‘Fast Life,’ Travis Barker Help Paul Wall ‘Fall in Love Again’

For Texas rapper Paul Wall, the third time was a charm for his forthcoming album "Fast Life." "We actually redid the entire album, like, twice," said Wall during an interview with the BoomBox. "We had planned on putting it out last July. But we couldn't get our singles up and running in time and we were renegotiating our contract with our record label.

"That kind of put everything on hold so we went back to the drawing board and came up with a new album. We planned on September, but we felt like we could do better. So we just went back to the drawing board one more time and came up with something nice. We've got some heat on this one."

Fueling the fire on 'Fast Life,' tentatively due out in March, is a virtual who's who of producers/artists ranging from Beanz N Kornbread to Akon to onetime Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. A former reality show star and recent plane crash survivor, Barker is partially responsible for Wall falling in love again with music, the rapper said.

"That's my boy there," he said about Barker, who produced 'I Need Mo,' featuring Colby O'Donis and 'Pop One of These,' featuring Too Short, Skinhead Rob and The Federation.

"He's a phenomenal artist. Most people just know him from having his TV show and being the drummer in Blink-182 but he's an incredible musician. He makes some real dope hip-hop tracks. His hip-hop production is off the (hook). He's just incredible. It's just a lot of fun to work with him. That's another thing that made me fall in love again--going out and working with him and Skinhead Rob was just a lot of fun. We'd be in the studio day in and day out. We'd do three to four songs in a day just us over there brainstorming and having fun."

Reconnecting with the music was key to the success of producing 'Fast Life,' which features the first single 'Bizzy Body,' with Webbie and Mouse.

"We've done it for so long sometimes we have to fall in love again," Wall said. "(If) you go through a rocky relationship with somebody you might want to take them back to where you first met, go back to the courtship period where you date them all over again, fall in love again. That's just what you have to do with your job, too; music being my job. That's what I love to do. Sometimes you just have to go back to the drawing board and fall in love again."