-Most students use their residence hall rooms to sleep.

Two NIU students use theirs as a recording studio.

NIU duo Sam-I-Am and MPLI will release their new rap and hip-hop CD on March 28.

Unlike most new CDs coming out, this one was recorded and produced at Douglas Hall.

“Yeah, sometimes we get in trouble because of the noise,” laughed Dennis Thompson, also known as MPLI.

This CD was made to represent NIU’s hip-hop and R&B talent, he said.

The first CD they did last semester, “NIU Compilation Mix Tape, Volume 1,” was done in one week, the duo said.

Sam Simmons, also known as Sam-I-Am, said he met Thompson last semester.

“I had a lot of the equipment needed to make the CD,” Thompson said.

The two quickly became acquainted and put out the first 16-song CD together.

This time, Thompson said, the new CD will be more focused, and more time will be spent on it.

The new album, “Volume 2,” is expected to have about the same number of songs with contributions from other NIU artists.

-Simmons said after people heard about the first CD, a lot of them came up to the duo and were interested in being in the second one.

“There was a buzz about it for a while,” Simmons said. “We even had a waiting list.”

He said he first was interested in making the CD when he saw NIU’s talent with no way for it to be expressed.

“When people think of NIU, they don’t think of hip-hop,” he said. “There is so much good talent, and we need to put it in a CD.”

They said for this CD, they wanted more energy in the music, like old groups from 1990 to 1995. Some inspiration they have had is from groups like the Jungle Brothers and Farside.

A CD release party will be held on March 28 at The House, 263 E. Lincoln Highway. There also will be an open mic where attendees will be able to perform.

Simmons said there have been other attempts from NIU students to make these types of CDs, but they never worked out.

“This is the first time a hip-hop CD had such an effect on campus,” he said. “We plan to go down as DeKalb/NIU legends.”