Grammy-winning rapper/songwriter Pardison Fontaine, best known for working with hip-hop hitmakers Cardi B and Kanye West, has dropped his widely-anticipated debut mixtape. UNDER8ED, and it’s now streaming on all major services.
UNDER8ED includes “Take It Down (Feat. Offset),” along with bangers like “Shea Butter,” “Rodman,” “Peach (Feat. City Girls),” and the platinum-certified “Backin’ It Up” (Feat. Cardi B).“Take It Down” was met with acclaim upon its release earlier this month, with Hypebeast gushing, “the track appropriately paints the artist as an underrated figure in hip hop, although he possesses the prowess to be one of the genre’s greats.”
![Pardison Fontaine - Take It Down (feat. Offset) [Official Audio]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uHpb4WACAiI/hqdefault.jpg)
Fontaine first garnered attention with 2013’s underground hit single, “Oyyy,” and its 2015 follow-up mixtape, Not Supposed To Be Here, earning him acclaim from hip-hop media outlets like Revolt, Mass Appeal, XXL, and HotNewHipHop. “Oyyy” in particular proved to be a strip club sensation, cementing the Newburgh, New York-based rapper as someone who can serve up club hits and keep the party going all night long.
Early on, Fontaine befriended a then-budding talent named Cardi B, who championed his music and enlisted him as co-writer and collaborator on her chart-topping 2018 debut album, Invasion of Privacy, including the smash global hit “Bodak Yellow.”
That game-changing collab propelled Fontaine to the forefront of contemporary hip-hop, prompting a songwriting partnership with Kanye West on 2018’s Ye. Last year, Pardi dropped “Backin’ It Up (Feat. Cardi B),” followed by a show-stealing performance alongside Cardi at the 2018 BET Hip Hop Awards, earning raves from Rolling Stone, The FADER, and more.
The track quickly proved to be a blockbuster, topping urban radio outlets nationwide after becoming a Top 40 favorite on Billboard’s Hot 100. The “Backin’ It Up (Feat. Cardi B)“ video has now drawn over 133 million views via YouTube. Named by Billboard as one of “11 Hip-Hop & R&B Artists to Watch in 2019,” Fontaine celebrates his new mixtape at “Section 8 Soup Kitchen,” a concert at New York City’s SOB’s nightclub on Tuesday, November 19th.
“When people hear me, I want them to be like, ‘I’m the not the only one,’” says Fontaine. “I’m a real person, and I’ll show you the good and the bad. You get every side of me in my words.”
Fans who aren’t in the NYC area can catch Fontaine making his late night TV debut with a performance of “Take It Down” on CBS’ The Late Late Show with James Corden, set for Monday, November 25th. Check out more songs from Fontaine’s Atlantic Records debut UNDER8ED here.