While Little Brother was busy blowing up all over the country, making their faces well known through out the hip hop community, Nicolay was sitting in his studio, in The Netherlands, composing what will soon be known as one of the most notable sounds to Underground Hip Hop/R&B, ever. It wasn’t till about 2003, a few months after Little Brother released their first album, The Listening, that Phonte and Nicolay found themselves over the OkayPlayer message boards, which is a community founded by Questlove back in 1987. Nicolay sent Phonte beats over the internet and Phonte would send them back with lyrics attached, hence The Foreign Exchange.

The duo focuses, mainly, on R&B and Soul. Phonte, while in the Little Brother team, would turn around and spill his guts out on that mic. The first album, titled “Connected”, came out mid 2004 and had a few heavy hitting artist’s featured. Joe Scudda, Kenn Starr, Oddisee, Sean Boog, Median, Darien Brockington and even Big Pooh. But the song that took over everyone’s attention, was the single, “Sincere”, featuring Yahzarah. This chick, new to the game, made every artist break their neck and bust a 180. Beautiful voice, incredible soul and a very sexy looking woman. Another one of the singles, was “Be Alright”. This was the track featuring Median. For those of you who know me, you’ll remember how much love I have for that artist. This is one TRUE MC which, apart from his flow and delivery, his lyrics are ON POINT. This song talks about how everything might be falling apart, but at the end, it will all Be Alright. “People ask how I’m doing, I just tell’em ‘I’m straight’. My girl was throwing up this morning. I’m praying it was something she ate”.

The sophomore album “Leave it All Behind” came out late 2008. The name came about when Nicolay decided to leave The Netherlands and move to NY to pursue The Foreign Exchange. It was a bit different as it focused A LOT more in the Soul category. Phonte lived out his dream with this album. He always wanted to actually SING on an album, and he definitely showed the world he could. This album also showed the likes of Darien Brockington and Yahzarah. This time around they added a few new acts to the show. Zo! and Carlitta Durand, which later were added on to The Foreign Exchange.
They’ve made a pretty big name for themselves in such short time. The Napster Blog states- “Do not pass up the opportunity to catch Foreign Exchange live when they come to your town. I repeat, do not sleep. Bite the bullet. Wait in line. I’m glad I did.” They now tour all over the country (except stupid Miami which has a retarded Hip Hop culture), with an amazing act, which you can YouTube and see. They made headlines later, after the Kanye album “808s & Heartbreak”, dropped. I’m sure you all remember the crazy reviews that (piece of shit) album got, when Kanye had that “great idea”, and used autotune over all his songs. I’ll leave you with the headlines and a few more videos you should definitely check out.

hiphopdx.com~ Recently, Phonte of Little Brother spoke his mind on Kanye West’s latest album, 808s and Heartbreak on the Conspiracy Worldwide Radio podcast.

When the topic of Kanye was brought up, Phonte made no secret of how he felt about Ye’s latest project. “I heard pretty much most of the Kanye album,” he said. “I didn’t like it. I was just like ‘get the fuck out of here.’

“I honestly thought it was an act of cowardice,” continued Phonte. “I think if you’re gonna make the creative leap to sing, then really sing. Let your voice come out, and let people hear all the eccentricities and all the little idiosyncrasies in your voice. That’s what makes you uniquely you…Imagine if Aretha Franklin used Auto-Tune on ‘Respect.’”

Phonte added that he thought Kanye was “biting T-Pain,” and concluded by saying that 808s and Heartbreak was a “case of the reach extending the grasp.”