And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 151: Rodney Jerkins

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Today’s guest is an urban legend in the flesh. An acknowledged virtuoso in the music industry, he began his career as a prodigy at the age of 15. Tireless in his work ethic, our young guest quickly established himself as a formidable musical force, with a trail of outstanding accomplishments writing his indelible page in music history. The wildly successful producer/songwriter/musician, has been an in‐demand producer since his early beginning; megastars line up to work with him to insure that next smash. He has added to the hit lists of music talents such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, George Michael, Mariah Carey, Sam Smith, Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Brandy, Jennifer Lopez, Jay Z, Notorious B.I.G., Drake, Big Sean, Toni Braxton, Kelly Clarkson, The Pussycat Dolls, N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, Jessie J, Ludacris and countless others. CEO of his production company, Sonix, Inc., our guest has garnished over 250 million sales worldwide. He also serves as National Trustee, Vice President of Advocacy, and Los Angeles Chapter Governor of the Recording Academy (Grammys) to improve the rights for all music creators and is a happily married father of four children:. And The Writer Is… Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins!Artwork: Michael Richey White Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to And The Writer Is with Ross Golan. There are millions of singers, thousands of artists, and only 40 songs per genre at a time. These are the stories of the hottest creatives, the most venerable legends, artists, songwriters, executives, and more. Come join our Discord, follow our socials, and share your music with the and The Writer is community. We'll see you all there and now. Here's this week's episode. Welcome to Amma Update is. I'm your host, Paige MacDonald, and this is your weekly music industry update.

Sony is spending $1 billion to buy another 3% stake in Epic Games to help build the Metaverse. Judges in the U.S. have hinted that the mechanical royalty rate paid to publishers and songwriters for vinyl sales should rise. Latin music is on course to generate over $1 billion in the U.S. for 2022. Seven years after its IPO collapsed, Dizer is in the talks to go public again via a special purpose acquisition company. Universal Music Publishing Group has struck an exclusive global deal with authentic brands group, owner of Elvis Presley's enterprises to represent Elvis Presley's historic song catalog. Believe has appointed Alex Kennedy as UK managing director. Cobalt has promoted Lisa Bergami to vice president of Creative Sink.

Universal Music has launched Capitol Records, Italy. Warner Chapel has signed Producer 2 Doep in partnership with TM88. Indie label agency Merlin has inked a partnership with South Korea-based music streaming app Flow. Deezer is rolling out an in-app translation of lyrics. Luno, which is a cryptocurrency platform with more than 10 million users, has announced its new partnership with the London venue, Coco. BMG is releasing a new film about David Bowie called Moon Age Daydream, which is described as a definitive new portrait of the late star. The U.S.-based music and media company Create Music Group has acquired a majority interest in The Nations,

which is a portfolio of curated music YouTube channels that reaches a collective audience of more than 60 million people. Mark Jackson has joined the LA-based distribution company Human Resources as its vice president head of Human Resources, Atlanta. The U.S.-based high-end speaker maker Sonos has acquired a Netherlands-based speaker company called Mait Holding BV. James McKnight has been named Head of Entertainment Research and Development for a Stockholm-based entertainment company, Pop House. Republic has relaunched Mercury Records. Daniel Caesar has signed with Republic Records. A big thank you to Haley Evans of Megahouse for gathering today's news. for this week's very exciting episode of And The Writer Is.

Welcome to And The Writer Is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. Today's revolutionary producer changed the game, literally. The way we do music in 2021 is partly because the music business started doing it his way 20 years ago. At 16 years old, this guy was producing Billboard charting records. At 18 years old, he was defining the biggest artist of a generation. There are prodigies and their workahaw. Marry those together, and you have one of the most influential beatmakers in pop history.

