OurStage

OurStage.com, Radio One and Grammy Award-Winning Artist T–Pain Announce Contest Winner and Release Winning Single Winner Twank Star Receives Production Deal with Nappy Boy Digital Boston, MA – December 18, 2008 – OurStage (www.OurStage.com), a music discovery destination providing professional opportunities for up-and-coming talent, Radio One, Inc. (www.radio-one.com), the urban media specialist, and Grammy Award-winning artist T-Pain have announced Twank Star as the winner of the “Step in the Ring Challenge,” their joint effort to discover the next hip-hop or R&B star. On December 5th, 2008, Twank Star was contacted live on air by T-Pain on Radio One’s Russ Parr Morning Show where the announcement took place and Twank Star’s winning single featuring T-Pain was played. In addition to receiving promotional support for the winning song, Twank Star will also receive a one-track recording contract with Nappy Boy Digital, with the option to extend. The winning track is also available for download on iTunes and streaming on OurStage.com. To enter, artists downloaded T-Pain’s “Everybody Else” from OurStage.com and completed the song with their own lyrics. After collecting 1,000 submissions in less than 2 weeks, T-Pain let the OurStage community judge the songs to find the top 10 favorites. To rank all of the songs, OurStage fans judged 700,000 head-to-head battles. The contest was promoted on-air and on-line via Radio One mainstream urban stations and the nationally syndicated Russ Parr Morning Show. “While all of the top 10 songs were really impressive, Twank Star’s collabo was the clear winner in my eyes,” T-Pain said. “I designed my label, Nappy Boy Digital, to break down barriers and introduce new voices like Twank Star to the masses. I’m looking forward to taking him to the next level.” “T-Pain is one the hottest producers in the game right now,” said Jay Stevens, SVP Programming, Radio One. “This promotion was a creative way to promote his new CD as well as give our radio stations compelling, interactive content, so it is a win win for us. The promotion was a huge success and we appreciated our partnership with OurStage and look forward to future opportunities.” “The partnership with T-Pain, his team, and Radio One has been a huge success for everyone involved,” said Ben Campbell, CEO, OurStage. “We are proud to collaborate with top-notch artists like T-Pain, partners with great national reach such as Radio One, and production companies, who offer unprecedented promotion and a career-launching pad to deserving OurStage artists like Twank Star. We look forward to a on-going collaboration with T-Pain and our partners to continue to help make a meaningful difference in the lives of deserving musicians..”

Twank Star Wins Nappy Boy Contract, Records Single With T-Pain Posted Dec 18th 2008 4:30PM by Tracey Ford Filed under: OurStage Proving that he's got what it takes to step into the studio with the big dogs, Texas-bred up-and-comer Twank Star beat more than a 1,000 artists and won a one-track recording contract with T-Pain's Nappy Boy Digital. The Grammy Award-winning singer/producer, who's championed the re-emergence of the vocoder, teamed with OurStage to find the next hip-hop/R&B star, and after 700,000 head-to-head battles, T-Pain crowned Twank Star as the winner. You can check out Twank's winning track, 'Everybody Else,' featuring Pain, on OurStage.com and iTunes.