The Lonely Island has to be one of the most popular novelty rap trios to date. Composed of “Saturday Night Live” comedians Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, The Lonely Island doesn’t hold back on any of their hilarious songs.
The comedic trio dropped their sophomore album “Turleneck & Chain” today, May 10th and my oh my, it sure is hilarious.
Songs like “I Just Had Sex” featuring Akon and “Shy Ronnie” featuring Rihanna, make the album a comedic riot. As you can guess, the “SNL” stars have no problem reeling in mega stars to add to their comedic spin on hip-hop. Collaborating with big name rappers such as Nicki Minaj and Snoop Dogg, comes as second nature to the funny comedians who are truly real hip-hop fans.
GlobalGrind had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with The Lonely Island as they were in a whirlwind of promotional mayhem. Akiva Schaffer reminisced about his first time having sex, his love of hip-hop music and the amazing fashion staple of turtlenecks and chains.
To buy “Turtleneck & Chain” on iTunes, click here. To learn more about The Lonely Island, click here. Check out the exclusive interview below!
GlobalGrind: How did you come up with the concept of “Turtleneck & Chain?”
Akiva Schaffer: Well, “Turtleneck & Chain” is kind of how we dressed in junior high school, because it’s kind of an awesome look and kind of a pretty terrible look. We dug out some turtlenecks and chains to wear. It started creeping into other things we were doing and it stuck. Then we did the song “Turtleneck & Chains,” with Snoop Dogg. We played around with it and we put a line about turtleneck and chains in our song “I Just Had Sex.” “She let me wear my chain and my turtleneck sweater.” (Laughs)
Have you ever worn a mock neck before?
Oh yea, I’m familiar. Steve Jobs wears mock necks when he goes on stage and introduces the new Apple technology or iPods. (laughs) I do believe I wore a mock neck occasionally around the same time in 8th grade.
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What’s your favorite hip-hop album?
I don’t even know where to begin. I can tell you all of my classic albums. Jay-Z’s “Reasonable Doubt,” Nas’ “Illmatic,” “36 Chambers,” Low End Theory, “Straight Outta Compton, “Bizarre Ride To The Far Side,” Cypress Hill’s first album. Coming from the Bay Area I definitely listened to E-40 and Too $hort a bunch. I don’t know if there’s one I would choose as my favorite, because I love all of those albums. I loved “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.” There are also albums where you forget about how much you like them, like Blacksheep’s first album.
Which artists do you have on your recently played list on your iPod?
That’s a great question. I listened to the Fleet Foxes record a ton. I listened to Kanye’s album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” too.
What’s your favorite song off of Kanye’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy?”
OMG. It’s the worse answer. I’m going to say “Monster” is my favorite. It’s such an easy song, but it’s my favorite. I feel lame for saying it. I should have chosen a deeper song, but I love “Monster.”
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If you could take a boat anywhere in the world, where would you sail?
San Diego, California, the most tropical paradise I can think of.
There are a lot of hot MILFS in Hollywood. Can you name a MILF you’d love to take out on a date?
No doubt. Uhh…Roseanne Barr. They invented the word MILF for her.
If you were sent to a lonely island and you could only bring three albums, what three albums would you bring?
I’d bring The Beatles “1” album, “The Best Of Coldplay” and Bob Marley “Legend.” That was the most vanilla answer ever.
If that was your vanilla answer, give GlobalGrind your ‘Rocky Road” answer.
I’d bring some books on tape. A book about how to survive in the wild audio and the book “Into The Wild” audio book. I’m bringing audio books on tape on how to survive in the wild. It’s a very logical answer,and then just “Best of Celine Dion” as my bonus pick (Laughs).
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You’ve collaborated with so many amazing artists, who has been your favorite collaboration?
Impossible. How can I possibly choose? An easy one is Justin Timberlake, because we get along great and now we’re actually friends with him. So I say Justin because we’ve collaborated with him twice. He’s awesome. Generally, all the people we choose to collaborate with like Nicki Minaj, Snoop Dogg, T-Pain, their songs and music are cool. They’re all fun people we want to hang out with. We generally don’t ask people who are more stern or serious.
GlobalGrind absolutely loves your song “I Just Had Sex.” How did you feel after the first time you had sex?
Oh, like singing! My official answer is that I felt like singing and I just went out into the streets and yelled it to the whole world. The truth is I probably felt like crying, because it was such a lame awkward time like it is for everybody (Laughs).
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When did the light bulb go off in your head that made you start doing comedic hip-hop songs?
The three of us like to make the distinction that we are straight up comedians. We aren’t rappers by any stretch, but we love hip-hop and we love reggae. We all lived together in this apartment in L.A. when we were broke, doing assistant jobs. Our friend had some music equipment hanging around the house, so when we’d come home from going out we’d be drunk playing on his equipment, making silly songs. There was no intention of doing music at all.
When we got to “SNL” we tried a bunch of different stuff, and we got lucky because we tried one of those drunk songs we made, “Lazy Sunday,” got an amazing response, so it became a no brainer. We were really scared to try it again, but Natalie Portman showed up and said she wanted to do a song. Then Justin Timberlake wanted it and the rest is history.
Anything else you want to share with GlobalGrind?
Yeah, go support fake rap music, the world needs it!
