About to Pop: Madcon

Who: Madcon
Album: 'Conquest' EP
Video: 'Beggin''
Hails From: Norway
For Fans Of: OutKast and the Roots

Why They're About to Pop: Madcon are a Norwegian urban duo comprised of Tshawe Baqwa and Yosef Wolde-Mariam. Formed in 1992, the charismatic rappers created a name for themselves supporting the likes of Destiny's Child, 50 Cent, Alicia Keys and many others. In 2000, Madcon released their first single, 'God Forgive Me,' but it wasn't until the release of 'Barcelona,' their hit single with Paperboys, that they truly broke new ground in their career. Their debut album, 'It's All a Madcon,' was released in 2004 and was awarded a Norwegian Grammy. A year later, the duo erupted on the TV scene as the hosts of the show 'The Voice of Madcon' while Baqwa also competed on, and won, 'Dancing With the Stars.' Madcon's sophomore album, 'So Dark the Con of Man,' was released in Norway in 2007 and earned platinum status in just three days. Dubbed "the biggest hip-hop act in Europe," Madcon are now ready to take on the States with their funk/soul/hip-hop stylings on their third album, 'InCONvenient Truth,' which is due out later this year. Until then, Madcon have released a digital EP called 'Conquest' as a taste of what's to come. Stay tuned, America.

Coming from that little pimple on the face of the earth called Norway to the mecca of music (that being America, of course), and being so well-recieved and acknowledged is such a blessing! We've been in this game for almost two decades and achieved success in basically all of Europe, but like we all know, there's nothing like being in America.

I think we already did with what we came [out] with, but the hip-hop culture is rather new to Norway and Norway in itself is a very small country, so the hip-hop scene is, as you can imagine, not that big yet. But it's steadily growing, and with that growth we find a lot of talents.

Not really any advice, but I remember Guru and DJ Premier sat in our tour bus one day on a European tour that we did with Gang Starr -- this was even before our debut album, so all we had was demos. So while listening to [our] songs, they started rewinding some of the verses and said, "Damn, I knew you were good, but not this good," and I remember that being an affirmation to get that type of feedback from someone we considered [to be a] legend. It gave a whole new level of drive

I think our music has a positive and energetic vibe to it. Even though a lot of the topics that we touch in our songs are serious and sad, it still has a certain playfulness to it that makes people wanna dance. I guess it comes from our African blood, and no matter where you go in this world, people are people. So from our families in Africa dancing to it, to conquering Europe and topping the charts, to getting this much love in the world's biggest music industry, one might start to think that we actually make good music.

There aren't enough pages to mention all of the people that we admire and would love to work with, but just to mention a few: Stevie Wonder -- that would also make our mothers so proud. Lenny Kravitz -- beyond legendary. ?uestlove -- I just love his vibe. Q-Tip, Raphael Saadiq -- one of the best yet -- [and] will.i.am.