Alex Da Kid Speaks On Producing T.I. & Christina Aguilera's 'Castle Walls'

The King’s album has finally been uncaged.

Yesterday, T.I.’s eighth solo album, No Mercy, hit the web in full just eight days before it’s release. Among the album’s highlights—the Kanye West and Kid Cudi-featured “Welcome To The World,” and “All She Wrote” with Eminem—perhaps the most breathtaking record unveiled was “Castle Walls,” a solemn collaboration with Christina Aguilera.

Producer of the moment Alex Da Kid, who laced what will become T.I.’s next single, spoke to VIBE about crafting the record.

“It’s different,” says the 27-year-old London hitmaker. “It’s hip-hop, but it’s definitely going to hit a broad audience. It’s my sound [but]… to me it feels like some shit that you might hear in the Scarface movie. It feels like the ‘80s… hopefully people will like it.”

Stringing together an impressive line of steady spinners—responsible for Eminem’s “Love The Way You Lie,” B.o.B’s “Airplanes” and Dirty Money’s “I’m Coming Home”—Alex says he’s aiming for only chart-toppers. 

“If I feel like I’m making an album cut, I wont even save it half the time,” says Alex, who’s slated to work with 50 Cent in the future. “If you look at what I’ve done this year, every song has been a single. So I really want to have that high expectation for myself.”

He continues: “I just try and do things that haven’t been done before. I definitely want to evolve and once I’ve done this kind of sound for a little bit, I’m definitely going to go and turn it into something else.”

T.I.’s No Mercy is available everywhere next Tuesday (Dec. 6). —John Kennedy