Up and coming recording artist Lavon Collins known as LC teamed up with veteran R&B singer Donell Jones on his newest single “Don’t Trip”. Collins and Jones were on location in Lower Manhattan at “The Delancey” on Monday, June 12, to film the music video for the single.
Collins who is originally a Bronx native, who began to nurture his musical aspirations at age 12 upon receiving a keyboard as a gift, mentioned about how the collaboration with Jones on the song and video came about in which he stated, “The video came about from us having the same company as far as knowing the same people around us. He pretty much heard a whiff of my sound and rather enjoyed it. Basically somebody came out from his campus and saw me perform, and we pretty much just said you know what it makes sense to do things together. He was able and enough to get on the track with me definitely because Donell Jones is a well known name and he’s well respected, I was just happy that he was able to jump on it with me and make the type of music that we made.” Collins also stated that “Don’t Trip” is the first single off of his upcoming album “The Next Big Thing”, and besides working with producers such as Jones(who he said produced the beat for “Don’t Trip“), he has worked with up and coming producers who have yet to make a name for themselves in the industry. Collins also plans to release an album titled “Hold That”.
LC who listed some of his musical influences to be Rakim, Kool G Rap, KRS One, 2Pac, and Nas, said when asked who he currently enjoys listening to in the industry, “Right now I think the whole Young Money is taking it to another level because they have their own sound. Drake is doing real good, I like T.I. I like Jeezy, I like Ludacris. I definitely have much love and respect for Jay-Z. Right now I believe Cam’ron and them have a good thing going on. There’s definitely a lot of people out there doing there thing”. Some of the artist that LC is interested in working with in the future include Jaheim, Sade, and Jazmine Sullivan who he thinks is really “dope”.
Donell Jones who has been notably away from the scene for the last few years after the release of his last album on LaFace Records 2006’s Journey of a Gemini gave the reason for his long absence which he said, “The reason for me being absent man was definitely because I was on Jive Records and I feel they didn’t really push my last project, and so I was waiting to get out the contract. So once the contract was over I really started shopping myself a deal, and now I have my own label called CandyMan Music. So now I’m doing it big on my own label. I can promote myself the way I’m already promoted.” Jones released the album “The Lost Files” on his own label Candyman Music last year and has a new single out titled “Love Like This.” Expressing excitement about going independent and taking control of his music and career Jones, stated, “ From the beginning I’ve always written and produced, from album 1 to album 5 to my last one, the uptempos and things like that I did those. So I felt like it was a natural progression to get my own label and pursue it in a different way. Like I said before at Jive I had Usher, I had TLC,I had Toni Braxton all those artist to compete against for time for space to get out on the radio. Now it seemed like I got the short end of the stick. So I think this is the best situation and natural progression as well.” Jones stated that he feels the single “Don’t Trip” has that real R&B/ Hip Hop feel, which he feels is missing today.
About the concept for the video for “Don’t Trip” he stated, “The concept is pretty much telling the guys don’t trip. If you meet a woman in the club and she’s out seeing somebody else don’t get mad because another brother gets her and you walk away. There are plenty of other chicks you can get. So the concept of the video is pretty much we being too fast, and they hollering at two females and the next thing you know the two woman want somebody else. So we just letting other guys know there’s plenty of other girls in the club, don’t get mad at us the woman chose us. I mean it happens all the time, these are things that people really go through and I tend to write about real life situations”. Jones also mentioned that we can expect his next album in September. The single Don’t Trip is currently available for purchase and download on Itunes.
