Can you describe the difference between R&B and pop?
Tempo is probably a different thing. Pop, of course, is short for popular music, and what I consider pop would be probably more so who's singing it versus the type of style. So, it's whatever is popular at the time and whoever is popular most of the time.
That can be altered, of course.
There are certain records I've called hip-hop/R&B that Rihanna's put out lately — one being "Birthday Cake", a second one being "Pour It Up," which is basically a pop diva singing these more ratchet, cultural hip-hop records. But because of her status, she kind of makes it pop. But it's not a pop song — basically, tempo drives what's going to be pop at the time. It's usually these songs that, in a certain point in time, doesn't really talk about that much, if you think about it. Yeah, so that's pop to me. It's not really a message.
Do you think of yourself as a songwriter or a singer?
A songwriter. A singer — I'm actually just more of an extension of what the instrumentation is. So me being a record producer, I'm always just trying to fill in the gaps. Always think melody first and tone — like, I love tones.
I've never been the super controlling singer. I can't control my voice. I definitely wouldn't give Beyonce a run for her money, at all. Not even on my best day. I'm a singer by trade because that's my genre of song that I release. But it's more emotion and feeling when it comes to me, in tone and texture of how to create a record purely based in emotion.
Then how do you decide — do you write for yourself differently than you write for other people?
Yeah. Because we all go through different things. Kelly Rowland has a record I've just written for her called "Dirty Laundry," and it's personal to her. But because of — whether [it's] storytelling [or] emotion — I probably understand how to rely the message, where people can feel attached to it and say exactly what I just said. Like, "Yo, I know exactly what she means," or "I know somebody that went through [that], so I heard it through hearsay." So it's different, but it's still the same; you're still attacking the same emotion. I literally have to wake up and be the person that I'm working with, whether that's Mariah, or Beyonce, Celine Dion. I have to wake up. Justin Bieber. I have to write "Baby." I have to be the teen guy who goes out there and gets all the girls.
How does it feel in your body when you hear a harmony?
It's hard to explain. It's definitely more spiritual — why I would be doing music in the first place, if I didn't get goose bumps and stuff? We're so excited, all of us — we're like kids.
If it's me and another music producer, or Beyonce does this all the time. We'll look at each other and be like, "Oooh, that harmony! Let's add it, let's add it." We're like these kids that just found out that you can mix the packs of Kool-Aid – mix the powder with the sugar, and just eat it straight. We used to do it as kids — I have no idea why we used to do that. But that feeling of childlike – childhood — finding something for the first time.
Why does R&B matter? Why do we need it? People feel deeply about it. Where does that care come from?
Because it's the closest point to the reality of love that there is. It's the closest point. Other music and genres, they're slightly – from R&B, there's a big gap of how close love is involved in the song. That's what rhythm and blues is based on; it's based on love and heartbreak. You need it because that's real life. So, when you take real life out of a song, suddenly we're dancing to a song that doesn't mean anything, that has nothing to do with my life after this. Like after I leave the club, then what?
And that's what those great storytelling songs of the older days — when R. Kelly would do that and tell those stories and you're like, "Oh, man." That's what "Dirty Laundry" is. It's a song for real, it's not like, [sings] "I was at the club last night and I met my girl and she told me she loved me and I kissed her on the cheek." That never happens to no one else ever. It's like, what are you talking about?
If you take R&B away, you take away the feeling of one human being to another. You take away so many things. You take away the passion, and the love. And once you get out of R&B, actually, even if you're dealing with tempo records, that's still just about your love for music. It has nothing to do with human contact. Like, at all. It's just, "Oh man, we're getting off on this thing, and we're doing our thing, and these instruments, they are crazy." But what are you talking about?
R&B is a conversation that you should be able to sit down and have; that's what "Single Ladies" was. Even though it began to be a pop record, melodically, because its tempo was — underneath it all, it was a conversation about "When are you going to marry me? Because if you don't, I'm going to go over here and then, you're going to be talking about it later. What are we doing?" And that's what it was, it was summed up in that: What are we doing? Because Beyonce just told you, you better put a ring on it.
You lose that whole conversation. It never happens. So we're just walking and living with each other, like never having any type of — and it's like reading about Osiris and how he used music back in the day from the Egyptian god, how he used music to civilize the world. Like, that's the point. You have to try and stay civilized, though, and you can't really do it without the genre of R&B because it's the closest thing to that.
There's more here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2...e-all-need-r-b
