In honor of April Fools day, Von Pea of Tanya Morgan delivers this teaser to the Metal Lungies crew. Yes, that is Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy With It” beat. And when they say “produced by 9th Wonder”, they mean “produced by Trackmasters”.

LISTEN: Von Pea – “My Life” (prod. 9th Wonder)

Von Pea – “My Life” (prod. 9th Wonder)

HHS: What’s up dude? How’s it going with you?

Von Pea: I’m pretty good man, just gearing up. I have show with Exile coming up and I have a release party coming up, so I’m just taking a break right now.

HHS: So your album dropped on October 12^th. I know it’s a bit of a concept album. Can you get into it a little bit?

Von Pea. It’s funny, I’ve been telling people that it’s more of a theme album than a concept album, but I’m starting to realize that there are a lot more stories on there than I thought.  You kind of lose sight of it when you’re making an album, because you don’t sit down and break down your songs.  I would say it’s more of a theme album though, and the theme is coming of age in Bed-stuy, in Brooklyn. But it’s not so Brooklyn specific where people outside can’t relate.  It’s just about being a young person growing up. I wasn’t on the streets selling drugs or anything, so it’s not hard knocks, cuz I was in school. So I just decided to make an album about being in school.  You can’t avoid that, but there enough people that do that better than me. So I didn’t want to come out doing that shit.  I just wanted to do a coming of age album and that’s what it’s about.

HHS: What track on the album is really special to you?

Von Pea: If I had to break down the album, I’d definitely say “The Yorker”. At first I wanted a different song as the leak track, but the label was pushing for that one. At first I didn’t really see what they saw, but thinking about it, it almost sums up everything about me. I speak about New York, but I try to speak about it from a place of price, not arrogance. It just speaks to the past, present and future of me.

HHS:How is being a member of a group and then doing a solo album. How do you balance the group image and then your image?

Von Pea:In some ways it’s frustrating. We never took the fact that people know the group. People don’t necessarily know who’s who or who’s from NY or Cincinnati. We never took that into account until this year, when DonWill put out his album and we saw that you basically have to start from scratch. I’m lucky because I got to watch him do it and even though it was a bit of a surprise to him, I’m glad that I was able to see him and learn that I had to introduce myself to the people. I’m Von Pea from Tanya Morgan. I’m part of this group, so remember me. People think that something must be wrong because you’re doing a song by yourself when you’re in a group, like “what happened”. People don’t know that Tanya Morgan started out as a super-group. We were inspired my MadVillain. We didn’t grow up together, we weren’t teenagers in school [nor] did we meet in college. We were just making music, the same way that Madlib and Doom decided to just get together. But we didn’t realize that people didn’t know us like that before the group. People didn’t know us as solo artists. They got introduced to us as the group. That wasn’t expected. Those kinds of things were growing pains, as DonWill would say.

HHS: That’s usually how it works. When Big Pooh dropped his solo album and Evidence dropped his solo album, the first thing fans thought was their respective groups were breaking up.

Von Pea: It’s just us stepping back into our solo roles. We did the group thing and are still doing it and will continue to do it. Now that going solo is a side project, we just both want to really do it and give it real effort and a proper push.

HHS: Let’s get into the album.  Who do you have on there as far as producers, guests, etc?

Von Pea: The record started out with me just working on the same solo album for years. So I got tired of doing that and decided to just do something fresh for this album, Peas Gotta Have It. I’m the producer for Tanya Morgan, as far as doing half the beats and producing the album. So while I was doing that, I was getting beats from friends and colleagues. One dude I really started to work with was Aon out of Philly, he produced 6 tracks on the album. Another dude from Philly named Grizzo did three, Brick Beats did two and I produced 3 tracks. The album is more based on me as an emcee. It’s not really me on the production side. I didn’t want to do the producer/rapper thing this time, so the production is handled by a lot of people and as far as my beats; I just picked some of what I had. As far as the features go, I worked with my team of people. I just wanted to holler at my friends and make good music. And by my friends, I mean actual other artists that have their own shit that I happen to be friends with.  I have Danny out of South Carolina, Rhapsody, Keisha Shontelle and people that I’ve known one way or another.

HHS: So what’s your plan after the album drops.

Von Pea: Once it drops, I’m looking forward to it catching on probably next year. I don’t expect it to be the sleeper album of the year or anything like that. We all know that everybody is going to check out Kanye’s joint and whatever Wayne does when he gets out and those will be the shit of the year. I’m banking on my album having a slow build. Fans will get it now, but new people will get it in December, January and maybe February, so I’m counting on that. After that, we’ll work on the new Tanya Morgan album and from there probably just touring and promo.

HHS:Dope man, well good luck with the album and thanks for your time.

Check out Von Pea on twitter @VonPea and online at www.vonpea.com .

Peas Gotta Have It is available on Amazon.com and also at www.imculture.com .

Producer/emcee Von Pea, of Tanya Morgan fame, steps out on his own with Pea’s Gotta Have It. The LP is concept-themed and takes Von Pea back to his high school days, when he was known only as Devon Callendar. Von Pea was apparently inspired to create the album after digging up an old high school notebook in 2007. The album revolves around his formative school years at the Boys & Girls High School in Bed-Stuy with Von Pea creating a concept album based around high school, inspired by what he thought his album would sound like when he was 17.

Pea’s Gotta Have It feels like a concept/theme album from jump. The fuzzy, analog feel of the first track “Freestyle Live At Low Key’s”, gives the album an instant throwback feel. The ante is raised a bit with the first single “The Yorker”, an energetic and bouncy track that finds Von throwing up his hood ‘Lil Jon style.  Von also gains steams with “I Know Right”, a serious throwback track, with a classic mid 90′s horn that almost calls to the Ed O.G.’s of the world. Pea’s Gotta Have It features stout throughout, as evidenced on the blazing tracks “Good Life”,”Pep Rally”, “Get Violated”, and “Boombox”.

