Just days after the release of Take Me To Your Leader, ¡MAYDAY!’s own Wrekonize joined us live on the Strange Music Podcast for an exclusive interview regarding the new album, his work as a solo emcee, and the “Hostile Takeover 2012” Tour. In case you didn’t tune in, here’s what you missed.

In this interview segment, Wrekonize discussed the fan reaction to Take Me To Your Leader and shared some insight into what he wanted to showcase as an emcee. Wrek also went on to talk about Jovi Rockwell and her contribution to the popular track, “Imprint”.

What is so significant to about Take Me To Your Leader compared to past projects?

I think that musically, it’s our most cohesive project. When we set out to make it, we knew exactly what we wanted to make. We knew how we wanted it to sound. The six of us were on the same page musically, which is cool. On the flipside, on the business side, we’ve never had an entity as powerful as Strange behind any project that we’ve done before. The promotion, the links that they’re able to connect for us, the street teams – the Strange Music street teams are ridiculous. They go above and beyond. It’s cool man. It’s good to know that once you get done with a project that you poured blood, sweat, and tears into that there’s an equal amount if not more amount of people that want to go to bat for you and spread the word. It’s cool. It’s definitely one of the major things about this album, the push is so much stronger and there’s a lot of people that believe in the project. It’s getting spread out on a wider front.

It’s only been a few days since its release and already people are calling it a classic. What does this mean to you and the rest of the band?

That’s crazy man, I don’t know. We’re humbled by that, that’s dope. Whenever you make a project – that’s not a light word you can throw around when you talk about an album. For that to get thrown around is humbling to us. We weren’t even shooting for classic, we were just shooting for something that people appreciate and dig. We were shooting for a certain vibe. If that word is getting thrown around, I’m not gonna hate on that. That’s amazing, it’s a beautiful thing.

A lot of fans place you at the top of the label, as far as emcees go. Going on that momentum, what were you trying to do on this album as an emcee?

I just wanted to show versatility, for me. I’ve been rhyming for a long time and throughout the years I’ve tried a lot of different styles. I’ve tried to implement different things and techniques that I’ve appreciated, that I’ve learned from people that have been around me. Going into this album I wanted to make sure that I displayed an equal amount of what I thought I was good at and what I thought my tools of the trade are. I think I just wanted to really show my versatility. The emcee pool in Strange is so ridiculous that you definitely pay a little bit more attention to every line of every verse going into a project that you’re going to put out on Strange. You can’t half ass lyrics when you come on Strange.

TMTYL had a lot of guest features, but one that really stood out was Jovi Rockwell. What can you tell me about her and why was she chosen to appear on “Imprint”?

I’m convinced that she’s not from this planet. She’s a zany woman from Jamaica who can sing her ass off. She’s been around for a minute. She put out her own solo album, she just put out a mixtape not too long ago that’s also dope. She’s just got a dope voice, her presence is fresh. We had her on the last album as well. We had her on the track “On 2 Someth’n”. We got linked up with her. She’s just one of those people that stops by the Mayday studio all the time and we vibe whenever she’s there. It’s never about, “Hey, let’s make a song.” Things come out when we’re kicking it, but she’s just a very like minded individual with Mayday. We actually had her verse on Imprint for a long time. We got it before we even knew we were going to put it on the album or even knew if it was going to make the album. Yeah, she killed it. I love her verse on there. We got a crazy video for that one. It’s in the pipeline.

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