When Chicago rapper Twista sold more than 311,000 copies of his new album, Kamikaze, in late January, he became the music industry's first success story of 2004. But the lightning-quick MC, currently charting high with the single "Slow Jamz," is no newbie: It took seven years, a hot producer and an aggressive marketing campaign to bring the rapper a Number One album.

Kamikaze is actually Twista's third solo album -- his first, 1997's Adrenaline Rush, was already a steady catalog seller. In recent years, however, troubles with the label kept the rapper from making a new record; at one point, Twista was being heavily recruited by Roc-A-Fella president Damon Dash (the rapper has been featured on several high-profile albums, including Jay-Z's The Blueprint 2).

Atlantic, however, held firm. Says label co-president Craig Kallman, "We've been setting him up for a long time in hopes of a debut like this. The intention is to achieve everything Adrenaline Rush achieved and then go beyond it." To that end, in-demand hip-hop producer Kanye West (Jay-Z, Ludacris, DMX) was enlisted for several tracks, including the massive hit "Slow Jamz," and R. Kelly and comedian Jamie Foxx provided guest vocal appearances and much needed star power.

To encourage first-week sales, Atlantic offered Kamikaze to retailers at a low suggested retail price of $13.98, and the album could be found at some stores for under ten dollars.

"Twista's success is due to a confluence of factors: price, history, talent, A&R, timing," says Atlantic co-president Ron Shapiro. "We've had six-figure reorder days three days in a row. This doesn't happen very often."

Meanwhile, the rapper is not taking the fortuitous circumstances of his career for granted. "You can't always be the man," says Twista, "but you can be the man of the moment. You just gotta keep making moments."

JOHN CARAMANICA
(February 12, 2004)