Noriega, meet Noreaga. The rapper says his next single, the lead cut from his forthcoming Global Warming 11368, will be dedicated to imprisoned political and military figure Manuel Noriega.

“I never released my favorite record off the album first, but I’m gonna do something different this time,” N.O.R.E. said about his song. “Basically, I was in Miami and a friend of mine, DJ EFN, told me Noriega is locked up in a prison up the block from the studio. The real Noriega. I actually did write him a real letter before, but obviously the song is not a letter. My n—a [Dame] Grease gave me a beat and had the chorus already on there: ‘Money, cars, clothes, hos.’ I said I’m a little above that. I called Grease back and said, ‘Why don’t you change the chorus to “Letter from Noreaga, written to Noriega/ You can write me back or call me later/ So we can chop it up, we both Noreaga”? ‘ We have a little girl voice doing that. It’s a crazy club joint, but it’s a creative joint.

“I say, ‘Dear Noriega,’ ” he added. ” ‘My name was Noreaga, but I changed it to N.O.R.E./ I’ll tell you the story later.’ It’s like a 93 tempo, club joint. The first part I’m describing his influence on my life, and the second part I’m telling him who I am. Normally, when you write a letter, it’s for the heart. This is not for the heart, it’s for the clubs and streets.”

The words in his Global Warming 11368 title indicate his desire to heat up the world with his music, while the numbers are a tip to his old zip code in Lefrak City, a part of Corona, Queens. The solo effort is just the first album N.O.R.E. wants to release this year. There’s going to be yet another Capone-N-Noreaga LP as well.

“It looks like the C-N-N thing is gonna happen,” he explained. “At first it seemed straight on, then it was a little shaky in the middle; now it seems like it’s right. So we’re gonna drop two albums this year, C-N-N and the N.O.R.E. project.”

N.O.R.E. says getting his old group back together was as simple as a sit-down conversation with Capone.

“It was really like we was doing separate things,” he described. “Out of sight, out of mind. The more you do separate things, the more you grow apart. So we sat down and was like, ‘Let’s do this thing. The people are begging for it. It’s in high demand.’ … We’re starting the album in the middle of June and by the end of June we’ll be done. I work pretty fast. I already picked the beats. So we’re going to record it together and in two weeks we’ll be done. I wanna keep it gutter. I wanna keep it straight street, but I do wanna have one single.”

N.O.R.E. says both his and C-N-N‘s new record deals should be done within a few weeks.