Stomp The Yard Soundtrack

"Stepping," or "step-dancing," is a high-energy, wildly entertaining African-American dance style that's been blazing across traditionally black fraternities and sororities for decades. Stomp the Yard is a film featuring acclaimed singers Ne-Yo and Chris Brown that pivots on a national stepping competition. Rivalry and brotherhood drive the action, but music is what makes this story move.

That music is captured on Stomp the Yard: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, released January 9, 2007, on Artists' Addiction Records. The disc boasts music not only from Ne-Yo ("Sign Me Up") and Chris Brown ("Poppin'"), but also The Roots featuring Malik B. and Porn ("In the Music"); Ghostface Killah ("The Champ"); Robert Randolph and The Family Band ("Ain't Nothing Wrong With That"); E-40 featuring The Federation ("Go Hard or Go Home"); UNK ("Walk It Out"); Cut Chemist featuring Edan and Mr. Lif ("Storm"); and Public Enemy ("Supermixx's Black in the Building)."

Furthermore, Stomp the Yard is the first album to showcase "The Deepest Hood," from Al Kapone aka Kapeezy; "Pop, Lock and Drop It," by up-and-comer Huey; "Come On," courtesy of Bonecrusher featuring Onslaught; the rubber-burnin' track "Vans," from The Pack; and "Bounce Wit Me," by R.E.D. 44, who received more than 20,000 votes in a Sony Pictures/MySpace contest to win a berth on the soundtrack.

"We're really excited to be putting out this record," says Jonathan Scott Miller, principal of Artists' Addiction Records (Artists' Addiction-affiliated Social Capital Records released the soundtrack to the dance documentary Rize in 2005). "Of course we were thrilled to include Ne-Yo and Chris Brown, but we're also very happy to have promising artists like The Pack and Huey and UNK on the album, as well as E-40 featuring The Federation, who are giants in Oakland's hyphy dance scene, which is just now starting to gain a foothold outside the Bay Area."

More so than in most films, the plot and themes of Stomp the Yard are advanced by the movie's music. Pilar McCurry, Senior Vice President of Creative Music/Creative Affairs for Sony Pictures and soundtrack album producer on Stomp the Yard: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, also cites The Pack's song "Vans" as an important inclusion: "Stomp the Yard is about a kid from California who goes to Atlanta, which represents a huge transition in his life. ‘Vans' is a real West Coast-sounding track, so it speaks to where this character, DJ, is coming from."

"‘Walk It Out,' from UNK," McCurry elaborates, "has a very distinct southern two-step feel – it has that boom; when you hear that song, you know DJ is really in a different world. The Huey track 'Pop, Lock and Drop It' puts you in that southern place as well." Similarly, Public Enemy evokes the neighborhood milieu of a character from New York.

Like Miller, McCurry is pleased to help bring the influential hyphy movement into the mainstream by securing the appearance of E-40 featuring The Federation. She's also delighted to have scored music from Bonecrusher featuring Onslaught. "Onslaught is Bonecrusher's rock band," she explains. "It's so cool to see these hard-core hip-hop guys exploring the hard-rock arena. Ludacris and Nas and Li'l Jon have all gotten into it, so this track from Bonecrusher is very much of the moment. College students are sophisticated about music, and these are the kinds of things their ears are picking up on now."

Jonathan McHugh, executive soundtrack producer of Stomp the Yard: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, says he wanted to make sure all the music would be club-ready. Asking himself, "What music are these kids stepping to?" he immediately thought of "Poppin'," the underground cachet of UNK, the impeccably funky "Vans," and "Pop, Lock and Drop," by St. Louis-based Huey. He says of the latter, "That one even has its own dance."

It's hard to believe something that sounds so seamless represents a major exercise in diplomacy. "I think we dealt with 14 different labels to get these 14 tracks," McCurry reckons. "There were a lot of phone calls trying to get everybody to play nice. We have many people to thank." Notes McHugh: "Pilar is just one of those people who makes things happen."

For Artists' Addiction's Miller, it's not the how but the why that's important. "There is such great music in this movie, and the dancers' response to that music is so critical, that we didn't care what we had to do to make sure the soundtrack reflected that. All that matters now is that fans of this movie will have a way to vividly bring it into their lives after they leave the theater."