Drake’s new single “Over” made a huge debut on the Hot 100 last week by storming in straight to No. 35, but the Boi-1da produced track wasn’t originally intended to be the first single from his highly-anticipated debut Thank Me Later.

The first single was, at one point, scheduled to be the Omen produced “Shut It Down” featuring The-Dream, which thankfully just made it’s way online today.

The smoldering ode to female confidence comes off like a cross between a sexy old-school Prince jam and “Houstalantavegas” from Drake’s So Far Gone mixtape, and focuses more on Drake’s R&B side rather than the harder Hip-Hop feel of “Over”.

“This song is sort of like an anthem for women, like pre-the club.” says Drake of the track. “It’s like an anthem for you to be at your house with your girlfriends getting ready, what you listen to before you get there. It’s a song for the non-famous woman to make her feel special and just to let you know that even though I’m up here and have the option to mingle wtih these ‘upper-echelon’ women, if you will, that sometimes I’d rather be with the girl from back home or a student or a girl that works at Wal-Mart. They don’t have to be a star or rich or anything like that; that’s kind of the gist of the song. It’s an empowering song for all women.”

Nice! *erases Best I Ever Had video from memory*

This song is so smooth that I actually wouldn’t be surprised if it gets sent out as the next single so it can chart high on the R&B side of things whilst “Over” handles the Hip-Hop charts.

Thank Me Later hits stores this May. Are you excited?

Mariah Carey reminds us that she has a new album coming out at the end of the month with the official remix to her song “Ribbon”.

The new version of the Memoirs… cut still has the same production from The-Dream & Tricky, but now Ludacris and The-Dream have both been tacked on with a quick cut and paste verse from the two.

I liked “Ribbon” better before, but Angels Advocate is a remix album so obviously she had to do something with the song.

Currently the lead single from Angels Advocate, “Up Out My Face Remix” featuring Nicki Minaj, is at #43 on the R&B/Hip-Hop charts after peaking at #39 last week.

What do you think the album will debut at when it’s released on March 30? I’m gonna predict somewhere around #30 or #40 with a steep drop in it’s second week.

It’d be the understatement of the century to say that Ciara’s been given a hard time by the blogs and the media since her third album Fantasy Ride tanked last year, but instead of hiding from the criticism Ciara is addressing it head on with a brand new leaked track “I’m Up In The Bank” featuring The-Dream.

“Ya need to stop actin’ all funny and stop thinkin’ about me and think about your money” spits Ciara over The-Dream & Tricky production, which is most probably still unfinished and in demo form.

“See I tried to be humble / But they be hatin’ on the pie / Hatin’ on the fly / Hatin’ on I / And they don’t even know why / What cha doin’ looks so lame / Writin’ on the blogs / I’m in the bank / And who really care about what the hell you think?”

The song returns Ciara to her urban roots, whilst showing that she’s back with a new attitude, confidence and sound. Ciara knows that this fourth album is make or break for her and she’s definitely not taking any chances. Also expect production from Darkchild and Bangladesh when the albums hits stores later this year.

Christina Milian’s main man The-Dream has just dropped the first single from his third and supposedly final album Love King.

The single, also titled “Love King” and produced by Los Da Mystro, treads the same familiar territory as the singer-songwriters last two albums, as well as his work with Mariah Carey on Memoirs of An Imperfect Angel, Fabolous’ “Throw It In The Bag”, Mary J. Blige’s “Kitchen”, Electrik Red and a slew of other songs and albums that either The-Dream, Tricky or Los Da Mystro have worked on.

With that said though the song is surprisingly good with a feel good melody and catchy hook, but both Tricky Stewart and Los Da Mystro are capable of creating fresher beats (especially Tricky) so I think The-Dream should’ve stepped outside the box a little for what is now his third album.

The-Dream has now officially finished recording his third and final solo album Love King, breaking the happy news via Twitter.

Love King is the best of the three albums and It’s FINISHED! Pre-Order and buy from a brand you can trust! Radiokilla Records.

According to Rap-Up the albums first single will drop on February 1st.

The-Dream’s first two albums were top notch so my hopes are pretty high for Love King.

Terius is gonna have his hands full with a new single, a new album, a new wifey and a new baby!

[Download Link]

Mary J. Blige does her best impression of Terius Nash on “Kitchen”, a new The-Dream & Tricky produced track from her upcoming album Stronger With Each Tear.

