Hip-Hop Lives Here
Hip-Hop Lives Here
When the hip hop legend The Legendary Smooth B first heard “Superduper,” he was driving in New York. His business partner was playing the track in the car. The Legendary Smooth B was immediately drawn to the heavy bass beat combined with AL99’s clever lyrics.
Popped out feeling like a king
Married to the hunt I need a ring
If it’s up it’s up I let it sing
Put my heart and soul into the game
The Legendary Smooth B said, “Yo, play that again.”
As one half of the early ‘90s hip hop hit-making duo Nice & Smooth, The Legendary Smooth B knows a good track when he hears it. After listening a second time, he said to his business partner, King YaYa, “Yo, I’d jump on that track with him, man.”
As it turned out, King YaYa is also the business partner of AL99. Connections were made, a remix was recorded and mixed, and “SUPERDUPER - Remix” was dropped. It surpassed 20,000 streams on Spotify in its first week.
AL99 says the collaboration is both an honor and an opportunity to connect hip hop generations. He says, “I'm trying to bridge the gap between the old school and the new school. We're trying to show the new generation something, and show the older generation something, too.”
In addition to the track, AL99 and The Legendary Smooth B also met up in Brooklyn to film a new music video for “SUPERDUPER - Remix.” Produced by the team at IG Visualz, the artists perform the song side by side in a symbolic passing of the torch from one hip hop generation to the next, inspired by the album art which shows The Legendary Smooth B literally passing a golden crown to AL99. The video drops July 14, 2026.
The Legendary Smooth B has a four-decade history of successful collaborations, with artists like Gang Starr, New Kids on the Block, Slick Rick, Everlast, Bobby Brown, and more. The Legendary Smooth B will be featured in an upcoming documentary, and he continues recording new music. This keeps his lyrical skills sharp, evident on his lines in “SUPERDUPER - Remix”:
I’m superduper, this ain’t no blooper
When I was born, they call me a trooper
The way I ball you’d think I’m a hooper
Deaf, dumb, and blind and in a stupor
For AL99 and his label TPC Music Production, this new collaboration adds to a year of incredible momentum. He has seen his Spotify monthly listeners surpass 30,000, along with hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube and high-profile live appearances at east coast venues. He credits his success to consistency and hard work in a field crowded with talent.
He says, “There's a lot of dope, talented people out there. I'm not saying I'm the only one. But at the end of the day, it's the consistency and it's the patience and the dedication, man. That's what keeps it growing.”
Listen now to AL99’s “SUPERDUPER - Remix” featuring The Legendary Smooth B, out now with promotional support from Starlight PR. Listen everywhere you stream music.
Linktree | Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube | Instagram | TikTok | X | Facebook |Soundcloud | LinkedIn | Pinterest
Don’t miss it! Stream “SUPERDUPER - Remix” today!
Share
Advertisement
Would Johnny Marr place one of his solo songs ahead of favourites from The Smiths and Electronic? His choices are revealed in NME’s Blind Ranking video below.
Ahead of the release of ‘The Age Of Everything’, which arrived last Friday, October 2, NME sat down with the guitarist for a look back through his catalogue. Marr was challenged to place five songs in order of greatness, choosing a position for each without knowing which song would follow.
Electronic’s ‘Getting Away With It’ came first, with Marr saying it “goes down very very well, even if people are hearing it for the first time”. Next came ‘Spin’, taken from his latest solo album. Reflecting on the newer song, he admitted that “not everybody knows it, but it makes an impression”.
When ‘This Charming Man’ by The Smiths came up, Marr observed: “Obviously it’s very well known, but it goes by so quick.” The track remains a “connection” to his younger self, he explained: “I can hear the young man who wrote those guitar parts”. He described his 2014 solo release ‘Easy Money’ as “pretty catchy”, adding that it “goes off bigger than any other at any gig”. He then considered another much loved Smiths song, ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’.
“Beautiful song to play. Very proud of it still,” Marr reflected. Recalling a recent performance in Liverpool, he added that “it occurred to me that it’s the ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ of my generation.”
See where each song landed in Marr’s ranking by watching the video below, then share your own order in the Instagram comments.
The wider conversation with NME covered his “emphatic” album ‘The Age Of Everything’, his admiration for The Cure and Fontaines D.C., and his thoughts on why Andy Burnham should be able to listen to The Smiths. Read the complete interview with Marr here.
A Liverpool concert on November 14 is next on Marr’s schedule, followed by a brief run of dates with stops in Mexico, São Paulo and Chile. His largest solo headline performance to date at OVO Arena Wembley had been planned for later this month, but has been postponed, with a replacement date yet to be announced.
Share
Advertisement
