The Holiday season is upon us and there isn’t a better example than the numerous television specials that turned up, including Taraji P. Henson’s White Hot Holidays event.
Somewhere during the broadcast, singer/songwriter/producer October London added another check on his breakout 2016 by performing his Christmas-themed “Santa Drop Me Some Loot.”
Linking up with Atlanta’s esteemed producer Jazze Pha before connecting with Snoop Dogg, the South Bend, Indiana native hasn’t stopped making major moves. “It’s been a really, really good year,” he said in an exclusive phone interview with HipHopDX. “I’m excited.”
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After years of making music and songwriting for the likes of artists like Nile Rodgers, London managed to get Pha’s contact and hoped to send him music for placements.
“[Pha] sent me his email and I sent him some songs for Future,” he explained. “He thought they were really dope and asked if I had anymore. I sent him like another 10 songs that were totally different because I do country, pop and every genre. He was blown away by it. He called me back that same night around 1 a.m. and we talked for about an hour.”
Months later, Pha introduced London to the D-O-Double-G who was thoroughly impressed with his music and wanted a project immediately.
“[Snoop] wanted me to create an album that was anything that I wanted to do,” London explained. “He told me first hand as soon as I got to the studio, ‘Look, I’m not going to be hovering over you and telling you how to do this. I already listened to some of your songs. I already got faith in you.’”
The end result became Color Blind: Love, an eight-track EP featuring his breakout single “Black Man In America.” The politically charged track got him love by many outlets including HipHopDX. London even got a chance to perform “Black Man In America” during this year’s Democratic National Convention to a large audience. “It was the biggest crowd I ever performed in front of,” he described.
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London’s Snoop connection also led him to create the opening theme song for VH1’s Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party series, which premiered in early November.
“Snoop seems like he puts a lot of faith into what I do and my work,” London said. “As soon as he heard the beat, he was like ‘Have October do it.’ His team called me and said Snoop wanted me to knock out the theme song. I did it within 10 minutes or something like that and sent it back. We did a few different ones. They were bad. Around three or four to see which one fit. One was too slow, one was too fast. The one you hear was right on time.”
Leading into 2017, London has plans to release two more sequels to Color Blind: Love through Color Blind: Hate and Color Blind: Happiness.
“That was Snoop’s idea to divide it,” London said. “We didn’t want to give people too much at one time.”
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And, much more he has. According to London, there are 600 songs ready to fire on his hard drive and plans on recording more.
Listen to Color Blind: Love below.
