American Songwriter » James Kendall

JOHN LEGEND: Keeping His Standards High

James Kendall — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 21:06:13 +0000

John Legend is walking through the Los Angeles International Airport on his way back to Europe for his first headlining tour. His debut album, Get Lifted, has garnered much attention, debuting at No.1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart in January and quickly selling over a million copies. John Legend is walking through the Los Angeles International Airport on his way back to Europe for his first headlining tour. His debut album, Get Lifted, has garnered much attention, debuting at No.1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart in January and quickly selling over a million copies. As he talks about his recent success, a female fan interrupts and he is, only for a moment, flustered; identifying his face out of the crowd, she seeks an autograph. This has become more and more common for Legend, it seems. "I'm in the middle of an interview, sweetie." Legend says. Then reprioritizing, he quickly asks me, "Can you hold on for a few minutes?"

When he was 11, he was directing his church choir. When he was still a teenager, he was on scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania, and he got his first taste of the music biz accompanying Lauryn Hill in the studio for her 1998 Grammy-winning album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. By 2004, Legend had collaborated with Alicia Keys, Jay-Z and Janet Jackson, and was the flagship artist on hip-hop Midas Kanye West's newly-formed GOOD label. Now at just 26, he's being compared to Stevie Wonder, which he calls "a bit premature...but I take it as a compliment."

Do you think that back when you were 19 you could have made this album?

No. I wasn't ready for it yet. It would have been decent, but it wouldn't have been this good.

Last year, a music magazine said you were arrogant like Kanye West. Why?

I don't think I am. I told [the reporter] that I thought my record was going to do really well. He challenged me. He said, "How do you know you're not going to be another artist that has a lot of critical credibility but doesn't sell any records." I said, "I'm just not. I'm going to sell 2 or 3 million records." I was kind of defending my project. I was so used to being in the position of, ‘I have to sell this project,' because I had been trying to get signed for five years. So that's the stance I was still in. I was defending myself, and to him I was arrogant.

You've described music as "natural" for you, not easy. What's natural?

I just try to go with what feels right musically and melodically. I'll sometimes establish the musical format of the song and the melody of the song within the first ten minutes of the original idea coming to me. That's the natural part of it. Once I have that, I know what the song sounds like. Then I come up with a couple lyrics that feel like they fit with that original melody.

Is that how you tend to progress through a song? Music first, lyrics second?

Always. I think music should dictate the lyrics-always.

How long do you keep the music in your head? Are you rushing to get to a piano or to get it down on paper?

No. I keep it in my head for a long time. The lyrics always take a long time for me.

Really, why's that?

They usually do. Very seldom will artists sit down and come up with [anything] that original [in] ten minutes and then finish the lyrics in the same day.

Some of the lyrics on your album have a different feel from song to song. Does a lot of that depend on who you're writing with? With Kanye? Or someone else?

Yes it does, and also it just depends on the song. I try to get in the mood and the character of that song.

You'll have a song with a strong beat and you'll follow with something like "Let's Get Lifted Again," which is pretty heavy falsetto.

It's all falsetto.

The style of music ebbs and flows.

Those songs were written separately. I wrote the songs over four years, so it wasn't a conscious choice that I wanted to have different moods or different vibes as a writer. "Allright" is a song about me getting drunk at a club and hitting on someone else's girl and so for that song, I sing it like I'm drunk. And the vibe is like I'm drunk. I'm saying things that I normally wouldn't say because I'm drunk. I wouldn't go up to [another guy's] girl in a club and try to holler at her. I don't want to start any fights in a club, but [in the song] it's like I'm empowered by the liquor.

I read a quote where Prince said to you, "You write songs. Nobody does that anymore."

He said specifically about the song "Ordinary People," that it's a real song and you don't hear people making real songs nowadays.

Do you agree that's the trend?

I think it's harder to find really good songs these days. But people make them. There are plenty of good songwriters out there. But I think in r&b particularly, songwriting is very weak.

There seems to be a lot of concentrating on the hook and not so much on the verse.

I agree. I think the verse is thought of as just filler to get people to the hook these days. And the hook is what people use to get on the radio. So, as long as they think they have a good hook and a good beat, they're happy with the song. [Then they] just throw in whatever for the verses. I feel like what ends up happening is a lot of boring lines-a lot of corny lines.

Is it because there's a rush to get the music out?

People rush in the studio more now, and the standards are lower. Hip-hop has had a certain influence because rappers usually are quicker than singers at writing songs, and that has kind of changed the process.

Do songwriters need more revision in their music?

Oh man, definitely! The thing is, some people don't realize that it needs to be edited. They think it's good the way it is. And that's just a matter of taste. Some people think they're done with a song when I think they should go back and revise it. Even sometimes I'll think a song's done, but I have friends I work with who will tell me to revise.

So you rely on other people for this kind of feedback or critique?

I can rely on myself a lot of times, but I work with people like Kanye and other producers that will make comments and I'll make changes based on them. They're smart people and they have good taste too.

When do you think revision should stop?