Don't believe me, Ask Beyonce, or Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Mary Jablige, Blige, Blige, Jennifer Lopez, etc, etc. Responsible for over 170 million records sold worldwide, this writer is an advocate and a family man. And the writer is Rodney Dark Child Jerkins. What's up? Ross. So, man, thank you. How are you? Well, man. you. Thank you for, thank you for having me on this, man. I remember when you first started this

and in the ideas of it and you're talking about what you're going to do and to see it come to fruition and being just something great and incredible and giving insight and information to so many, so many talented people that need to learn is just a great thing to see, man. So I'm just honored to be a part of it. I love that. Well, let's start from the beginning because I think it's a pretty short beginning considering how young you were to enter into the music industry but you're born in New Jersey your

your parents were your parents were church like your mom ran the choir in church is that right and your dad your dad was a minister so you kind of grew up with parents doing music right Yeah, very active in the church. My dad's a pastor.

Still is a pastor, by the way. Almost 80 years old, still a pastor. Then pretty much past him since he was probably young 20s. My mom was the choir director. My sister was the drummer. My brother was the pianist. My other sister sang in the choir.

And then I was the last born. So, you know, it was nothing about music in our home. So I kind of gravitated towards the drums more so than the piano. But my dad had this house rule of you can't live in our house unless you play the piano. So we all had to get piano lessons. And I remember as a, I remember as a, you know, a five-year-old kid not wanting to play the piano. It was actually something I did not want to do. Little that I know would be like the greatest thing ever, you know, for me.

So whenever I get back talk for my kids, because they all have to play the piano now, my four kids. and they don't want to do it and I always tell them no, you're going to do it because I had to do it and it worked out you know, so thank you mom for pushing me

into the piano. Why is it that and I feel like I've asked this question a lot and so it says it proves the point but why are church musicians so good at pop music it feels like?

I think it's funny I think you know in the in the And I'm going to be kind of specific. In the churches that have gospel, because not every church has gospel, by the way. You got different styles of church. But the churches that have gospel,

it's a lot of free-handed, meaning like when you go and you're playing in those churches, it's kind of like no rules. So for me, like when I used to play in a church, you're kind of creating for some reason all the time. You're creating off the move. of the people in the church. You're creating off the pastor who's speaking.

You know, there's certain churches that don't have, that may not have any instrumentation when the, when the pastor is speaking. It's just, they're just speaking and there's no music. In our church that I grew up, my dad preaches in the beginning there's no music. And then as he gets excited, his vocals start to change.

His tone starts to change. His words start to, he starts to speak in key and you got to find the key that he's speaking in and now you're creating progressions and chords around his speaking. It's almost like you're scoring. Right? And so I think

that gives us somewhat of a type of creative sensibility that translates right into pop music, right into, you know, more so just being able to create. For me it did at least. A lot of my

records would come from me like literally, being in church and I would be playing an idea right in church. And then I would run over to my studio because my studio was literally a block, literally on the same street, a block from my church, and I would run over to it and lay the idea down at my studio. I guess a few questions. One is how did you get a studio at that point in your life? Because you're just a kid. I mean... Well, that's down the road, of course. That's right after high school. In the beginning, in my early, like, you know, 10 years to 18 years old, I was at my dad's house and I had a little spot in the basement or whatever. How would you, you know, you started producing demos at like 15 or something

like that. Even before, 13. How, how are you doing that? I mean, what were you recording on? Because this isn't I had a, I had a four-track false text machine. And I knew how to, I knew how to trick the, I knew how to trick it into seven tracks. It was tricks that you can make you go to turn it into seven tracks. And I learned all those tricks. I also knew tricks how to sample the backgrounds. Once I did those backgrounds,

I would sample them back into my MPC, flying them back into the false X-1 track. So now I have another six tracks available if I wanted to stack more. So I learned every little trick to talk. turn my false text into like a 24 track when it was really a four track, right? And I don't know, locally, I grew up in a small town called Pomona, New Jersey, which is like 10, 15 minutes from Atlantic City, New Jersey. And I, and, you know, locally, I would do demos. First,

it was, you know, I was doing it for myself. You know, I was just making music and rapping and singing and whatever. And people just around town started hearing about me. And then people would be like, hey, man, can you do my demo? How much you charge? I'm like, yeah. Yeah, $35, let's go. And they would come to my house and I would record them. And I would, you know, have to record, mix it, do it all myself. And I was only like 12 years old. So that's kind of how I got started.

