We surpassed a 1000 streams in less than a week of its release. We had the FLIP SHOW I think a week after and everyone knew the words to the song! We had to perform it a couple more times cause the energy was crazy.
You just dropped your project ‘You Deserve A Break’ – how did you come up with the name for this music pack?
Jdotds: So I came up with the name ’cause I was stressing in life. I remember I was in the shower listening to both songs and it just came to me. I called Teebee in the shower and he’s like “YES THAT’S IT.”
‘You Deserve A Break’ has two tracks, ‘Party’ and ‘Be My Lover.’ Tell us a bit about the making of these tracks and the meaning behind them.
Teebee: So for ‘Party’ I had free-styled the hook at one of the home studio setups we have. Jdotds heard it later and he went crazy and immediately wanted in. The whole song was completely done in about 30 minutes! This was in the summertime, probably in June. With ‘Be My Lover’ I had laid down the hook and first verse and left the studio. Next day, Jdotds sends me the bounce with his verse and I thought it was crazy so we stuck with that.
You also just dropped the music video for ‘Party,’ could you tell us a bit about how this video came to life?
We hit up our homeboy Yao immediately. We decided on the release date and we just sat down and brainstormed on ideas for the video. The vintage party theme was a no brainer cause of the phrase “party like its ’99.” we spent a few more days putting together the set, costume, lighting, etc. The whole video was shot in a day.
With the new year headed our way, do you have anything in store for this coming year?
Jdotds: Oh yes! Gyebi is dropping his first official single ‘I Don’t Need’ first week of January and I have a couple of projects I’m wrapping up right now both dropping this year!
Teebee: I have just been enjoying writing and recording for now. Will definitely release a few singles, who knows maybe a project or two.
