Exclusive: Diggy Breaks Down His Debut Album, Unexpected Arrival

Daniel “Diggy” Simmons is the latest of a lengthy list of child stars who have grown up in the public eye. Ever since he was the brace faced kid on Run’s House, he matured in front of the entire world as we watched his steps. A few short years later, Diggy is a 16-year-old teenage sensation who holds his age bracket in the palm of his hands with his legion of Jetsetters following his every move. Six years later, Rev Run’s fourth child is getting ready to drop his debut album, Unexpected Arrival, on Atlantic Records and he sat down with Hip Hop Wired to break down the essential tracks of his album. Hit the jump to begin the story.

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Photos: Diggysworld.com/Kellyann Petry

“Hello World”

–          “Hello World” is really my arrival song. You get “The Arrival” which is the intro, and even though you know I’m just talking about “I’m the man of the century, the man of the hour, I’m usually late on my entry,” it’s just that triumphant feeling that I’m finally here. Despite anything that anybody can say, I’m here, I’m coming in and I’m doing my thing.

“88” ft. Jadakiss

–          “I was just thinking of different things, and I definitely wanted it to be someone for New York and I just knew that Jada was going to give it that real New York, hard vibe that needed to be there and somebody there to reflect on ’88 and what that was about. Because me and my verses, I’m just really relating ’88 then to what I’m doing, you know? I’m just living life. Just doing me, getting fly. All of that. So it’s really just a feel good song that you can just bump to and just feel good about yourself.

“Two Up”

–          “This one is produced by D. Mile. He did the majority of the album and he definitely made it sound cohesive. That was one of the first tracks I did when I first started making this album back in January of 2011. That song right there just made me feel like the album was going to be incredible. So that is hands down one of my favorites. I’m just happy that I can listen to this song an entire year later and still love it the same way.”

“Unforgiveable Blackness”

–          “This song is just about black people, and black culture and the way we act and us coming together. I make references to back in the day from Martin Luther King to Malcolm X, and what they went through for us to get to this point. Then I talk about how we act today. We should act more civil. We went from singing freedom songs to now having freedom so I feel as though we shouldn’t bash each other. We should lift each other up as opposed to bringing each other down.

“Special Occasion” ft. Tank

–          That’s another one of my favorites on the album, produced by D. Mile. That was another one of the first songs done in the beginning of the process. I wrote all the verses including the hook. So when we had the hook, we didn’t really know who to put on it because I had wrote it already. So once the hook was written, it was just a voice and I wanted somebody soulful and great. So Tank was in the Atlantic (Records) building that day, and Perry was like “Yo, we should put Tank on this.” So Tank laced it crazy, and that is why he’s on the record.

Diggy Explains Relationship With D’ Mile And Having Him Produce Most Of The Album

“D. Mile man, he took everything I wanted to do to the next level. He brought it into the album. His sound that he already has and it [went] with where I’ve wanted to go since my first mixtape, First Flight. I’ve got a little better at it on AirBorne, but this is it. It’s there now. Lyrically with me and just getting better at delivery and wordplay and all that came from me finding my niche and getting better throughout that mix tape process. So once I got to L.A., and the first track we did together, “Two Up,” I felt like, “Wow, this dude has melodies in his music that I feel like I’ve heard before. That’s how incredible and just how much of a bond we have, musically. So we are going to be doing music together until the end of time, God willing.”