How did, you know, writing in your dad's house in outside of Atlantic City is far from, it's not like that's the biggest music hub. It's not too far from New York, but it's pretty far from everywhere. Yeah. At that point, it's much harder to get noticed in the middle of nowhere. What's the journey from doing those demos for $35 to somebody opening a door? Did your parents help push you towards making it a profession? Because it's so fast.

I mean, you're already having songs charting at 16. So somebody, how do you get from 13 years old, 12, 13 years old to 16 having a song charting? Well, basically, where I'm from, you're right, it was a small town. It wasn't a music town. It was no real outlets. There was no studios like that. There was like one studio in Atlantic City. And I knew New York.

We knew New York was the place you had to be to try to get heard. And I remember, I used to, this is when I was probably about 15 years old, I took a there was a local diner right around the corner from my house called Pomona Diner. And I would go wash dishes there. and I would make something like $32 to $35 washing dishes, and I would take the $23 from that money, and I would reinvest it back into a bus ticket, and a guy that was a friend of our families,

we would get on a bus and go to New York, and I would stand outside of record companies just like on the hustle, like, here's my demo. I had cassette tapes, I had dat tapes, I had CDs, I had everything you can imagine. And I would, you know, I remember clearly being on 49th and 8th Street when it was the old polygram building and Mercury Records and everything in that building, and I would go out there and wait for someone who I thought looked apart,

come out the building. Hey, man, take my demo. I'm a producer from Jersey, and they would just throw it in the trash. They did what they were supposed to do. You know, you can't really solicit them, so they would just take it, walked around to the side, throw it in the trash. So, and that was really like, you know, after even I met Teddy Riley, I was doing that. You know what I mean?

Because Teddy Riley kind of, I got discovered by Teddy Riley when I was probably about to turn 14. How did Teddy, right? I mean, that guy's a Hall of Famer, literally. He is. It was through a, it was through a, this convention called the Impact Convention. That used to happen every year in Atlantic City. And I had, did a demo that I had to pay $35 for.

I did this group, this local group called Triple Threat, these three guys, they were kind of like a color-me-bad, really cool guys. And I did their demo. Well, how did the song go? Suck, bro. You don't want to hear it. And I wouldn't sing it. If it was good, I wouldn't sing it.

For the record, you wouldn't sing it even if we weren't on this. No, no. But they thought it was dope, right? They had a manager who was known for getting, he had a manager by the name of Kevin Crump, and he was known for getting people around that area deals. He was, you know, he did. And so he hired me to do these demos.

I think I did like three songs for those guys. And he wanted them ready before the impact. He's like, yo, we got to get him ready for the impact. And I got the songs done. And I didn't go to the Impact Convention. They went, they played somehow they got to Teddy Riley. They played the songs with Teddy Riley. And Teddy Riley's response to them was,

I'm not really, well, to the manager was, I'm not really filling the group. But whoever did these tracks tell him he's dope. So the guy goes to a pay phone is when they had pay phones, Ross. Can you go back there for? Are you too young to go back there for? No, I got, I have a pay phone.

All right. The guy, the guy goes to pay phone. He calls me up, he goes, yo, you never, you never believe what just happened. I'm like, I'm a kid. I'm 13 years old. He goes, and I love Teddy Riley, by the way. So this is what's crazy is it's not like meeting a producer that I didn't know or a producer that I didn't really, you know. I was a Teddy Riley fan.

Yeah, explain who Teddy Riley is for those who don't know. Just like that. Teddy Riley created a genre called New Jack Swing, an entire judge. genre when back in the in the late 80s early 90s there was pop there was R&B there was hip pop but then it was New Jack Swing and New Jack Swing was a completely its own genre and he created it and I was a big fan of all I mean this guy did Dougie Fred the show badda da da da da da da da da from inspector gadget he did that at 14 years old can you believe his first chart topping hit was at 14 years old so this is the guy I was like now I want to be like 10

Raleigh, I used to read about him in magazines. And I'd be like, man, I want to be like Teddy Raleigh. So he called me from a payphone and said, you wouldn't believe it. So we got to Teddy Raleigh, we played the music, and he loved your music. And I was like, he did? And you're like, yeah. So I'm freaking out. I'm like, yo, put him on the phone.

