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who produced a fair chunk of your album too. Was it important for you to have a gospel element within 'Part III'?
Q: "We have to because that is our foundation. Without the church there'd be no 112, and we know without that foundation this industry will have you crazy!"
Did you have a big say in who got to work on the album? How instrumental were you in getting the likes of Tim & Bob and R Kelly also involved with the project?
Mike:" We were very instrumental. On the whole, we had an executive standpoint on 'Part III'. We are all associate producers, which allowed us to have a hand in saying who we wanted to work with."
Slim: "Yeah, which means we can't put the blame on anyone else now (laughs)".
Mike: "It was important that we got R Kelly involved, who we respect, and Tim & Bob, who we have a long personal relationship with. They really helped 112 from day one as far as songwriting and harmony patterns was concerned. They've always been hot. It just made sense to have songs from them for this album; they've become popular recently, but as far as we are concerned they have always been on it."
Q: "It's cool because we've seen each other's careers develop over time and we are still working together."
Lots of people have heard of you in this country, probably without realising it, because of course you have featured on a Number One pop record with Puffy's 'I'll Be Missing You', which was the biggest-selling record in 1997.
Daron: "That was quite a while ago now, and we're really just concentrating on having a fresh start in the UK with the new album and the single 'It's Over Now'."
What do you know about the music scene here in the UK?
Slim: "You guys have jungle I like, and also garage music, which I'm definitely feeling."
Q: "We like Craig David too, he's cool."
Slim: "Definitely. He's just released 'Fill Me In' over in the US and it's blowing up."
Mike: "Man, we love that track, and we actually heard it over here about a year ago."
For a while back there, Bad Boy Records became more about just the records. I guess it's been a bit hectic?
Q: "One thing we are proud to say is that we are pretty much a self-contained unit these days, we're not solely dependent on the label, especially in terms of the creative process. We write our own music and we style ourselves. So when the whole trial was going on it didn't really hinder us. However our prayers are with Puff everyday, and if we could have been in the courtroom we would have, but at that moment in time we were in the middle of the creating this record."
Mike: "It's real important that we stick together."
Daron: "Especially as we have been at the label since the beginning, and seen artists come in, grow and develop..."
Slim: "It's still a family kind of atmosphere even though we don't have as much to [next page]