EXCLUSIVE: Duke Grad Mike Posner Recorded 'Cooler Than Me' On A Dell Laptop

Turns out new artists Mike Posner and Iyaz have a couple things in common. Both attended four-year schools here in the States. And both used Dell laptops to record vocals and launch their respective careers.

“But it sounds crispy, doesn’t it?” Posner asked on Tuesday, referring to the track “Cooler Than Me.’ Oh yeah, both artists have also joined “The Ralphie Radio Show” as a guest. And yes, “crispy, “clean”, “clear”, you could insert a number of adjectives to describe how good it sounds all considering. Posner wrote and recorded the track in his Duke University dorm room, inspired by the women he encountered at the school.

“I can’t tell you like after the song came out like how many girls from my past came out of the woodwork and were like ‘I know this song is about me,’” recalled the emcee. “It’s like, ‘Ugh, you’re so vain. It’s not about you. But, now that you’re saying that, it kinda is.’”

Despite his disdain for some of the women on campus, Posner credits the Blue Devil student body’s support in launching his career to its current point. And although he wouldn’t divulge on the existence of any form of hazing, the artist even admits that his fraternity, Sigma Nu, also played a big role.
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Mike Posner is poised to explode on to the scene with his mixtape anthem, "Cooler Than Me" - an ode to the types of women he typically encountered on the campus of Duke University. The Duke graduate also spoke on the school's basketball championship and his forthcoming appearance on this year's Vans Warped Tour.

Download Posner's mixtapes for free at mikeposner.com.
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“I told my brothers to help me spread (my music),” he said. “Within’ a matter of months, the people in my fraternity had helped me create a nationwide fan base and now, I’m living my dreams because of them.”

Matter of fact, Posner is so busy that he can’t even find the time to collaborate with the likes of Flo-Rida and T.I. for the rappers’ respective forthcoming albums. The Michigan-born artist is currently working on his debut LP. He wouldn’t release the title to “The RRS” but did reveal that he's looking at a September release and that there would be no features with other artists.

“All Posner, all hits!” he joked. “I don’t need to trick people in to liking my stuff.”

Certainly a unique perspective, but then again – how many emcees do you know entering the game with a degree from Duke?

RRS EXCLUSIVE: Flo Rida Sustains Spontaneous Formula For New LP; Praises Ke$ha

After speaking with rapper Flo Rida for a little over ten minutes on “The Ralphie Radio Show” Wednesday, the only certain thing is that most of what the emcee accomplishes is rooted, no pun intended, in uncertainty.

“I’m just a guy who works at the spur of the moment,” explained Flo, real name Tramar Dillard. “I’m very spontaneous when creating, so you never know.”

So I’ll save you the suspense now: if you’re wondering who Flo Rida will be collaborating with on his third LP, well I don’t know, and given that the track listing isn’t set in stone, he wouldn’t let on. He revealed the record is “three or four” songs away from completion.

Flo did link up again with T-Pain for “Zoosk Girl”, which his camp is calling a “teaser single” for the album, which yes, does carry a title: The Only 1. Will this new record contain samples and elements from older songs – with a new twist by the “Low” and “Right Round” rapper? See above.
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Speaking of “Right Round”, Flo also doesn’t know if the new LP will feature another collab with Ke$ha, who sang the hook of the first single on R.O.O.T.S. before she became known for brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack. But, the Florida-born artist offers nothing but high praises for the pop star.

“Most definitely (I’m) excited, happy for her,” said Flo. “She’s blessed to have her own situation, so shout out to Ke$ha.”

Flo Rida didn’t rule out another track with her, adding that he wouldn’t mind teaming up again.

It seems that if the emcee plans anything ahead of time, it’s his charity work. Flo founded “Big Dreams For Kids” about a year ago. The rapper returns to the projects in Carol City, Florida to donate time and money through appearances and events – one which would be held this weekend. Flo took a break from planning the function in his office to chat on “The RRS.”

“I was inspired by different people coming to my projects and giving their word on how you could become successful if you sacrifice, put God first, and everything,” he explained. “You know I’m always staying positive, and I’m working.”