Put him on the phone. He's like, no, he's gone. He left. And I was like, oh, this is crazy. So I run upstairs to my dad. And I say, Dad, Teddy Rale just heard my music. My dad knew I actually was a big fan of Teddy Riley. I'm going to go, we got to go see him.

And my dad was like, where is he at? And I was like, I think he might be on his way back to Virginia Beach. And he goes, what makes you think that? I was like, well, I was looking at the credits. This is when credits really matter, Ross. Like, you know, we wish credits were the way it was, right? It's getting better, but, you know, something about reading those credits, right? I used to read the credits, so I knew where every studio was.

I knew the best studios in the world because I would listen to albums. And I'd be like, man, oh, Chung King in New York is where they recorded this, this Wu-Tang album, so on, you're right? So all of Teddy Raleigh's credits in that year was at a place called Future Recording in Virginia Beach. Right? And the name of the record company, which was his record company, is about Future Records. So I'm like, it has to be his own personal studio. So I told my dad, dad, we got to go to Virginia. We got to go to, I think he's in the Virginia Beach.

He goes, but you don't know for sure. He could have, you know, left Atlantic City, went to New York. went anywhere. I was like, I don't know, but we got to take the chance. You always told me to strike when the iron's hot. It's hot, dad. It's hot. It's hot. Right. My dad's like, we got church in the morning the next day. He was like, we can't drive. We can't drive six hours to Virginia Beach. And I'm like, dad, we got to, you just got to take the shot. And my dad sat there and he looked at me and I think he saw that looked like, he knew I was a go-getter. He taught me to be a go-getter. And then he's just like, all right, get your stuff together. We'll leave. tonight. I'm going to take a nap. And next thing you know, we're on a road driving six hours. We arrive at Teddy Riley Studio, probably about 8, 30, 9 o'clock in the morning. And no one's there. No one, like the parking lot. And my dad looks at me and he goes, he's not here. And I said, Dad, it's like 9 in the morning. Let's just wait. So we're there until like noon. No one shows up. We go down the street. We get something to eat. We come back.

no one was there. Right? And now my dad is like thinking like he just drove for nothing. And I'm like, dad, just wait. And next thing you know, like right when he was contemplating on leaving, this blue SL 500 Mercedes-Benz with the top down comes in the parking lot. And there it is, Teddy Riley. And my light eyes lit up like huge.

I remember this moment so vividly. He gets out the car. and I literally went to go, like, run up to him, and his security guard grabbed me. And Teddy was like, I think he's just a kid, you know what I? And I was just like, Mr. Rowley. I was like, Mr. Riley, I know you don't know me. We drove here from Atlantic City. You heard my music yesterday.

And he goes, yesterday. He goes, yeah, I said, you're in Atlantic City, right? He goes, yeah. I said, I'm the guy who did that music on those three guys. He goes, you drove all the way here. I was like, yeah, I heard you like that. He said, I loved it. And he took me in the studio.

And then he gave me an internship. So every summer I would go to Virginia Beach and study under Teddy Riley. Dude, that's a legendary story. Going from being an intern, even for a legend, to being able to produce your own record and really, you know, jumping into, it jumps to the big leagues. Your first thing is, you know, it's obviously a remix. of the Vanessa Williams song and it changes the game for you, I'm sure,

because then it just sort of proves that you can play. Maybe you've done, maybe you had done some other stuff before, but that seems to be like the first thing that really charts. Well, my dad, you know what it was? My dad was an intricate part of. So, yeah, we were working on, we were buzzing in the industry.

