Lil Jon shares more details about his album, Total Meditation. Speaking to CNN, the “Turn Down For What” rapper explained that the album is inspired by life-changing occurrences in his life, including “health issues.”
“I was turning 50 years old. A lot of things going on in my life, a lot of life changes, health issues,” he said.
“Health is wealth, health is everything. You want to be here for a long time.”
On cutting back from his legendary catchphrases “okay” and “yeah,” the rapper added, “I can’t scream all the time! I have to talk regular sometimes. So of course I can do it. I’m a regular person like everybody else.”
Following his performance on Usher’s Super Bowl Halftime show over the weekend, Lil Jon spoke to XXL about his future music plans. The rapper revealed that he is working on a 10-track album named, Total Meditation.
As the title suggests, the project is designed to help people “relieve anxiety, boost focus and find peace” through meditation.
“I’ve always kind of meditated a little bit,” Jon explained. “But when I turned 50, started going through a lot of things. Started going through a divorce, I’m separated now, and all the emotions from the divorce and all that process was really getting to me. So, I found I had to start to go within to calm myself.”
Jon said they spent a lot of time preparing for Super Bowl performance
Lil Jon was among the few legendary artists who joined Usher over the weekend for the major stage, Super Bowl Halftime show where he perfomed “Turn Down For What” as well as Usher’s “Yeah!” alongside Ludacris.
Jon, who is also Super Bowl Halftime show’s musical director, recently revealed to XXL the immense work it took to put out such a show.
“It was quite a process to do,” Jon said. “It was a lot of hard work. It was a lot of figuring out the proper setlists. I think we were up to like 180 different versions of the setlists by the time we got to the end.”
Jonathan H. Smith was born in Atlanta, GA in 1972. He performs under the name Lil Jon and is credited with originating the Crunk sound out of the South. He also helped define the hyphy sound with Oakland and Bay Area.
Lil Jon got his start as an A&R with So So Def, then as a producer, working with Usher, Yin Yang Twins, Ciara, E-40, and more. He’s more recently worked with Saweetie on her updated version from some of his songs including “Salt Shaker” and “Blow the Whistle” to name a couple.
Of course, Usher, Jon, and Luda had to do it again.
The year is 2020, but it feels like ’04. After dropping a teaser to an unreleased track on Lil Jon and T-Pain’s live ‘VERZUZ’ battle last Saturday night, fans all over demanded they release the track.
“The [world] Asked For it, Now the [world] gets it. Usher, Lil Jon & Ludacris Did It Again,” Ludacris posted on Instagram.
Jermaine Dupri’s So So Def’s 90s group Ghost Town DJ’s (Virgo, DJ and producer Greg Street, producer Rodney Terry, and DJ Demp) could be considered one hit wonders by their song My Boo—which appeared on the So So Def Bass All-Stars Compilation album—as this is also the only song that Ghost Town DJ’s have to their name.
My Boo peaked at No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 when it released in 1996. In 2016, My Boo became popular again after the “Running Man Challenge” and re-entered the Hot 100 reaching a new peak of No. 27 twenty years after it first released. Lil Jon was a producer on Ghost Town DJ’s “My Boo,” but couldn’t be credited because he was an A&R for So So Def at the time—he also helped name the record.
“Lil Jon was there the whole time. He couldn’t take production credit because he was an A&R director, but Lil Jon helped produce the record. Me and him mixed the record. There are people who have creative imaginations who dispute [this] story, but from my recollection, Lil Jon is the one who named it “My Boo,” ’cause originally we called the record, “I Wanna Be Your Lady.” – Rodney Terry told Spin
Lil Jon told Spin, “I was working A&R at So So Def. This was my first project on So So Def — first project that was mine. I executive produced it and A&R’d the album.”
“Rodney [Terry] used to work at Def Jam at the time. He was the main promotions guy. If you were a Def Jam artist you came to Atlanta and Rodney was the guy who took you around and put you to radio. I knew Rodney because I was a DJ… We knew each other just from the record company shit.”
Rodney Terry also explained why the official music video has the title “(V/O version No. 2),” instead of simply “My Boo.” “The version of ‘My Boo’ that you’re hearing now is actually the second version. Me and Lil’ Jon came up with the idea way before we did the record, and I even went to California for three or four days to just try and get the vibe,” he said. “I came back and we just wanted to do it [ourselves]. It really didn’t work out with the people we were producing it with. And then, one day, I was in Lil’ Jon’s office and I played the beat and [producer Carl Moe, who’s a credited songwriter on “My Boo”] was in there with his keyboard and he just fell right into the pocket.”
The music video for My Boo released that same year.