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If Naughty By Nature were new artists that just came out recently instead of twenty years ago would they be considered “ringtone rappers”? Group member Vinnie thinks so.

In the early nineties, the grimy-looking rap trio from East Orange rode to the upper echelons of the pop charts on infectious hooks and catchy choruses with singles like “O.P.P.” and “Hip Hop Hooray” but their impact on rap places them way above any category that includes Flo Rida or DJ Unk, with all due respect.

It’s been a decade since Naughty By Nature had anything resembling a hit, and after unsuccessfully putting out an album in 2004 without their DJ, who left the group over a money dispute, Treach, Vinnie and DJ Kay Gee are all reunited for the first time in years when they were inducted to VH1’s Hip Hop Honors, and they are popping up on other people’s property as more than just ring tones.

The Illtown icons are back with a new independent album but, instead of utilizing traditional promotional outlets Naughty is ingeniously leaning on the mobile market. The group jumped in bed with corporate giant Microsoft, who launched a Windows Mobile phone promotion to push their new single “Get To Know Me Better” [check it out below].

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We caught up with Vinnie. He talked mobile devices, being independent leaders in the digital music era and what his Grammy Award winning crew has been up to over the years.

You just linked up with Microsoft and told me you use even use a Windows Mobile device in real life instead of an iPhone or a Blackberry. What do you like about Windows Mobile phones?

I think features wise Windows mobile devices are mini PCs. I’ve had the Treos and the iPhones. For me, I do so much with PDFs, Excel files dealing with all of my touring, I always have itineraries, I have to sign contracts…even with my commissions, my manager has to send me breakdowns every time. So, I need access to all of this stuff on the fly at all times. And also, I use a PC at home so its all compatible. It’s easy to sync up all of your stuff. So, if you’re at home and you’re getting a lot of itineraries or organizing your music…that’s another thing that’s good about Windows Mobile- they have removable storage, unlike the iPhone. Their have tons of times when I would get an email from a producer who would send us beats and I would load the beat on to my desktop. I just have to link up my phone with my storage now. I don’t have to carry around a bunch of CDs n more.

What have you guys been up to over the last decade plus since your last big hit “Jamboree”?

Well primarily were been touring. We lost Kay Gee in 2000 and so, me and Treach did an album in 2002 on TVT, ya know? We finished with TVT in 2003, going into 2004. Basically we’ve been touring and working on independent projects. I’ve always manned the online business for Naughty By Nature, and basically that’s the crux of our business. Personally, I didn’t want to put out another album without Kay Gee but I knew eventually we’d just get back in the mix of that. In 2005, Kay Gee and I hooked back up and we did a few film projects. And leading into 2008 we just decided to do another Naughty album, and that was July of last year. And it was ironic that when we started recording the album they called us for Hip Hop Honors. We thought that that would’ve been a great boost to let everybody know that all three of us is back in the studio working an album. And what I was telling Kay about the mobile game is that everything is gonna be a PDA mobile device, everything is gonna be a mobile computer. Look, the end game for us, being that we are independent right now, is to cut a deal where we pre-load an album on a series of phones with mobile partners like Verizon or ATT, or even a hardware manufacturer like Samsung or LG. Imagine on a Verizon commercial they are promoting your lead single, promoting your new phone that’s about to be released that’s pre-loaded with your new album. Imagine them pre-loading a hundred thousand phones with your album, which is easy to do, but have that third-party carrier or element buy your album from you per phone directly. So, you basically wholesale your album to them. Five dollars times a hundred thousand phones is a half a million dollars without having to play any radio politics.

I’m actually glad to hear you guys taking advantage of new media strategies to sell your records. A lot of cats don’t advantage of the digital media like they should and you guys are doing this as vets, as icons with many years in the game. You guys came out in 91′ but the music climate today is vastly different then it was back then. Do you think you would’ve had the same or a similar impact if you came out as new artists today as you did back then?

Everyone talked about the ring tone artists. Naughty By Nature was like the first ring tone artists. We have such catchy hooks [singing] “You down with O.P.P.? Yeah you know me”, “Hip-Hop Hooray! Hooo!”, “I know I jam I know I jam jam”, “We gonna break, we gonna bash”, all of the them would’ve been ultimate ring tones back in the day. If we would’ve had the today technology back then? Please. It would’ve been crazy. But, what I like about the game right now is, even though we are veterans and still do about 150 shows a year, through naughtybynature.com we market directly to our fan base all of the time. Now, with us coming back out we can get major distribution and still be independent. We can come out of the box with a partner like Microsoft and we’re not even signed to a label but, we’re doing better promotions than the labels because they can’t even afford to do that right now. We come to the table with a sponsor so not only can we support the DJs who play our music we can also support the local radio stations because our partner is placing ads.

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