Like people were starting to give me the shots, going to studio with the artists and work with different artists. But my dad, my... Because Teddy was pushing that, or your dad was pushing it? he definitely created a bus. He definitely created like, I got this kid down here and he's coming. Like, he would definitely tell people that in the industry. And they would

come down in Virginia and they would see me and I would introduce myself. But what really happened was my dad my dad had this idea one day. He was like, I got an idea. And I was like, what's up? He goes, what if we started remixing everybody's songs? And I go,

I go, okay, he goes, I think that could be a good way to get you in the doors because everybody back then it was all about the remix. And he goes, you remix a song, but you got to make it better than the original version. And so that's how we really, I started remixing, and they started putting

my remix versions out as the main version. They started shooting videos to my remixes. And it created this kind of frenzy of, you know, I did you know, Vanessa Williams and Pagelabell, and then I did stuff for Bad Boy, for Diddy, for Total

and all these different people. and so people were talking about it. So then from there it was like, okay, that kind of got me started. Even Clive Davis, like, hey, can you remix? I want you to remix this record for so-and-so when I first met Clive. So it was just like, it created this buzz. But then one day I was just like, yeah, these remixes cool, but I have no publishing on any of these records.

I want to own something. And I kind of just stopped doing the remixes for like a while. But I had probably like, I mean, I had at least 30 remixes out, at least. amount of people who believe that they're talented in this business and then assume that because they're close to it, then that means that it'll happen for them versus people who are like, I'm going to remix all these existing songs, probably not get paid a whole lot, you know, and having to go through the work, it just sounds like an incredible amount of work, but then it shows that you work, so then people are willing to give you a shot.

Yeah. The next thing, but it's just so much work. It was, but here's the key to it too. I was branding myself at the time. So all my remixes, you know you hear people talk about, you hear tags like murder beats on the track and all these different tags. I was doing that before anybody. All my remixes back then, I was like, another writing jerks remix, y'all.

That was my tag. I used to put it in all. They said I couldn't do it again, but I did. I had that tag. I had those two tags and I would put it on every record. So that way when it went out, people would know there's somebody saying another writing jerkins remix before every remix. This was before Dark Child was created.

Yeah. This was the government thing on all these tracks. When was Dark Child as a brand created? That's much later. Yeah, that's probably, yeah, I would say I was probably 19, 18, no, about 18 and a half, about to turn 19 right before, when I created the whole Dark Child thing. Why did you feel like you needed to do that? Because everybody had a nickname and I didn't.

Everybody like, you have such a good name, dude. I felt bad, bro. I felt bad because everybody had a nickname and I'm just saying my name. I'm like, we didn't call Teddy Raleigh, Teddy Raleigh. We called him TR. You know what I mean? Like we called, you know, we didn't call Sean Cone. We called them Puffy.

And I'm like, well, what's my nickname going to be? So that, you know, so it was like, yo, you need a nickname slash production. It was a culture thing, man. That's all. You have one of those names. Nobody says Rodney. Nobody says Jerkins. Everyone says Rodney Jerkins.

It's like you get the full name every time. But can I tell you, I just changed my producer tag in the last couple months. You're going to hear a lot of records come out over the next year or two. And you know, Tele Parks, who's, I'm sure she's in cursing. She did my producer tag for me. And she just yelled Rodney. Rodney. And that's it.

That's my new tag I'm using on everything. Beautiful. So now they won't say Rodney Juergens anymore, Ross. They're going to just say my first name. Rodney! We're going to say like that. Okay, so you start, you know, now you get in the room and you're starting, you know, it's, again, it's one thing to get in the room, it's another thing to get in the room with Mary J. Blige.

It's another thing to get in with Monica. You know, the real change and where it's like there's no going back, the train is left the station, whatever is Monica the brandy a Monica song obviously the boy is mine you know

it just then it just becomes nonstop what was the experience of going from yeah I'm playing in this league to having number one records

did you start thinking it was easy no it's never been easy everything happens And for me, it was like, it was the singles and the doubles and the triples before the home run. But I knew the home run was coming because it happened just like that. It went literally from me producing a record on this guy named Joe. And I did this song called Don't Want to Be a Player.

And it was like number four in the R&B charts, right? And then I did Mary G. Blige, I can love you featuring Little Kim. And it was number two on R&B chart. Like in this order, four, then two. And I'm like, I cannot go to three or five, right? I got to go to number one. And then the next record that I did was the boy's mine. And that kind of just like, you know when they say when you, it's like potato chips, like you can't stop eating them.