He may love bringing that sense of uncertainty to the studio, but clearly Flo Rida’s accomplishments thus far are due to his priorities, which certainly are in order.

DAILY DOWNLOAD: Nathan f/ Flo-Rida - Caught Me Slippn

Up-and-coming UK crooner Nathan called The RRS to chat about his musical endeavor in to the US and his track with Flo-Rida, "Caught Me Slippn".

Part 1: The song, working w/ Flo-Rida

Part 2: The new "British Invasion", New LP

EXCLUSIVE: Ke$ha - The Father-Less Pop Star With A Not-So-Soft Side

You know her as Ke$ha, the trash-talking, hard-partying pop star who's single, "TiK ToK" recently sold the most digital copies in a week by a female artist. BTW, the song that she sings the hook of, Flo Rida's "Right Round", sold the most overall.

Her family and friends know her as Kesha Rose Sebert - a trash-talking, hard-partying aspiring artist, who is finally breaking out on the grandest stage of 'em all.

And as for Ke$ha, seems she knows who she is, and what she's doing - but as for who her father is? Well, that’s another story.

“This guy called me up, and said, ‘I think I’m your dad,” explained Ke$ha. “So like, I moved to (Los Angeles), and off-the-plane moved in with him. And turned out he’s totally not my dad, and so I lived in my car for a minute… and then, I ended up getting my own apartment.”

Believe it or not, that’s one of Sebert’s more tame stories… her official website’s bio starts with an account of the pop star’s face-to-face meeting with an icon. Ke$ha paid off a gardner and snuck in to Prince’s house to give him a demo. Sebert met The Purple One, and she left the CD there for him, but she never heard back.

It seems Sebert loves to tell stories – and tales she tells on her debut LP, Animal, which hit stores Tuesday. The following day, before taping a performance on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” – the 22 year-old singer/rapper/story teller called in to “The Ralphie Radio Show.”

It’s a true Hollywood tale: the girl who lived in her car, and still doesn’t know the identity of her father, goes on to help sell the two most downloaded singles in a sole week. Of course, you probably didn’t know Ke$ha sang the hook of “Right Round” because she didn’t receive credit for the single. It was her decision to not be credited and not appear in the music video. Matter of fact, Sebert says at first she didn’t receive much of anything for the performance.
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Part 1: CD Release Party Shut Down By Po-Po, Living In Her Car

Part 2: Animal, "Right Round", Katy Perry's Engagement

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“I didn’t get shit,” Ke$ha said, rather calmly, noting that in addition to no up-front payment, the track did not yield her any royalty checks. “I got a car,” she later admitted when pressed about whether the song could be credited with landing her a deal on RCA Records. The 1978 Gold Trans-Am that she currently drives can also be seen in the video for “TiK ToK.”

You can say what you’d like about the type of music, or the context of it – but Ke$ha insists the songs are sincere and “unapologetically fun.”

“The music is honest,” she clarifies. “I write with sheer honesty, so anything that’s in any of my songs, like, chances are I’ve probably done that at some point. I’m not saying like, I do these things every day.”

“Unapologetically fun” is kinda a term you could use to describe another track… Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl.” Perry and Sebert are friends – and Ke$ha made a cameo in the video for Perry’s debut single. Yet, due to all of the commotion around her own debut, Sebert did not hear that comedian Russell Brand proposed to Perry… until I told her on The RRS.

“Are you serious?!” she exclaimed, before I cited multiple reports from Brand’s publicist and the comedian himself. “Wow, no shit.”

Sebert hasn’t met Brand, but is happy for the newly engaged couple. Although, she did have to think for a second on what she would give them as a wedding gift.

“I would get her… a giant… inflatable…,” she said, thinking out loud, before I cut her off and reminded her that the censors were standing by, if need be.

“No, some sort of animal. Or I’ll buy her a boat… I dunno.”

DJ Earworm - United State of Pop 2009 (Blame It On The Pop)

Thought you might enjoy this, a clever mash-up of the 25 biggest songs in 2009 according to Billboard... definitely worth your time here.