I could swear that this is Love vs Money leftover because I don’t think that I’ve ever heard a more Dream-a-fied song than this one. It’s contemporary, fun, and even a little soulful, with MJB proving that you can still evolve your sound without sounding like a desperate diva clinging to the last remnants of her fading youth.

No that statement was not meant for Mariah. It was at many stars in general. Calm down lambs.

Anyways get it Mary!

During a new interview with EW about his Grammy snub, super producer The-Dream let a few minor details slip on Ciara’s upcoming fourth studio album.

“We’re trying to get her back to where she was her best, and that was that first album [Goodies]“

Ciara herself also spoke about the hush-hush project to MTV recently when they managed to corner the singer on the red carpet at a recent event.

“I’m working hard. I want to make sure I give my fans what they want, and I want to give them more. So I’m just taking my time and just trying to create something that just really feels good to the masses.”

Another popstar that Mr Terius Nash is working with is Katy Perry, who recently announced that she’d tapped the production duo of The-Dream & Tricky to work on her highly-anticipated sophomore album.

“The stuff that I’m doing is really ’80s-driven” said The-Dream on Katy’s new album.

I can’t wait to see what he cooks up for Katy, but I’m a lot more curious about Ciara. I don’t really agree that Goodies is her best album, but I know a lot of people think otherwise. I actually like all her albums equally the same but for different reasons, so I’ll probably be happy with whatever they do.

Which Ciara album do you think is the best?

Here’s a photo from The-Dream and Christina Milians wedding. No not the quickie $300 drive-thru one, I’m talking about the nice one they had in Rome.

I’d like to ask what the hell The-Dream is wearing, but I’m not even gonna go there.

You can expect yet another wedding ceremony next year, which C-Milli says will be “really big”. I think it’s pretty safe to say that Christina’s album Elope will NOT be coming out any time soon, or possibly ever.

Pop tart Katy Perry has revealed that she’ll be working with urban-pop producers The-Dream & Tricky Stewart on her upcoming sophomore album (third overall if you include her Christian album).

“I’m heading to Las Vegas to hook up with The Dream and Tricky Stewart, who wrote Single Ladies and Umbrella for Rihanna.

When Beyoncé’s Single Ladies came out, I was like: ‘Who wrote that? It has a great level of sass and fun. Everybody wants to sing that kinda anthem.”

It will be interesting to mash it up together to hopefully find an amazing new happy medium.

My album is very premature, it’s in the beginning stages but it’s exciting to be back in the studio again.

Dr Luke and Max Martin will also appear on her new album after Katy was happy with their chemistry on her last record One Of The Boys.

In the meantime you can catch Katy on Timbalands upcoming Shock Value 2 album.

I’ve been listening to Katy’s album a bit lately out of curiosity, and it’s definitely one of those albums that just has really good singles but the rest is trash. Katy used to annoy the hell out of me but she’s grown on me now, and I think she’s talented, so hopefully she can step it up a bit on her new album and deliver something that’s more consistent.

I think she could work really well with The-Dream & Tricky, and since her style isn’t R&B or urban she’ll probably bring out a fresher sound from them.

Robotica Satanica has pulled a Christina Milian and snagged rapper Young Jeezy for a new record from her upcoming Rated R album. The songs producer The-Dream broke the news earlier to MTV.

“Me and Rihanna, she just cut the last of the two records we did. It’s a record called ‘Rock Star. The first record is a record called ‘Hard,’ which features [Young] Jeezy. Both of those records are pretty insane.”

Dream declined to go into much detail about the tracks, but said the Rihanna/ Jeezy collaboration is one for the record books.

” ‘Hard,’ I want that song to explain itself,” he said. “Most of the stuff I wrote — still to this day what I write — I try to find out through people — what they’re going through or what they gotta say. Then we put that in.”

Dream also said that nobody has to worry about Jeezy’s verse. The Snowman delivered as always.

“Oh, c’mon, he killed it! You know Young killed it. That’s ATL right there. That’s all we do.” [Source]

Ooh, I really wanna hear this one!  I’ve already stopped giving “Russian Roulette” the time of day but I love Young Jeezy and the song he did with C-Milli was fire so I’m definitely still curious to hear RiRi’s album. Speaking of “Russian Roulette”, it just debuted at #100 on the Hot 100 from airplay alone which is pretty good.