Like once I got the taste of that in my mouth of that number one, I was like, I can't just have that one potato chip. I need to have the whole bag plus more. And so I got real greedy wanting number ones. And I remember telling my team, I had a team of writers. And I said, everybody was so excited because we was number one with that song for like 13 or 14 weeks. And I remember everybody's celebrating. Each week was like, yo, it's been seven weeks. It's been eight weeks.

It's been nine weeks. And everybody's excited to celebrate. I never get walking in the studio on a day. And I said, yo, we celebrate a little too much because we were so excited. And I was like, and everybody looking at me like, I'm crazy, but being the leader of the team, I'm like, yo, we can't, we can't, we got to put our foot on the gas now. We're here. We're here.

Now the phone is ringing raw. So you know what this is like. You've got the hit. So what you worked for all those years, you finally got the hit, right? So it's, you're either going to continue and keep hitting home runs, right? Or you're going to fall down a little bit. It's up to you at that point, right? It's only up to you because they're giving you the ball now.

giving, they're pitching it right down the middle for you. So it's up to you to crack it, right? So I'm like, okay, we got to follow up, guys, let's go. And from there it was angel of mine, Monica, Jennifer Lopez, if you have my love, Whitney Houston, it's not right, but it's okay. Michael Jackson rock my world. Jesse Child saved my name. It was just like this string of home runs, right?

And it was because we were so engulfed in the zone, right, to the point where I wouldn't even take a vacation. I would not take a vacation. And even when I took my first vacation, Craig Calman sent an artist to Bahamas to work with me on my vacation. You know what I mean? Because I wanted it so bad. I wanted to keep going so bad.

I didn't want to stop. I wanted that feeling again and again and again and again. And I still want that feeling again and again and again. I crave it. I love it. I was going to say, you know, that's so addicting. That feeling is, you know, the work ethic it takes to get there is one thing

and then the work ethic to keep it is even a level up and it's exhausting. It's super exhausting. You know what? I'm glad I did it while I was young on that level because I don't work myself to death anymore. I used to work. There's some really crazy stories about me working in the studio

where I would stay up four or five days and not sleep. How would you do that? And just hitting red bulls like crazy. And there's some crazy, you know, Dave Insado can tell some crazy stories about me in the studio. But now I appreciate the time now. I appreciate my life and what I've done to get to this stage and having the opportunity to vacation and rest. But I will say this is that. What would you say to somebody who's in your, like, if you were to talk to younger you,

my assumption is you wouldn't have changed a whole lot. But what's the advice you'd give somebody who's in your position who's just had a hit, you know? Yeah, I mean, I probably would tell them what I'm saying right now is like, put your foot on the gas. Like, don't let up. I've seen people let up. I've seen people throughout my career get a number one and think that's it. Right? Like, think of this, think about some of the greatest basketball players who were incredible basketball players.

Alan Irises. Al-Irison, one of my favorite basketball players. Killer mentality. Never won a championship. The one time to get there, he didn't win a championship. I believe if he would won a championship, he probably would have won two or three. Because your mentality,

most people who won one, the winners, they somehow get to two. When you think about it, right? They somehow get to two. Like, Tom Brady just got seven. it's here. He's craving it.

He's craving the victory. And he knows like, and he doesn't have to, I'm sure Tom Brady's not doing the workouts that he was doing when he was 21 years old. I'm sure he's not so intense at working right now. I'm sure he's working smarter, not harder. And I would encourage someone who's just getting started to work hard, to do, to work hard, to go crazy because you got time to rest. You got time to chill out later.

You know, a lot of the writers that, or the artists that you named that you started having that string of hits, a lot of them had had a hit before that. That makes it tougher. Yeah, well, you think it's tougher to have somebody's second hit? Yeah, totally. Not second hit, because I don't know if I did. And those artists, I wasn't doing their second hit. I was doing there. Yeah, maybe, I think maybe Destiny's Child, I might have had their second hit or something

like that. But that was their big hit. Yeah, I guess that's sort of where I was going to go next is, you know, that Jennifer Lopez was really young at that point. That was pretty early on her career. That was her first hit. That was her first hit. And same with Destiny's Child, all at the same time.