EXCLUSIVE: Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta Talks Touring, Hot Mess, & Pete Wentz

From the outset, it seems as if Gabe Saporta is having the time of his life, and you really can’t blame him.

The band he fronts, Cobra Starship, just wrapped up a tour with Boys Like Girls, scored a Top 10 hit in “Good Girls Go Bad”, and was even paid a high compliment from the lead singer of a band they idolize; Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo told MTV News he’d most like to tour with Cobra, out of any band, dead or alive. But as exciting as all of the aforementioned is, Saporta seems just as pumped about everything else in his life – whether it’s having a picture of his face tattooed on his boss’s leg, or receiving a Red Bull and vodka from his tour manager after a taxing set.

During our ten minute chat, Saporta chatted openly about Hot Mess, the tour, and Decaydance Records head honcho Pete Wentz. Twice during the interview, he called over to Boys Like Girls, prompting lead singer Martin Johnson to join in our conversation for a second and drummer John Keefe to claim he was too busy with his own interview (truth be told, no one was interviewing him, but a BLG camera crew caught it all on tape). Never did Gabe look or sound tired… despite stepping off the hot, muggy stage of the Crocodile Rock Café in Allentown just prior to sitting down with The Ralphie Radio Show.
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Part 1:

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“Backstage shenanigans, non –stop bro,” proclaimed Saporta, before mockingly stating, “If Ralphie would hang out, but he’s gotta be (back home), his mom’s making lasagna.”

Actually, I had a club appearance. I might have taken a rain check on the lasagna (no offense, Ma) to hang out with these guys. It seems the party-vibe exhibited in Cobra’s latest LP isn’t a far stretch from the musicians themselves. Saporta told me that the band holed up for a few weeks in, of all places, The Poconos, to record the album. While “Hot Mess” has a negative connotation in our society, the lead singer feels that Cobra Starship is shifting the definition with the new LP and title track.
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Part 2:

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“For me, (hot mess) is awesome,” said Saporta. “Kate Moss, that girl’s a hot mess! She’s bangin’, but like, you’ll find YouTube videos of her doing drugs. And she loses her endorsements because she’s a hot mess. That’s rock ‘n roll.”

It seems for now though that the LP will be defined by “Good Girls Go Bad” which features Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester. The record gained more traction on-air and in the club when a remix hit the Internets with a new verse from rapper Flo-Rida.

“I’ll tell ya where it came from, outta nowhere,” admitted Saporta. “Mike Caren, he’s a top dude at Atlantic (Records), really sweet dude. He discovered Flo-Rida. He’s like, ‘Yo man, I can get Flo to do a rhyme on one of your songs. You just gotta promise to do a trade later on.’”
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Part 3:

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Caren explained to Gabe that a trade meant in exchange for Flo-Rida rapping on “Good Girls Go Bad” – Saporta would have to hop on one of the rapper’s tracks.

“I’m like, ‘Lemme think about that? DUH!’” exclaimed Saporta. “Whenever he wants some cool punk rock singing on one of his songs, I’m in there like swimwear.”

The track also yielded the latest in the ongoing ribbing between Gabe and Wentz. Saporta set the record straight on The RRS, stating that the official bet was if “Good Girls Go Bad” went number one on the iTunes chart, the Fall Out Boy bassist would let Saporta pick his next tattoo.

Although for only 30 seconds, the song hit the top of the chart, confirmed by numerous screen captures. Saporta picked his third grade class photo as the tattoo for Wentz.

“Even though Pete Wentz is my friend, he’s also the boss man. And sometimes the record guys… they stop returning your calls if your record doesn’t do well,” explained Saporta. “So I’m thinking, ‘Yo, if I got Pete’s tattoo of my face on his leg man, he’s always gonna have to return my calls.”

Sure he’s never one to look back, but given his present, you have to at least give Saporta props for his foresight – even though it doesn’t look as if Cobra Starship will have a hard time snagging Wentz’s attention in the immediate future.

RALPHIE REPORT: Speidi v. Ralphie, Round 1.

Love or loathe him, Spencer Pratt is a marketing genius. The villain of MTV’s “The Hills” created a marketing scheme for pure celebrity that rakes in the cash without having to release a sex tape.

