Our friend, Emil had the opportunity to attended Richard Jackson’s (Gaga’s choreographer) Dance Down class in Houston a couple weeks back, and sent us the details about the class and little bit of what went on during the Q&A session afterwards. Check it out:

When the class started, Richy gave a little pep talk, followed by the chorus choreography to “Telephone” with Asiel and Montana. After that, we spent about two hours learning a 1.5 min routine to a “Judas/Schieße”. It was hard as hell, even just watching them go through it had me out of breath.

Afterwards, Richy spoke about Gaga’s journey for about 10 minutes. One of the stories he told was how when Gaga first showed up to rehearsals in 2008, he laughed at her and told her the industry was going to have a real problem with her (in a good way!).

Finally, the dancers sat us down and opened the floor up to questions. Some boring questions were asked at first, but things got interesting when somebody asked Richy and the dancers if they had heard ARTPOP, or if they had started choreographing and working with Gaga at all. Richy smiled and said they had been working on a few things, but that it was secret and we would find out “sooner than you think.”

Richard swiftly moved onto the next question, which was if he was still friends with Laurieann Gibson, or Boomkack, as we’ve all grown to know her as. The entire room, including Richy and the dancers, laughed and he finally said that we all probably knew the answer to that already.

Richy also mentioned that the Born This Way Ball is about Gaga’s life before The Fame. We asked if that meant ARTPOP was her first album and he smiled and proceeded to the next question. We knew he wasn’t able to talk much about ARTPOP, so we asked him about the video of Gaga allegedly tearing her hip while performing “Scheiße” in Montreal, the week the tour was postponed and eventually canceled. He explained that over time, muscles don’t cooperate the way we want them to and that’s what happened with Gaga. He said that fans were saying that she tore her hip in that performance, but that wasn’t the case at all. He said as the tour progressed, the existing injury got worse and she was in a lot of pain, which forced Gaga to cancel “everything.”

After the open floor questions ended, everybody else took photos, while I spoke to Montana and Asiel about if they have normal lives until Gaga decides to call them up to fly out and work on ARTPOP. They simply looked at each other and smiled.

“Next question!”

Here’s a short video of Gaga’s father talking about ARTPOP at the Born Brave Bus in New York City.

Joe states that he thinks “Burqa” is the best song and that he believes the lead single will be released in August or September, though this is not confirmed.

ETA: Gaga’s father does not work with or for Gaga and/or her label and therefore does not know when ARTPOP or its singles will be released.

Jean Baptiste (The Black Eyed Peas, Madonna, Chris Brown) is a music producer who is currently recording in the same LA studio as Gaga.

For those of you who do not know, when Gaga was finishing up Born This Way and The Fame Monster, she also “locked down” the studio she was in at the time.

ARTPOP is almost here!

Dave Russell (@Davey_R_2_D_2) is Gaga’s sound engineer. He helped record Born This Way and he’s helping record ARTPOP.

Last night, ARTPOP producer DJ White Shadow posted this beat after tweeting he had been “in the studio ARTPOPping all day long”. The tweet that contained a link to this beat was then quickly removed for unknown reasons. Is this a possible beat from ARTPOP? What are your thoughts?

Note: this is not an instrumental, rather just a beat that could possibly become part of an actual song.

After a long news drought, members of Gaga’s team are finally starting to open up about her latest album, ARTPOP. Both Gaga’s manager, Vincent Herbert, and ARTPOP producer, Madeon, opened up to The Associated Press and Digital Spy respectively. Check out what they had to say below.

Gaga’s manager, Vincent Herbert:

Lady Gaga’s manager says the pop star is “doing unbelievable” a month after she had hip surgery that caused her to cancel her U.S. tour.

Vincent Herbert said in an interview Tuesday the 26-year-old Grammy winner is “doing wonderful, doing great.”

Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, canceled her “Born This Way Ball” tour last month. She’d hurt herself while performing some time ago. Herbert says Gaga is finishing her new album, ARTPOP, and is “ready to get back to work.”

He calls the new album “very, very refreshing” and says the “Born This Way” singer continues to “push the envelope.” Herbert adds: “I can’t wait for the world to hear her new music and see her come back healthy, strong and better than ever.”

ARTPOP producer, Madeon:

Lady GaGa has been praised for being “really impressive” in the recording studio.

French DJ Madeon told Digital Spy that the singer gave “everything” during their recording sessions for her upcoming album ARTPOP. “She’s great. She’s a really, really interesting and nice person,” Madeon said.

“From a personal standpoint it’s been hugely admirational, to be like, ‘Wow - you’re at this level of super, ultimate fame - and there’s this aura of superstardom - and you’re still an engaging and nice person’. So that was really humbling.”

He added: “Professionally, I think she’s amazing. She would come out of a show after singing live for three hours and giving it everything, but just go straight to the studio and record. She would still give everything - even on the demo take! She’s really impressive.”

Madeon explained that collaborating with the star has affected the way he now works on his own debut album, which is due out later this year.

“I learnt a lot because I don’t really work with vocalists in real life that often,” he said. “For my previous collaborations I’d never met them while doing the song. It was really interesting for me to feel the vibe of working together, sitting at the piano and collaborating on ideas right away.”

ARTPOP is due out later this year.

A video of Azealia Banks rapping her verse from her and Gaga’s song “Red Flame”.

Lady Gaga’s manager, Troy Carter, sat down with V Magazine to talk about his work with Gaga and their future plans. Preview the interview below and be sure to pick up the issue on newsstands on February 28th.

How did you originally meet and come to work with Lady Gaga?

We were introduced by Vincent Herbert, who was her executive producer at her record label. You saw the energy when she walked in the room. She was very specific about her vision, all of the music was there, and all she needed was someone to help her translate it to the rest of the world, which is where I came in.

When did you first realize the potential social media had to affect Gaga’s career?

I think it developed because we were forced into it. We couldn’t get her record played on the radio and we couldn’t get the video on TV. YouTube and blogs were our platforms in the very beginning because the Internet was the only platform!

Is it true that Lady Gaga’s next record, ArtPop, will be released as an app?

The album is going to be an app. It will also exist in CD and digital form, but the primary experience will be as an application. It will be built around the tablet, but will have a mobile version as well.

How do you think the business of pop music will evolve?

This is the best time to be in the music industry. As sub-Saharan Africa and China go completely mobile, you have people who’ve never had access to the music we offer all of a sudden able to access it. I think we can reach a lot more people now. You’re going to see a lot more friction points for independent artists disappear, but there will be more artists than ever. You’ll have to look at making money through a different lens. Artists are going to be giving away music in exchange for different things, like data or purchasing a ticket or a piece of merchandise. There will be new ways to monetize music, but it may not be the music itself.

What is your most memorable experience of working with Gaga? Does anything particularly surreal stand out?

I think—and I can say this because it just happened recently—it was seeing her have a casual conversation with the President about gay rights issues. When you think back to six years ago, this girl from New York walking in with ripped-up stockings, and now she’s having conversations with the President about serious issues-—it’s a bit surreal.

What is next for the Troy/Gaga think tank?

I have no idea! We could have never predicted we’d be where we are right now, so I have no clue what the next five years are going to look like, but I hope it gets even better.

Check out this interview ARTPOP producer, ZEDD, did with MTV earlier today.

After the interview, ZEDD took to Twitter to clarify what he meant when he insinuated that the album is not close to completion.

When I say something is “rough” it means it’s not perfect. Anything below perfect is not enough. Remember: 99% = 0%. 100% = 100%!

Some new information about ARTPOP from Little Monsters who got to meet Gaga backstage after the show in Los Angeles, California.