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R&R
WHAT’S UP WITH. . .
Nicki
Minaj
Raunchy Queens
native is Lil Wayne’s
favorite female rapper
Paper Tongues Update Rap
Rock With Electro Grooves
North Carolina crew
lands Randy Jackson as a
manager, scores radio hit
By Nicole Frehsée
B
efore aswa n north
became the frontman
of the Charlotte, North
Caro lina, seven-piece rock
band Paper Tongues, he pursued another career: drug deal-
BREAKING
ing. “I was selling weed, and I
was being taught how to sell
dope,” recalls the 29-year-old
North. “But I realized I wasn’t
built for it. I just couldn’t turn
someone into a crackhead.”
Now, North and his crew
have American Idol judge
Randy Jackson for a manager
and a major-label album, Paper
Tongues. The group also has a
hit single – the surging, Linkin
Park-style rap-rock anthem
“Ride to California” – blowing up on rock radio. “They’ve
embraced the dimensions
of the ‘new’ rock – meaning
they’re a rock band but with a
hip-hop element,” says Jackson, who signed on after North
approached him in a Los
Angeles restaurant. “I predict
that in five years, they’ll be one
of our next big arena bands.”
30 | R ol l i n g S t o n e |
Paper Tongues – who also include guitarists Devin Forbes
and Joey Signa, keyboardists
Cody Blackler and Clayton
Simon, drummer Jordan Hardee and bassist Danny Santell –
formed in 2007, when they met
on a street corner in Charlotte
where musicians would congregate for jam sessions on Saturday nights. “We all come from
such different musical backgrounds,” says the fast-talking North, whose drill-sergeant
dad banned him from listening
to anything but country music
as a kid. (He’d sneak Grandmaster Flash and Kool and the
Gang tapes into his Walkman.)
“I like to say we’re a combination of the Roots and Journey.”
When it came time to
write the album, North simply drew on his past. “I’ve had
so many freaking bizarre life
experiences,” says the mixedrace singer (his father is
Egyptian, his mother is white),
who was taken away from his
birth mother by social services at age two, was adopted by
another couple and has been
arrested “a few times” for drug
possession. “I want to flip my
experiences and turn them into
something positive.”
North spun his rags-toriches story into “Ride to Cali-
rollingstone.com
fornia,” which chronicles his
actual journey from Charlotte to Los Angeles to meet
Nelly Furtado producer Brian
West, who ended up working
on most of the band’s album.
(West requested a sit-down
w ith Nor th af ter hearing
one of the band’s demos on
MySpace.) “I had no money to
get there, so I started knocking
on neighbors’ doors,” North
recalls. “One couple was so
entertained that they gave
me $300.”
“We wouldn’t be where we
are today if Aswan wasn’t so
audacious,” says Forbes. To win
over Jackson, North interrupted his meal. “I sat down next
to him, slid his plate over and
gave him a piece of paper with
my MySpace page and phone
number on it,” says North.
“He called me two hours later
and said, ‘Come meet with me
tomorrow.’ ”
Despite the band’s Hollywood fairy tale, the guys –
who are on tour throughout
the summer – still reside in
Charlotte. “We’re Southern
boys, through and through,”
says Nor th. Adds Forbes,
“Every tour we go on, the first
stop is Walmart. We gotta
buy our white bread and our
cold cuts.”
BACKSTORY The Trinidadborn Minaj (real name: Onika
Maraj) started rapping in
junior high, when she’d test
her rhymes on neighborhood
Minaj
dudes. “I would rap about
how cute and tough I was,”
she recalls. “I thought the
guys were laughing because
they liked it. Then I realized that I was the joke.”
She studied acting at New
York’s LaGuardia high school
(the performing-arts school
immortalized in Fame) and
was discovered by Weezy
after he saw her freestyling
on a DVD. “He treats me like
a little sister,” says Minaj.
“If I have on something
sexy, he gets all protective,
like, ‘What the hell are you
wearing?’ ”
WHAT’S NEXT Minaj’s debut
single, the minimalist, tribalinfluenced “Massive Attack,”
is out now, and her as-yetuntitled first album is slated
for release in the fall.
N.F.
A p r i l 2 9 , 2 010
FROM LEFT: DENISE TRUSCELLO; FRANK MICELOTTA/GETTY IMAGES
MOUTHS FROM
THE SOUTH
Forbes, Hardee,
North, Blackler and
Santell (from left)
WHO The first female MC to
catch serious buzz since Lil’
Kim and Foxy Brown, Nicki
Minaj is a cleavage-baring,
foulmouthed Queens rapper
who spits lines like “Got that
supersoaker pussy . . . tighter
than a choker.” Though Minaj
hasn’t released an album
yet, Lil Wayne signed her to
his Young Money label, and
she’s made spotlight-stealing
cameos on hits by Robin
Thicke, Mariah Carey and
Usher. “I’m the voice of lots of
girls – raunchy ones and preppy ones,” says the 25-yearold, who peppers her rhymes
with different accents, from
Valley girl to upper-crust British. “I think there’s an English
girl named Hermione who
lives inside of me,” she adds.
“I can’t explain it.”