Saigon: MTV's Mixtape Monday's

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Artist: Saigon and Statik Selektah

Representing: The Yard

Independent Album: All in a Day's Work

411: Twenty-four hours to live? Nah, 24 hours to create. The musical vibe between Statik Selektah and Saigon was so potent, they made an entire album in one day — the aptly titled All in a Day's Work.

"This ain't my real album that everybody is waiting for," Sai clarified, distinguishing this project from his long-awaited Just Blaze-produced project, Greatest Story Never Told. "This is just a project I did with a up-and-coming dude, Statik Selektah. I know a lot of people heard of him. He's from the Bean. We came in to do a song for 'Grand Theft Auto.' We just vibed and clicked. Next thing you know, we had six, seven songs done.

"First I was like, 'Let's do an EP,' " Sai continued. "Then we got up to eight songs. I was like, 'Two more, you've got an album.' This is the first time somebody has put together an album in a day and put it out in a week. It was top three on the hip-hop charts on iTunes. We put it out all digital. I'm trying to get people accustomed to buying my music digitally ahead of time. I got ratings higher than dudes with real albums."

Saigon said that for the most part, he wrote the songs right there on the spot, but for a couple of records he got his Dr. Frankenstein on, taking a verse he already had in his book and piecing it together with another one he had lying around.

"What really inspired me with Statik was that East Coast feel that's been gone away for long," Gon told. "He brought me back to the hip-hop that I grew up on — that whole Wu-Tang era, the slow samples, the sped-up samples. Everything started flowing from there."
Saigon's album with Just Blaze still doesn't have a label, but the two are still working. "We just keep upgrading and upgrading," he said. "We're trying to keep it up to par. I don't have a home for it because hip-hop is going through a transitional phase. I put a lot of work into it, so I just don't want to throw it out there and it don't get the support it deserves. I'm just waiting, that's why I did All in a Day's Work."

Saigon's next mixtape, Warning Shots 2, is due in July.

Joints To Check For:

» "Lady Sings the Blues." "I liked the sample," Saigon said about the track. "It sounded like she was sad. I took away from the sadness and added my element to it. I think the record came out hot. The worst thing I did to a woman to make her sing the blues was I f---ed my girlfriend's aunt. The aunt was young, the aunt was poppin.' My girl was saying, 'My aunt wants to meet you. She's a fan.' I was expecting it to be a regular aunt. The aunt is usually older. I met her aunt, she was hot. The aunt threw me the wink, I slipped her the number. It went down from there. I confessed [to my] girl. I can't lie too good. I'm a bad liar.

"I said, 'I'm gonna do a few tracks for the ladies [on this album],' " he added. "I did a breakup song called 'Lose Her.' If you don't want your girl no more, just lose her. Get rid of her. Just play the song for her and she'll get the message."

» "The Rules." "We snatched up the sample from [Busta Rhymes'] 'Woo Hah!! [Got You All in Check]' on there," Sai explained. "It's talking about nowadays in hip-hop, you don't have to pay no dues to shine. Like I said, a lot of dudes come in on other dudes' backs and they get thrown right in the spotlight. When we came up, you had to grind. Even if you knew somebody, you had to prove yourself as being dope. You couldn't come out with one dope verse and people say, 'He's that next dude.' My number one rule when it comes to life is probably treat people how you want to be treated. Respect everybody, try your best to be positive and righteous."

» "The Reason." "I'm talking about how the game flipped over from it being about talent to guys just chasing the ladies," the Yardfather said. "I think hip-hop is reflective of life. It used to be a time when females used to try and follow what we did. Now it's like vice versa. When dudes go in the studio, they're thinking, 'What are the girls gonna like?' Even to the point where men are wearing purses and tight pants. Like we're almost morphing into females. I feel sorry for the generation after us. I know it's stylish and all that, but where are the warriors? Where's the next generation of young strong men? We're gonna miss that if we don't keep it the way it's supposed to be."