V Exclusive: Rap's New T-Pain, Roscoe Dash Speaks On 'Marvin Gaye & Chardonnay' And Showing True Lyricism

R-O-S-C-O-E put it on VIBE for this interview. The young ATLien and rapper finds this summer full of receptive fans bobbing their heads to "Marvin Gaye & Chardonnay," gyrating to "Oh My" and still riding the wave of the infectious club anthem "No Hands." Dear other rappers, what are your summers looking like? We haven't seen such fervor from a hook-heavy, high-energy southern star since T-Pain's glory days. Although Mr. Dash is sure to the bring the party to any environment, he happily turned it down to chat about rubbing elbows with 'Ye and Big Sean, stepping away from his skinny guy swag and his upcoming mixtape Dash Effect. -Niki McGloster

Definitely been seeing you lately. That "Marvin Gaye & Chardonnay," you got "Oh My" heating up right now, and I know your project Dash Effect is coming out soon. Tell me how finishing up that mixtape is going?
Well Dash Effect drops on the 31st. It’s hosted by DJ Cutthroat and DJ Drama. I really try to make my mixtapes like a pre-album; I don’t drop music very frequently, but I drop it in a lump sum. I may put like 30 songs on a mixtape and just give [music listeners] something to ride to for the whole summer and the whole rest of the year and come back same time next year and do it again. It’s been almost 10 months since I dropped a mixtape, and people still listening to the old stuff. I’m just so ready to get my new material out. I feel like the stuff I’m doing now is so far advanced from what’s out, and I’m just ready to catch everybody up and catch them up to speed.

Outside of the music, what projects have you been working on? Is there anything in particular or you just been like, living life?
I been tryna get in the gym. I’m tryna get off this skinny---I can’t do it anymore.

[Laughs] But there’s a place for skinny guys now. You got Big Sean, you got Trey Songz.
Don’t get me wrong, we up through there right now. We what’s in. But I just gotta be a little bit bigger than the skinny guys. Like I can’t be like every other skinny--you know what I’m saying? I have to be able to take my shirt off!

Ok cool. Now, specifically with "Marvin Gaye and Chardonnay," tell me how that came about. That track is going bananas right now. Tell me how a relationship was built with those two to do that record.
It was actually crazy. I did the hook actually like 10 months ago by myself. I wanted to do something a little bit different. The beat was kinda offset, but I like the violins and all the smooth instruments at the beginning of it, then it switches up to sound like a club record. It wasn’t too far out of my element; I just tried to take it back to the roots. I listened to a lot of Marvin Gaye growing up, and I just felt like that’s the one thing that’ll get a woman in the mood, no matter what, so why not make a song about it? That and some wine, everybody know what happen when you drink some wine. [Laughs]

Was it crazy to realize like, ‘Yo, I’m on a song with Kanye West and Big Sean?'
I met [Big Sean] for the first time like three months ago. I actually played the song for 'Ye when I went up there for the first time, and he fell in love with the song. He actually started putting his part down right then and there on the spot. He kept the record for a while; I didn’t really know what he was gonna do with it. I actually thought he was gonna put it on the Throne album, but he ended up giving it to Big Sean, which is even better for me just because of Sean’s style. It’s something versatile, something different. And with both of them on the record, that’s something that gave me like a humongous jump. I try to outdo myself on every record, and I felt like that was the perfect home for that.

Speaking of Finally Famous, how do you feel about it?
I been running around, but I do support him. I’m a really big fan of his music. His flow is dope, I like his whole style and he has fun with it. That’s the most important part, so big-ups to him.

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