¡MURSday!
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Strange Music is expanding the roster outside of their core members. In 2011, the indie label signed the Miami-based band ¡Mayday!, who brought their hip-hop/rock fusion into the Strange Music fold. Three years later, Tech reached out to Murs to welcome him into the Strange Music family as well. "We love Murs,” Tech said in an interview with XXL last month. “We toured with Murs. He’s a brother. He has lyrics. He qualifies. Anybody who says different, they don’t have lyrics, they lying. He has lyrics. He can tour with us and endure. He’s a visionary. He has Paid Dues. He qualifies.”

Tech continued on to say that Murs and ¡Mayday! sound really good together. The guys seem to agree, too. “We were lucky enough to do a song for our first album on Strange called 'Hardcore Bitches' together,” Bernz says of the Take Me To Your Leader record. “It became a staple at our shows. Fans love it. It was like people already knew that we sounded good with him. It was a natural thing.”

Now, Strange Music’s newest artists collaborate for ¡MursDay!, their album that dropped today (June 10) which combines two drastically different styles to make something remarkable. Studying great trios like the Beastie Boys and De La Soul, as well as the four-man Leaders Of The New School, they hoped to bring the same energy and flair for their summer-ready album. After giving fans a taste with “Tabletops," "Serge's Song" and “Here,” we had Murs, Wrekonize and Bernz share five songs everyone should check for on the LP. From “Brand New Get Up” to their party-starter “Spiked Punch,” consider this the official breakdown before copping the album.—Eric Diep

Previously: Prisoner Murs Talks To Collaborator ¡MAYDAY! On “Serge’s Song”
Meet ¡Mayday!, Tech N9ne’s Strange Music Label Mates

“Here”

Bernz: We are really proud of this one called “Here.” Everything is produced by us. Basically, it is an ode to the outsiders. It’s a song for those people who think there is something better for them somewhere else. That’s the vibe of the song.

We also have this other song called “Brand New Get Up,” which is kind of like our “Hey Ya!” on the album. It’s our uplifting, kind of fun, get-up-out-your-body kind of song. The whole point of that song, even on the hook, get up out your body, get up out your cup, get up out your apartment. Get out and get up. It’s just one of those kind of things, just try and be inspirational without being too hooky or whatever.

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“Brand New Get Up”

Wrekonize: I love “Brand New Get Up.” It was one of the few songs on the album that gave us a hard time, like production-wise. Once we had the production laid down, it took us a while to get to the final resting place of the song. So like, actually winning that song over and being like, we did this verse and this verse.

Bernz: We had a banging beat. It’s like having whoever video chick. Who did you guys just bring up?

Wrekonize: Claudia Sampedro?

Murs: Yeah, you didn’t fuck her right. You like, “Nah, let me come back around and just fuck her another way.” That wasn’t it. I feel like the beat is telling you like, “Nah, I’ve had better.” Before you go out and tweet that I was bad in bed, you gotta go back in and finally fuck that bitch right. Literally, I wrote like a 180 bars one night to this shit. I couldn’t sleep. I went back to my hotel in South Beach and I was like, “Ah.” I wrote this whole rant. Just say the weirdest shit. “Maybe baby Jesus in a little pink dress.” I wrote a whole verse based off that line, 'cause one of the homegirls said that. I’m gonna start the rap with that and all these weird sayings. He was like, “Yo say something, and I’ma turn that into a hook.” No. And then he was like, “If you take this part and write a 16 based on this record.” And I did that. He was like, “No.”

What I love about myself is that I am humble enough to take that from him because I trust him. I know he knows what sounds good. So like, fuck it. I gave it my best. I’m not embarrassed. I have a career of great songs, so I can get in the studio and be silly and take chances with them, 'cause I know that they will respect me. And they also respect me enough to be like, "No." That’s not it. And when we finally finished “Brand New Get Up,” they e-mailed me. I had left to come home for Valentine’s Day and my wedding anniversary. And they e-mailed me like, “We killed it.” Motherfucker, send that shit right now! What the fuck cuz? Send that!

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“New Years Day”

Wrekonize: “New Years Day," for me, it’s kind of contrasting. It’s kind of like a party song, but it sets the music as very chill and it has a great horn section. This is the first album that we worked with brass.

Murs: It has that hit. It has that style when you get back in the pocket. It’s dope. And I get to say “Free Earl” on it. That’s my favorite thing on it. I got away with putting “Free Earl” in a song. That was a movement; I was really heavy in it. Now that it's over, I can’t let people forget. I drop Mustard and Earl on the same verse. I love my young, West Coast artists. I gotta support them and the “Free Earl” movement was a big part of my life. I wore Earl Sweatshirt through customs until he came home.

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"Fool’s Gold"

Murs: I just like it 'cause it was one more of the fun songs we do and I can’t sing. Wrek is singing on the hook. And to rock with live music is just—I’ve been rapping over samples of 9th Wonder for years. It’s good to change up my energy and motive.

Bernz: "Fool’s Gold," wow. I consider “Fool’s Gold” like a fucking escaped rapist that had sex with me for years. You know what I am saying? Just fucked me for mad long. I wrote 25 verses to this song, so I have like a bitter feeling in my heart about this song. I love the beat. I love the hook. I was never able to do a good verse to it until we hooked up with Murs and we approached it on that swapping bars kind of thing.

Like he said, it’s a serious song and I felt it was too after-school-special-y before. Sixteens, sixteens and sixteens. Whereas before we came in, we kind of didn’t have to worry about the subject matter, we just went in and kind of vibed off the energy of the song. It came off way less edgy. I like it now.

Murs: To me, Beastie Boys is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, rap groups of all time. I got to say “Fool’s Gold, FPS 2/It’s pyrate.” I got to drop the chemical compound for it ‘cause to me that’s something Ad-Rock or MCA or Mike D would do. I felt that was funny as shit, but it is real. And maybe some kid will get an A on his fuckin’ chemistry homework ‘cause I dropped that in there.

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“Spiked Punch”

Bernz: I really like “Spiked Punch.” We ended the album on some party vibe and we ended it on you know how old school albums would be like: “Yo, shout out to XXL! They in the house!” They had the long ass [outros]. We wanted to end the album on a nine-minute shout-out.

Murs: My wife makes fun of me because I say “shouts outs.” Like, “I want to make some shouts outs.” When you hear the song, we literally split it into two tracks. I was just drunk. It was probably one in the afternoon. They kept on saying, “Do it again!”

Wrekonize: I think we just ended up using that first take.

Murs: But the song was fun and he literally made some spiked punch. We was at his spot, eating dinner and one of his homegirls that works there. She was like, “Yo, you ever had Bernie’s spiked punch?” I’m like “Nah.” “Yo! It’s the shit! We used to have parties and people used to come from the beach from miles around.” Next morning I woke up: “Motherfucker make that spiked punch. What’s good?” We just got these red cups and we made spiked punch probably [around] noon. We did the outro the next morning and we started drinking again.

We got everybody in the booth to say the hook like, “Spiked punch!” I got a gang a motherfuckers in the booth. Like, 10, 12 of us in the booth. And everybody is just rapping. It’s like the breakdown of the whole album, so hopefully we get to do a video for that so I can make his spiked punch again. But the funny thing is, we were supposed to... Tech N9ne has "Carribou Lou," "KC Tea." We wanted to have our drink but we got so wasted we forgot to put the ingredients in the fuckin’ song. [Laughs]

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