Von Pea is able to step out a bit with this release, putting his prowess as an emcee on display. Tracks like “There U Were” and “Dreams” display a knack for storytelling, whereas “Ahead Of The Class” and cleverly produced and “New Pair”, display creativity. The battle for #1 track is never settled, but Von as Von creates two stellar, albeit, different tracks with”Pep Rally”  and “New Pair”.On the flipside, though not terrible, tracks like  “Thanks For Your Children”, “Open School” and “You Should Be Rocking” miss the mark and could have better execution. In all three cases, the falls off and in the case of “You Should Be Rocking”, the sing songy nature makes the track wholly skippable.

In stepping out on his own Pea’s Gotta Have It, Von Pea creates a successful solo release that doesn’t make fans beg for a Tanya Morgan release. This is usually tough for group members  venturing out on their own, but in this case, Von Pea succeeds in carving out his own successful release.

Von Pea, a producer, rapper, and member of the highly lauded group Tanya Morgan, is excited to announce the release his own solo album, Pea’s Gotta Have It. The album, a concept project themed around Von Pea’s high school days, will be released October 12th via Interdependent Media.

For Pea’s Gotta Have It, Von Pea reminisces of his days spent in the classrooms and at the lunch tables at Boys & Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. “My solo album is basically the album I always wanted to make in high school,” explains Von, who was inspired to make the album after discovering a long-forgotten journal. “It’s a concept album based around high school, around what I thought my album would sound like when I was 17,” explains Von. “In a way, it’s a goal I’m achieving late. It’s music inspired by my coming of age in Brooklyn.”.

In Pea’s Got To Have It, Von exhibits his classic sense of humor and wit by combining not only comical subject matter with more serious aspects but also with the genius subtleties and inside jokes that Tanya Morgan fans have come to expect. Von’s engaging rite-of-passage narrations include topics such as hollering at girls, suffering through detention, upholding music and fashion above real-life concerns, scheming on how to avoid bullies, or taking your ill-advised friends’ advice, to name a few. Von took full advantage of the liberties of creating his own album that were afforded to him by cleverly weaving parts of his past with his present day so it’s not accurate to call his album a period piece. “A lot of my material switches back between my 16 year-old self and who I am today as a 28 year old and although I’m talking about my own experiences as a male teenager coming of age in Brooklyn, New York, this album really speaks to anyone who’s ever gone to high school,” explains Von.

Despite being the primary producer for his group Tanya Morgan, Von Pea produced only three of the tracks for his solo album. “I think it’s kind of cool; it happened naturally,” Von says about not handling most of his own production. Similarly, Von’s surplus of guests on the album mesh together seamlessly despite their varying styles, largely due to the natural chemistry Von has with everyone on the album. “The best music comes from artists that have chemistry,” says Von. “So the vocal features are all frequent collaborators.”

Although the rapper has previously released solo side projects, Pea’s Gotta Have It marks his first full-fledged effort at a solo album, which took three years to finalize while also working on other music. “In the past I’ve put out projects just for fun and for free, not even trying to get buzz,” says Von, affirming, “This is my first solo album with original music.” As Tanya Morgan’s primary producer, and main contributor to the group’s musical sound, fans can expect a similar direction on his solo album. “My album probably sounds like Tanya Morgan, just with one person,” Von jokingly states. “But people like Tanya Morgan, so that’s fine with me.”

Von Pea – “The Yorker” (Mp3)

Fresh off of his Sandwich Shop collaboration with fellow Tanya Morgan member Donwill, Von Pea has been keeping himself busy with his own solo project, preparing Pea’s Gotta Have It, slated for release September 2010. In order to whet the appetites of awaiting fans, Von Pea releases his free mixtape today, So Motivational: The Most Skullduggery of Mixtapes.

Consisting of a selection of new solo tracks and a host of current and past collaborations featuring talented artists like Trackademicks, XV, Che Grand, The Lessondary, and more So Motivational offers listeners a chance to catch up on much of the work Von has been doing outside his work with Tanya Morgan. “This started out as a collection of all of my recent collaborations,” explains Von of the mixtape, “but I decided to use the ones that fit best as well as record a few new tracks.” The result is a collection of tracks that to come together with fluidity. With “Lookin Fly” featuring Trackademicks and Donwill, the three rap over a funk-inspired Von Pea-produced track, while, elsewhere, “Year Of The Other” finds Von trading verses with fellow emcees Max Mega and Justin Battle over the track’s smacking drums, wobbling bass, and hazy synthesizers.

Von Pea’s Pea’s Gotta Have It will be released September 7th via Interdependent Media.

Von Pea – “So Motivational: The Most Skullduggery Of Mixtapes” (Mixtape)

With only one day until this project drops, we get the track list and the cover art. We will have it here for download tomorrow.

Here is another leak from Donwill & Von Pea, off their upcoming album The Sandwich Shop: Cause Hoes Gotta Eat Too. Right now, the album is scheduled for release in about two weeks.

Donwill + Von Pea + Jermiside – “Syrup Sandwich” (MP3)

Something new and unexpected from two of the three members of the group Tanya Morgan. Von Pea released the statement below refering to this new project:

Donwill and I were listening to the sandwich beats that The Roots dropped a while back and we decided to record to 9 of them. We did most of it in one day, and we are going to be dropping the whole thing right after Don Cusack comes out on the 23rd. Its just another thanks to the people that support us.

Donwill and Von Pea will be releasing this new album called The Sandwich Shop: Because Hoes Gotta Eat Too very soon.

Donwill + Von Pea – “Cheesesteak” (MP3)