Of course, that isn’t to say that Spencer – along with girlfriend Heidi Montag, doesn’t make the rounds… the media rounds, that is.

Enter The Ralphie Radio Show. Last week, capitalizing off of the premiere of “The Hills” fifth season and the release of two new Heidi singles on iTunes, the couple affectionately known as “Speidi” kicked off a three hour radio tour with 97 BHT’s Kidd Kraddick In The Morning. Towards the end of the phoner-fest, Spencer and Heidi called up The RRS. The possibly-engaged duo wanted to talk about Montag’s music and their supremacy on “The Hills”. Of course, there were a few other topics I wanted to touch on – namely the type of money we’re talkin’ here with these “reality” shows and staged photo-ops.

“Ralphie, to be honest, with this recession we’re so broke and we need money,” Spencer spewed before I cut him off by citing a leaked report to In Touch Weekly last August that the couple made $65,000 – each – per episode.

“…Yeah… and I heard Santa Claus was real,” retorted Pratt, clearly annoyed that I wasn’t offering up your typical softball questions. Game on.

Not letting up, I attempted to reference that same article, which stated that according to Lauren Conrad’s contract, no one on the show could make more money than her. Pratt then tried to spin that statement – claiming L.C. would be foolish to give up such money. Finally, I cut to the chase: doesn’t the couple stand to make a considerable amount of money directly by Conrad exiting the show (L.C. insists that this is her last season)?

“(2 seconds of silence) If you’re our agent, I’d think you were right,” Pratt finally admitted.

While we were discussing money, I decided to bring up the couple’s relationship with blogger Perez Hilton. The self-proclaimed “Queen of All Media” holds nothing back when it comes to “The Hills” – stories of staged events, criticism of the cast’s side projects, and rumored revelations of behind-the-scene deals. Yet despite this, Spencer and Heidi tweet back and forth with Perez, and attend his parties. In one recent post, Hilton wrote that “Speidi” stood to make $200,000 with an undisclosed tabloid for the exclusive rights to report on a staged breakup/reunion of the couple.

“Like I said, where is this money?” asked Spencer. “I wanna see it. Because if it was true, I’d be taking you out to dinner right now Ralphie in Pennsylvania.”

Pratt stumbled over words and changed the subject when I brought up the fact that everyone else sees this money on “The Hills” during shots of Spencer driving his BMW.

“Perez is very honest,” chimed in Montag.

That was all I needed to hear. Montag used the term “honest” to describe the man who falsely accused rapper Flo-Rida of killing a rabbit and claimed Cuba Dictator Fidel Castro was dead, without citing a source.

Whether it’s the TV show, Heidi’s body, or Spencer’s paparazzi deals – there’s something fake about The Hills, and it doesn’t get much more honest than that.
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Listen to Ralphie Aversa weekdays from 5-10p on 97 BHT.

DAILY DOWNLOAD: Flo-Rida f. Ne-Yo - Be On You

03.24.09 : Flo-Rida f. Ne-Yo - Be On You

DAILY DOWNLOAD: Flo-Rida - Sugar

03.09.09 : Flo-Rida - Sugar

DAILY DOWNLOAD: Flo Rida, Star Six Nine...

12.17.08 : Flo Rida - Touch Me
Hot track...
12.16.08 : Star Six Nine - I Like You
Also dope... he's opening for T.I./Young Jeezy...

tonight on the ralphie radio show...

huge show tonight, first at 7:30...

one of the last pairs of tickets for this show on sunday... it's gonna be nuts! then after the gallery of sound top 8 at 8...

speaking of crazy shows, another pair of win 'em before you can buy 'em for crue fest! next up, 9:30...

tmz's michael hundgen with the latest on britney's new workout regimen... and at 10:30...

is akon the konvict he says? proof that he might be a little cleaner than we are led to believe. plus i'll play that hot colby o'donis track he's on.

plus we got your back for the club x guest list tonight inside the woodlands!

the ralphie radio show - 7p-12a est - online at 97bht.com.

travis barker gets low!

the man is sick - the video is golden...