After bowing at No. 1 with their new album “Take Me Home,” One Direction are now busily preparing for 101 touring dates for 2013. But a packed schedule isn’t keeping the boy band from dreaming a little.
Speaking with MTV, Liam Payne revealed it’d be a dream for the troupe to lay down a some track work with Jay-Z.
“I would love to do a hip-hop collaboration with Jay-Z,” Payne said. “I don’t know how to talk to him, though. I think he’s wicked. I love Jay-Z. It upsets me that we’re not cool enough, but I wish we could.”
Define “upset” there, young pup. The group is obviously not doing so bad for itself: does the admission of uncoolness also imply the crew has already tried approaching the “Blueprint”-maker? Because Jay-Z may not work with just anybody, but he’s the same man who’s shown up with lesser-knowns like Santigold and on pop tracks with Mariah Carey (OK, OK, OK and isn’t above still working with nerds like Diddy. There. I said it.).
Payne, adorably, snapped a pic of himself with Hov backstage at Justin Bieber’s concert in Brooklyn this fall. He called Jay-Z one of his idols.
“Imagine going on tour with Jay-Z,” Zayn Malik also said in the interview. I imagine him saying this while his hands clinch tightly and shake excitedly.
“Lads, I don’t think there’s much chance,” Louis Tomlinson said in response.
One Direction teased that they have an opener already selected for their tour, which bows in February, but wouldn’t say who.
“With the last tour, we didn’t expect it to be as big as it was,” Harry Styles said. “We never expected to do that many dates. I think we did 92 shows, and this time we are kind of preparing it for bigger arenas so we can make the stage a bit bigger. The whole show is bigger, and we’re doing, like, 101 dates on the next one, so it’s going to be a long one.”