The Dream just released his first musical offering since leaving Def Jam Records. It comes in the form of a six-track EP, Crown – the first installment in a two-part EP series.

In a recent interview with XXL, the producer-singer explained that Jewel will follow Crown this summer.

Aside from music, The Dream says that he’s been working on an art label to help give young artists additional exposure.

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“We’re building Contra Paris, which is an art label,” he said to XXL. “It’s about art overall, period. Anything that’s art, we’re trying to get into. I have a lot of people hitting me on Instagram, guys and girls, that are trying to fuse music with their culture. Whatever that culture is, as long as it’s art.

“We’ve got these young guys who can be Basquiat with great gifts and I want to couple my music with them and make sure that their shit is being seen because I think that’s what was so great in the ’80s. Art and the music industry were so big together and it’s just now coming back to that. So, I just wanted to create a company that wasn’t about the business of music and more about just the music itself.”

In 2013, The Dream teamed up with Jay Z on “Hight Art” a cut off The Dream’s IV Play album. As for new collaborations with Jay Z, The Dream says he’s keeping that information under wraps.

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“I’m more involved now with Jay than I’ve ever been,” he says. “I mean, we definitely do music all the time. We do that all the time. It’s not just music [either], it’s, ‘Stop by the house.’ ‘What you doing?’ It’s just stuff and it’s not like how it was when we first met.”

Stream The-Dream’s Crown below, via Spotify.

For more The-Dream coverage, watch the following DX Daily:

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