[Interview] Nicolay talks “Love in Flying Colors,” going the independent route, and early hip-hop influences
Photo credit: Chris Charles
Interview by: Martin Bauman From the beginning, hip-hop has always had its dynamic producer/emcee duos, artists whose names have become inseparable over the years. Pete Rock and CL Smooth. Eric B. and Rakim. Kweli and Hi-Tek. Perhaps one of the most interesting - and unlikely - pairings of the past decade has been that of Nicolay and Phonte as The Foreign Exchange. Born Matthijs Rook, Nicolay grew up playing in bands in the Netherlands and wasn't introduced to hip-hop until later in his life. Phonte, meanwhile, grew up in North Carolina and went on to found one of the most beloved hip-hop groups of the early 2000s, Little Brother. Through sheer fate, the two connected on the Okayplayer message boards and began collaborating on what was initially no more than a side project, 2004's Connected. Then, something amazing happened. The album found a following, enough for Nicolay to take a leap of faith and move from the Netherlands to Wilmington, North Carolina to pursue music full time. Now, nearly ten years, four albums, and a Grammy nomination deep, it's clear Nicolay's leap of faith paid off. Through constantly changing their sound and releasing their music independently, The Foreign Exchange have managed to build an impressive fan base and critical success. Their latest work, the funk and soul-infused Love in Flying Colors, has continued in that vein, and is garnering some great reviews. We caught up with Nicolay to talk about his latest album, going the independent route, his early hip-hop influences, and much more. Read the full interview after the jump.
Before there was Drake switching between rapping and singing, there was 
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."