Rapper Prodigy off to prison, rapping in tongues

By Hillary Crosley

NEW YORK (Billboard) - As rapper Prodigy prepares to begin a three-and-a-half-year prison term for illegal gun possession, he is using a creative marketing approach for his new solo album, "H.N.I.C. 2," due March 9.


The project will be made available in an astounding 14,000 languages with the help of independent label VOX Music Group's voice-translation affiliate, Voxonic.

"I remember when Mobb Deep was going overseas to Paris in 1995," says Prodigy, referring to his hip-hop duo. "The fans were saying our lyrics in the seats but backstage they couldn't understand us. They couldn't understand what our lyrics were really saying. So when I heard about Voxonic, I knew this is going to change the world."

Using a voice technology that dissects the phonemes, the sounds that words comprise, Voxonic will take a 10-minute voice sample of Prodigy and a foreign-language translator. Then the software pieces together the speech patterns of the translator and Prodigy, creating a fully translated song. The record is in Prodigy's voice, only his phonemes are rearranged to create the pattern of the translator's foreign language.

Last year, Voxonic also released reggae musician Ky-Mani Marley's album "Radio," which has sold 18,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

After learning about this software last year, Prodigy met with Voxonic president Arie Deutsche and agreed to become a partner in the company as well as a talent scout for VOX. But the partnership hit a snag last October, after the rapper was sentenced to jail. He is due to begin his term on February 13, after getting an extra month of liberty to arrange the medications for his sickle cell anemia.

Still, Prodigy is hoping his imprisonment won't affect business.

"Hopefully, I'll have access to a computer," Prodigy says. "But, just by me signing with Voxonic and releasing 'H.N.I.C. 2,' it's sparking interest, so it won't affect my position in the company."

Leading up to his jail term, Prodigy shot a video for each song on the new album, which will be released virally.

"We're going to make sure Prodigy's fans get their dose," Deutsche says. "He's going to record messages from prison, which we'll air on the social networking site HNIC2.com. Obviously the most unique selling point is that we're going to be able to service all of Prodigy's fans, whatever their language."

Reuters/Billboard