I want the melody and the music to feel like it flows in absolutely the most natural way it could have been written...[where] it doesn't feel like I've forced any chord changes, and the melody just feels like it brings out the right singular voice in me. So that's music to me. It should feel like it flows. It's natural. It's easy. It doesn't feel overly monotonous. I feel like there's enough growth and movement in it. It's the way it's supposed to sound even though I didn't know in advance how it was going to sound.

Lyrically?

Lyrically it needs to tell a story that people can feel and that makes sense to them. I want the lyrics to have coherence throughout. Some artists are very abstract and metaphorical. They write songs that you don't completely understand-which is fine. It's just not me. I think in r&b and hip-hop, [metaphor] doesn't tend to be the tradition. It's not what I'm used to anyway, so it's not how I write. When I write I try to tell stories that are entertaining. I want to say something that's familiar and that feels real to people, but I want to say it in as clever a way as possible so people will actually remember lines from it. It'll feel fresh and familiar at the same time.

Are you always conscious of what your audience wants to hear?

I think of what I would want to hear first. No, actually I don't even think that. I think, what would make this song perfect? Which is a very subjective judgment, but that's what I'm thinking when I'm writing a song. What would make this song the best it could possibly be?

So we're back to "standards."

It's the whole standards thing. Some people's standards are really low, and part of it has to do with who you work with. If you look at the records I've been on, just by the nature of my catalogue, my standards are high because I work with so many great people making great records. So, I feel I have to measure up to that every time I go in [the studio].

There's always been the tendency to write verse, chorus, and throw a bridge in there somewhere. Do you ever have the urge to write extremely complex music? Or maybe throw in a 7/4 rhythm?

[Laughs] No, no. I stay pretty formatted and classic. I haven't done anything revolutionary with song structure. Pretty much, I stick to the formulas. In other words, [structure] feels good to me. I want the songs to feel like they have that.

You've gotten an amazing amount of critical acclaim for this album.

I promise that the next album will be better songwriting, actually. I haven't even done most of it yet, but I know I'm in a better place as a songwriter now than I was before. And I know what I want more, so...I'm telling you that. [Laughs].

I don't really think that's arrogance either.

I'm comparing myself to myself!

The post JOHN LEGEND: Keeping His Standards High appeared first on American Songwriter.

BRYAN-MICHAEL COX: Vibing with Personal Experience

James Kendall — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 19:37:34 +0000

Maybe he was born to do it. He doesn't know. But his ma called him Bump-back before he can remember, back before he could walk, back when she would blast the speakers and he would crawl over to the sound, pull himself up and bump to the beat. Now, at age 27, Bryan-Michael Cox is the man. After seeing his friends' names start to pop up on the charts, Cox moved from his hometown of Houston to Atlanta, where he began to work his way into the industry-volunteering his services in production while connecting with the musical bigwigs. Now he works with Toni Braxton, Jagged Edge, Lil'Mo and Mariah Carey, among others. He's writing and producing songs such as and "Come Over" (Aaliyah), "U Got it Bad" (Usher), "Don't Mess With My Man" (Nivea), and has had one or more songs on the music charts for an absurd number of weeks. Recently winning his fourth straight SESAC "Songwriter of the Year," Cox has placed himself in the upper-echelon of r&b music-makers, but that's not the pinnacle-he wants to do more. American Songwriter recently sat down with Bryan-Michael Cox and asked him to tell us about his success, his music, why he's in the groove of the Atlanta music scene and what every songwriter needs to know about finding success in the business. What's up in Atlanta? It's poppin'. So you're Bump, huh? Does music really go back that far for you? I've been writing songs, writing little poems and writing little diddle-dattels as far back as I remember. It's just something that was always a passion of mine. It's all I've ever thought about doing. Well, damn, should the rest of us just pack it in if we weren't dancing before we could walk? It doesn't have to go that far back. Some people discover they want to do music when they're teenagers. It just depends. I have a friend who was an athlete and then he got hurt and discovered that he could write songs and was good at it. Now he's an accomplished songwriter. The music bug can bite you whenever. For me, it's all I've ever known. Is there a specific reason your songs have been consistently successful? Well, it's melody. Melody and the chord progressions that people feel. I try to do things that are more melodic than average. Music's just not as chord-influenced as it used to be. A lot of records nowadays-a lot of mainstream records-lack progressions, or they're really influenced by the beat. I think that's what makes it easy for me to write for my records. When I collaborate with other people and I give them a track, they automatically get it melodically. You've collaborated with quite a few people. Yeah. I wrote three songs for Toni Braxton. Most recently I co-wrote some records with Mariah Carey. When you write for somebody like that, how do you go about it? How do you write for a woman, or from another point of view? To tell you the truth, I have the most success with writing when the artist is there. I wrote a song for Destiny's Child called "Bad Habit," which I wrote by myself, but I was in the studio with one of the members [Kelly Rowland] who I had known and we were just catching up. She told me some stories about past relationships and we were just talking for hours. Then she gave me about 45 minutes and "Bad Habit" was written. So what do you think is more successful-writing from other people's experience or your own? It just depends. When Jermaine Dupree and I wrote "Burn" with Usher, we were just in the studio talking about a personal relationship and we said, "Man you should probably just let it burn," and it was like, "Yo, that's a song. "Let it burn." He sang the first line, [singing] "It's gonna burn for me to say this." I just started vibing with him and then I finished the verse up. We did the hook and the second verse and then Jermaine and Usher did the break part. It just kind of came together organically, but it came from personal experience where all of us meshed our personal experiences together. There was something that at least one of us had been through. For somebody who's trying to become successful at songwriting-what makes a good song? What does somebody need to do to write a good song? Everybody has a story. That's the first step. But the attractive thing about a song is not just the story. It is melody; it's the hook. It's "Can I sing along with it?" Can I sing along and can I relate to it? Is there ear candy in the record that makes me want to go sing it-want to hear it over and over again? On "You Got it Bad," you've got the part that interests people-[singing] "Let it say I'm your man." That's ear candy, something you can just drop in there to make people really feel the song. And that's a formula that I've learned from Jermaine. That's always a part in every record that I write with him-a main part that people get. As far as lyrics and what you're calling "ear candy" go, what's more important? Lyrics are equally important-take an artist like Ashanti and her song "Foolish." Females really connected, not only because it's lyrically attractive to them, but it's melodically attractive. The ear candy was equally important as the lyrical content and that's what made that song so big. There was something that the females got. They understood the words and it was a great song for them to relate to. For a songwriter just starting out, how does he take it from his home out to where it gets noticed? There are different ways to go about it. The main thing is to put your best record together and try to make some contacts. Try to call up labels, try to figure out who is the A&R person and even the intern of this A&R. Try to figure out the channels to get through to. Nine times out of ten you're not going to be able to get the record straight to the A&R person, but find out the channels and figure out who's who. What do you mean by channels? When I say channels, I mean figuring out the chain of command. That's what a lot of people misjudge about the music industry. They feel like, okay, I've got these records, and I'm gonna just go to New York...and it doesn't happen like that. There are chains of command. You've gotta start at the bottom of the totem pole and go up. So it's a misconception to think, "Hey, my stuff's good. I can just bring it in there and they'll listen to it." It is. It happens rarely. A lot of times when CDs get sent to the A&Rs, they don't listen to them. When I worked at a label, we had boxes and boxes of CDs. I'm talking, filled to the brim. You know what they do with those CDs? They throw them away. It's too much music. It's too much music to go through. It's not personal. It's like, I'm going to listen to this CD instead that my man brought me face to face. I'm going to listen to the CD that the intern put on my desk." That is what I mean by chain of command. So, even if the only person you can get in contact with is an intern... That's way better than mailing it. Think about it-an intern wants to be an A&R person someday, so this intern's bringing somebody a hit record could be his key to becoming that guy that he wants so desperately to become. What if somebody only has one or two songs on a CD? Are they going to even bother listening to a CD with two songs on it? If it's one song and they put it in, and it's a hit record, they're going to move on it. If somebody gets his hands on a hit record, it doesn't matter if you sent half of one. They're not going to laugh. They're not going to say, "This guy is crazy, he only sent me one song." If the song is a hit record, you're in. But say you're going up to bat, and you only have one shot to bat, not three shots, just one shot. There's only one chance that you can hit a homerun or strike out. You're going to want those three shots. If you get strike one and strike two, you might hit that sucker out of the park on the third. If you're going through the trouble of getting them to listen to it, you're better off to have five or six songs on there, right? You have a better chance if you send five songs versus sending one song. You might hit with something you didn't think was going to hit. You might hit two. I try to write at least two songs a day. I will never stop writing songs because you never know. Not everything that I write is a hit record and not everything that I write is an album cut, but I'm batting, I'm swinging so much. So what's the music scene like in Atlanta? It had slowed down a little bit, but now there are a lot of producers up here, a lot of songwriters, and a lot of artists. It's back. The scene is getting thick again. People are making music. Atlanta is not as fast as New York or L.A. but it's not as slow as Jackson, Miss. Either. It's right on the verge-it's slow enough for you to live a nice life, and it's fast enough to get your business done and make some money. I love New York. I go to New York every week, but it's so fast in New York. I don't think I could spend more than a week there. It's just too much. I was raised more laid back than what New York has to offer for me. This may be an odd question, but why should somebody not be a songwriter? Who's the person that shouldn't be a songwriter? The person that doesn't want to grind, the person who thinks it's going to come easy, who thinks that every song he writes is a hit, who thinks, "I'll take the easy way out and be a songwriter." This is not an easy job. It's not like a nine to five. If you don't work, you don't eat. In the beginning you're not gonna be making any money. So, a person who's not patient, who's not diligent...that's who shouldn't be a songwriter. If you're lazy and think it's going to come easy... if you think you'll write hit records every day and are arrogant, this is not for you. What inspires you? My mother. My girlfriend. I just draw from everything around me. I listen to all kinds of music. To start my day, I may listen to some James Brown and then listen to some Jay-Z and then listen to some Maroon 5. I just get inspired by everything that gives me drive, and that makes me want to be better and get better. I'm a musical person. Music inspires me.

The post BRYAN-MICHAEL COX: Vibing with Personal Experience appeared first on American Songwriter.