Welcome To Strangeland is set to kick off the new era in Strange Music and define the spread of Tech N9ne’s music to the world. With the entire Strange Music roster slated to appear on the album, fans have been speculating as to who would make the final tracklist and what the general sound of the album will be.

Strange Music’s own ¡MAYDAY! has been busy in the studio recording their new album and their contributions for Welcome To Strangeland. While taking a moment away from the booth, we recently caught up with ¡MAYDAY!’s Wrekonize to discuss his work on Welcome To Strangeland. Speaking the process, Wrekonize revealed new information regarding the album and the role that ¡MAYDAY! played in the production of the new Collabos entry. As Wrek would tell us, Tech N9ne may just be on a new level with Welcome To Strangeland.

It seems like you’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio. What exactly have you been working on?

At the same time as recording for the album, we did the Strangeland records. Bernz and I are on three of them, and Plex produced two of them. The third one is produced by Seven, I think it features a few other people, I know it features Jay Rock and I didn’t get the full feature list on it yet, but that one is going to be super dope. Plex produced two tracks and then me and Bernz are featured on two vocally. The two that we produced, one is called “The Noose” and the other one I believe is called “Retrogression”, but I’m not 100% sure if that’s the final title that Tech chose. I believe for now the working title was “Retrogression”.

What kind of experience have you had working on Welcome To Strangeland?

It’s been dope, it’s been super dope. We really didn’t know what to expect. Tech chose the beats while we were on the tour. We were on the bus and we were playing him a bunch stuff and he chose those two joints. We were like alright, and he was like ,”I’m going to work on them and I’ll send you what I got, and I’ll get verses from you guys.” One of the tracks was just a beat that was clean, it didn’t have anything on it. The other track, I had a verse on it and I had a hook on it already. He just built up off of that. It’s been dope, just sending the files back and forth, collaborating from Miami to KC, it’s been dope. I’m super happy, I’m really looking forward to how those songs play out amongst the whole album.

You mentioned working with a Seven production. How was that in comparison to working over your own production?

It’s dope. The track is super fresh. He showed it to us on the road while he was working on it. When he played it, he was like, “I really want ya’ll to get on this.” Then, we didn’t hear anything about it for a while, the whole time I’m like, “Damn, that Seven beat he showed us was super fresh.” I was hoping that he still wanted us to get on it. I liked the vibe of it a lot. It wasn’t really too different, it was definitely something that was up our alley. It wasn’t too much of a stretch, style wise, for us to get on that. In the end, the record ended up being dedicated to EMJ. A song, for EMJ, which made it even better.

Have you heard any part of the album?

The only track that I’ve heard is the one they released, the one with Kaliko, “Beautiful Music”. That’s the only one I’ve heard.

How do you think Welcome To Strangeland will differ from past Collabos albums?

I think he’s hit such a stride as of recently, with All 6’s And 7’s. Also because it’s all internal and it’s all artists that are under his imprint, I think he has more control over the general sound of it than maybe Collabo albums in the past. I feel like he had a real specific focus and a vibe that came off of All 6’s And 7’s and then working with everyone who’s already on the label as well, I feel like it kind of made it more internal which I think in the end the music is going to shine just that extra bit brighter. I don’t know, I feel like the vibe from hearing him talking about it, he’s super focused on this one. I think the overall result will be real good.

Fans can hear more from Wrekonize and ¡MAYDAY! on Tech N9ne Collabos Welcome To Strangeland. Be sure to follow Wrekonize on his official Twitter: @Wrekonize

Click here to pre-order Welcome To Strangeland.

-Victor Sandoval, Assistant Editor Strange Music

Follow Victor on Twitter: @VicMSandoval