Kardinal Offishall Explains How He and Akon Made "Dangerous" a Hit

After years of getting respect from top hip-hop artists around the world (but not much in the way of chart action) Toronto MC Kardinal Offishall has a smash on his hands. "Dangerous" from his new album Not 4 Sale (out last week) went Top Five on Billboard's Hot 100 and is now chilling in the 10 spot.

Offishall says he knew "Dangerous" was a hit as soon as he heard the music from Vancouver's DJ Kemo. "I was like, 'This is retarded. I'm gonna smash this,'" he says. "And I played it for Akon and he was like, 'Where did you get this? This is crazy.' So he went in the booth to perform it. His part was done within 15 minutes. Same thing with mine. I rocked mine, wrote it, recorded it within 20 minutes. That song came together in less than an hour, but it's one of those songs," Kardi adds. "It's like that song, just like when Sting wrote 'Every Breath You Take.' We felt the magic from its inception, from the first time we heard it."

Kardi, who has also collaborated with 50 Cent, T-Pain, Ludacris, Method Man, Rihanna, Lil Wayne, and the Neptunes "was everywhere I was at," says Akon, who signed Kardi to his Konlive label and is featured on "Dangerous." "Just way before he got signed, he was with an independent label in Canada and couldn't do what he wanted to do because he was tied in at the moment, so we just kept conversing with each other until he got out of it and we hooked up. Internationally, he'll be riding with me, touring, breaking outside of Canada."

Estelle, who features Kardi on "Magnificant" from her album Shine, reciprocates on his "Due Me a Favour" on Not 4 Sale. "We both watched each other grow in the industry and have offers and deals that kind of went pffft," says Estelle. "So this time around, he's on Konlive/Interscope and I'm on Homeschool/Atlantic and we're like, 'Yeah! We did it!'"

Related Stories:
• Akon Will Stand Trial For Fan Tossing Incident
• Akon's Criminal Past May Be Fictional
• Eight Arrested at Free Akon Show in Denmark

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter