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All Gold Everything
http://www.buzzfeed.com/reggieugwu/trinidad-james-is-sorry-about-all-those-one-hit-wonders-in-h#.ltoWWwDkj
Few artists offer a better example of how quickly fortunes can change in the modern music industry than Nick Williams, the Atlanta rapper known as Trinidad James, whose spectacular rise in 2012 (on the back of the viral single “All Gold Everything” and its blingtastic video) was followed by an equally stunning descent last year, when he announced that his recording contract with Def Jam — once valued at a reported $2 million — had been unceremoniously terminated.
But the collapse of his major label career — which he now attributes to a combination of creative differences, industry malpractice, and his own inexperience as an artist — wasn’t the end of the story for Williams. In November of last year, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars sampled some the lyrics of “All Gold Everything” (“Don’t believe me, just watch!”) for their single “Uptown Funk,” which later went on to tie the record for second-longest run at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in history (14 weeks). Williams was given a songwriting credit and a share of publishing royalties for the song, a distinction that could make him a very wealthy man for the rest of his career — whether he ever writes another hit or not.
BuzzFeed News called Williams at home in Los Angeles, where he moved to from Atlanta two months ago, to talk about life after “Uptown Funk,” how the music industry “preys on young children,” and why he feels responsible for the recent wave of one-hit wonders in hip-hop, from Bobby Shmurda to O.T. Genasis. “After me, all the labels had thirst in their eyes to catch a new kid with the hottest song and sign him,” he says. If Williams’ story is a cautionary tale, is anybody listening?
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