Platinum and GRAMMY-award winning songwriter/artist Pardison Fontaine enters a new era with unstoppable force, releasing high energy single "Hoop Earrings" with an accompanying music video. The record is two minutes and twenty-four seconds of pure hooks and ear candy; an unsurprising but powerful pen game from the artist/writer coming off of his last 2x platinum single "Backin it up" feat Cardi B, also brought us Cardi B’s "Bodak Yellow" and "WAP", amongst countless other hits collaborating with artists like Beyonce, Megan Thee Stallion, Kanye West, and more. and more. The fun visual is a full-on beauty shop party and an empowering ode to black girls everywhere.
"I was going through my hard drive of records and when I played this, my team was like "Wait - what was that"?! This was a 3-4 year old record that had the hook and it sounded like old me. I used to yell on my records and would yell because I'm from Newburgh, NY and everything's far and I needed to yell for you to hear me. We also shot the video in Newburgh with one of my old friends, coming full circle." - Pardison Fontaine
Wordsmiths always win. Rappers with the gift of gab invariably propel the genre and the culture forward and they’ll continue to do so. Newburgh, NY rapper Pardison Fontaine carries on that tradition with inventive and ironclad flows, bulletproof bars, and hard-hitting hooks powered by stunning and striking street eloquence.
Leveraging language, he shares a story that hip-hop hasn’t been exposed to just yet. “The best jokes are because of wordplay and delivery, and it’s the same thing with rap,” he says. "You can come up with clever ways of twisting words. It’s a whole different artform that people don’t tap into enough these days... I’m also from a small area no one knows about. It’s an untapped demographic. Over and over again, we’ve heard stories from people in Atlanta and Brooklyn. Nobody has heard Newburgh’s".
Growing up in a musical family, Pardi began singing in church choir alongside his brother. At 12-years-old, he got a tape of DMX’s Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood and transformed into an ardent student of the game. Inspired by Kanye West, he first uploaded his music to MySpace in high school and generated local buzz. After attending Sullivan Community College, he received a full scholarship to play basketball for Goldey-Beacom in Delaware. As he further developed a personal style in a makeshift dorm room studio, he quit school to do music full-time (on a game day) in 2012, because “If I didn’t find out what I could do with music, I’d never be satisfied".
Returning home, he declined a warehouse job to focus on penning rhymes. His first single "Oyyy" turned into a strip club sensation throughout NY and paved the way for 2015 debut mixtape, Not Supposed to Be Here. Along the way, he garnered early acclaim from top press outlets. Entrenched in the Big Apple club circuit, he befriended a budding talent named Cardi B who often championed his music on Instagram. At that point, he took a detour into co-writing. Cardi was his friend from those strip club runs and when she wanted to become a rapper, it was natural that she reached out.
As a byproduct of that friendship, Pardi was a co-writer and collaborator on Cardi’s platinum-certified #1 debut, Invasion of Privacy, including the GRAMMY® Award-nominated, six-times platinum “Bodak Yellow.” In the aftermath, Kanye West sought him out as a key collaborator on the gold-certified #1 Ye. However, he continued feverishly writing and recording solo material without pause.
In 2018, Pardi released his debut single for Atlantic Records, "Backin’ It Up" featuring Cardi B which paved the way for his first 2019 major label EP, UNDER8TED. He has since gone independent to maintain ownership of his music and ultimate creative control.
Stay Connected with Pardison Fontaine:
Instagram | YouTube | Spotify | SoundCloud | Twitter