Continuing our build-up (see here and here) to the hugely anticipated hip hop game Def Jam Rapstar, which is set to drop 5 November 2010, Liam Tootill has recently been in Paris speaking with the legendary Kevin Liles about his latest project and spent some time sampling the new game; that is sure to rock the hip hop nation worldwide.

The first thing I’d like to say at the start of this post, is how impressed I was with the Eurostar from St Pancras International to Paris Nord. It was my first trip on the service and I knew it was quick, but not just over two hours quick to get from central London to the coast, across the channel, and another 123 miles on the other side. Nice!

We hit Paris at one o’clock local time and made our way straight to the hotel where we would be staying for the night. The group consisted of myself, Saj (the PR guy), DJ 279 of Choice FM and the Soul Culture team. We dropped our bags off and made our way to the more prestigious Four Seasons, George V hotel where we would conduct our interviews with Mr hip hop, Kevin Liles.

My photo with Kevin Liles and Courtney Adams (director and lifestyle marketing: 4mm games)

My full interview with the inspirational, entrepreneur Mr Liles will be available to read in our September issue of the mag and is not to be missed. In the morning, before I spoke with him, Kevin Liles was presented with Medaillle de Vermeille de la Ville de Paris, a Keys to the City type honour and was clearly very moved by the award. He told me, “I’ve received a lot of ‘Keys to Cities’ and I’ve had days named after me in the States. I’ve never received a medal of honour from another country and for the major and the deputy major and ambassador Rivkin to acknowledge hip hop in that way – I didn’t get that award for me, I got that award for hip hop, because that’s what I represent,” before continuing, “I just thank the city of Paris for giving me the opportunity.”

When we chatted about Def Jam Rapstar I asked him about the scope and variety of rap and hip hop music found on the game’s playlist. He said, “Listen, we’ve got so many songs that we’ve cleared and that everybody loves. Hip hop is all around the world, but we have to recognize localised hip hop. And you know, we have to recognize that there was (and still is) a west coast movement, and there is a mid-west movement, and there is a southern movement, and there is east coast movement, and there is a Paris movement, and the England, and the Germany scenes. So we just wanna recognize local hip hop but at the same time, we are one. Hip hop is global, hip hop is everywhere around the world, so I hope we have a different version of the game for every country. If McDonald’s can be everywhere, why can’t we?”

The game is sick. I had a play on it, clashing with DJ 279 to Notorious B.I.G.’s Juicy. I lost the battle but it’s all about the taking part that counts right? Catch the video footage below:

The game is big and has a whole new dimension that sets it apart from other SingStar genre of games, in terms of a social networking platform for users to interact worldwide.

In Kevin’s words, “Our game is your ticket, your entry way, to the biggest show on earth. And that’s defjamrapstar.com”. I guess that’s where you should be heading to now. Go check it out, catch the Def Jam Rapstar bug, get excited. It’ll be worth the wait!!

defjamrapstar.com

Tags: 4mm Games, Def Jam, Def Jam Rapstar, Kevin Liles, Konami