“Luda wasn’t Luda when I met him. He was Chris Lova Lova from Hot 97.5. [He] had just started working there. I met him through a mutual friend. My best friend’s [cousin] was friends with Chris Lova Lova. Everybody was trying to make it. Everybody was trying to do music. They was trying to rap. He was in the group with my cousin’s friend, Lil Fate, at the time. He was in the group Disturbing The Peace.” – Producer, Bangladesh
Ludacris’ “What’s Your Fantasy?” featuring Shawnna was originally from Ludacris’ independent release Incognegro. The hit record made the cut and appeared on the rapper’s first album with Def Jam, Back For The First Time. The album peaked at #4 on the Billboard charts and would serve as the introduction to rapper’s speedy and humor-filled rhymes. Simultaneously, Ludacris was part of a bigger change in Hip Hop.
In 2000, the East Coast and West Coast proclivities in Hip Hop were beginning to head toward another direction on the compass. Southern Rap was hitting the airwaves all over the U.S. Ludacris, Mystikal, Trick Daddy, and Juvenile, all from the South, were now part of the landscape.
AD LOADING...
It was the first hit single for Bangladesh. The Grammy-winning producer looks back, “I was a young kid doing something that was a hobby to me. There [were] no rules. I didn’t know too much of the industry, so it was fun. When you get your feet wet in something and you know a lot, you’re more in a box. [We] were creating. There was no limit to Southern music — to Southern Rap. We stuck out like a sore thumb.”
