It was likely at some point while working on their first album
Connected (2004), that Phonte of Little Brother and Netherlands producer Nicolay realized they were far too compatible to keep their creative partnership long distance. What became instantly lauded as the distinctive sound of Foreign Exchange was actually conceived and chiseled online, where the two hooked up and started making music via file-exchange over the chatboards at Okayplayer.com.
The idea that collaborative music making and recording didn't actually require involved parties to ever meet, at least not in the physical, was clearly still a novel concept in 2004 ("Foreign Exchange" is to hip-hop as "Postal Service" is to indie electro-pop). But this mode of working has actually become the norm for musicians of all stripes, the Fly Lo and Thom Yorke collaboration on
Cosmogamma for instance, as we progress deeper into the digital epoch. As Nicolay said in a 2007 interview, "this is how people in the underground work, even domestically."
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