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After spending the past year releasing a series of singles, Afrojack will release his debut album, Forget the World, on May 19. The Dutch producer’s first LP will feature collaborations with Wiz Khalifa and Sting, among others.
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In March 2013, Afrojack signed a worldwide deal with Island Records and Universal Music Group, and released the single “As Your Friend,” featuring Chris Brown, on his own Wall Recordings and Island Records. Since then, the 26-year-old DJ released singles “The Spark,” featuring Spree Wilson, and “Ten Feet Tall,” featuring Wrabel.
“With this album, I wanted it to be real and completely honest and musical,” Afrojack tells Rolling Stone, which revealed the album title and release date. “I didn’t want to make it a festival banger. I made club tracks, dance hits, and dance floor smashers and stuff like that — it’s like doing the same tricks a couple of times over again, in different ways, but it’s still always a dance floor trick. Basically on this album, I wanted to do me. ‘Where’s the big build up?’ and yada yada — of course I’m going to remix it and perform at festivals, and I’m also a party guy so you have some party tracks here and there. But the basic essence of this album is showing the musical side of me. It’s music in its more honest form — no tricks, just lay the songs out there.”
Khalifa appears on the song “Too Wild,” a track that Afrojack describes as “really special, completely different than anything that’s in the market right now.” Sting, meanwhile, guests on a track titled “Catch Tomorrow.”
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Rolling Stone also notes that Afrojack will reveal the album’s artwork to his Snapchat account’s followers on March 14. The Snapchat followers will also receive 10-second music clips from the new album every day, leading up to Afrojack’s performance at Ultra Music Festival later this month.
Afrojack’s breakout moment came in 2011, when he was featured on the Pitbull smash “Give Me Everything” alongside Ne-Yo and Nayer; the single hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart and has sold 4.8 million downloads to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The producer released latest EP It’s a Matter Of … last June.
This article first appeared on Billboard.com.
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