It really was like defining those two. And that's different in the music business than, you have a hit with Whitney Houston it's like it's hard not to have a hit with Whitney Houston that's not true but like the mentality around a hit for Whitney Houston is like it's Whitney who's driving it not the song and but the mentality

around Destiny's Child or Jennifer Lopez and breaking that starts to become this 18, 19 year old is the juice behind it not the you know it starts to put on a different kind of pressure what was the

a lot of pressure. What was the relationship that you had with the people around you feeling that kind of pressure? Yeah, it was a lot of, it was a lot of pressure, man, because you don't want to be the guy that didn't make the hit for those. That's what I mean. I felt like it was actually more pressure when you had a Whitney Houston, right? Because, you know, you got to remember, I played songs for Cloud Davis for Whitney at 18 and he told me that pretty much get out of his office.

pretty much said this is her. I actually recently found footage randomly popped up somewhere of him listening to the song. Someone had a camera, video camera, and him listening to the song with Whitney Houston that she didn't take, that they didn't take.

What was the song? The song was called something about cheating, cheating on you or something like that, something about cheating on you. And it's incredible to me to watch it because I never saw it. I'm not watching it now. I'm like, whoa, like, this is crazy because she's sitting there with Bobby Brown and Clive. He's playing. I just got this song from

Rodney Jerkins, and he's playing this song, and you can tell she's listening to it and it's not moving her. And to me, it was the greatest song of all time, because, you know, I got a song for Whitney, man. This is it. This is the big leagues. And then, you know, you get that call. Like, you know, oh, no one likes it. You think it's, you know, most people just would feel defeated. In that moment, in me, I was like, okay, I'm going to be, I'm coming back to see you, Clive. Don't worry, I'm going to be back. I'm young, but I'll be back. And a year later, I'm back with, it's not right, but it's okay.

So the pressure for me was, I made, I actually liked the pressure, right? And I would tell everybody around me, like, yo, we got to nail it because of the artist's, their magnitude. The artist, you know, I didn't look at it. I looked at it like, man, if you're about to work with Whitney Houston, you better, you better have a great song with her. You don't want it to get back to Clive and everybody that you, you bombed on Whitney. You know what, no matter what. So you felt that pressure, but you, for me, I like the pressure. Give me the pressure.

Do you still work the same way? Yeah, kind of, yeah. Even though I feel like we don't have those type of artists right now. You know what I mean? Like, we have some good artists, but we don't have those, those artists commanded a little bit something different, I feel. And I hope we get back to like those those type of artists that, you know, those artists that just had those, we have a few out here that's like that. But the artists that had that certain mystique about them and, you know, they just, they were different. And I still worked the same way.

Like, I like, someone called me recently and was like, yeah, I mean, we want you to get in some somewhere. I was like, yo, call me when you're all almost done. Because to me, that's the pressure. Like the pressure to me is, you know, Ross, we want to single. We don't just want to be on the project, but we want to land a single on the project, right? We want to, that's what everybody hears it, right? We want the single. So I'm like, yo, call me when it's almost done so then I can listen to it, listen to what you guys there,

and see if I can beat what you guys. And that's the pressure. Now, in 2003, I'm at my studio on Sunset, and Usher is making an album called Confessions. that sold like 24 million albums or something, right? I kid you not. He came to work with me. He wanted to work with me. So he came to my studio.

And I wasn't at my creative best, meaning like I knew I needed a break. I was burnt out. And I didn't have it. Like, you know sometimes, like, people call it writers block when you're not writing. I just was like, I don't really have it. And I looked at Usher, and when he came in,

I was like, yo, man, I can't work with you right now. And he looked at me like I was crazy. And I was like, it would be a disservice, man. I'm just not there right now. I'm just not there right now. It's so interesting. So many people don't recognize those moments. And songwriters burn out, man.

I recognize it because it wasn't working for me. So I'm coming to studio and I'm like, it's not coming out. What's happening right now? coming out. But it taught me so much about myself. It taught me, I actually learned how to get back into creativity very fast now if I feel like that. You know, how do you do that? So for me, I lay on a couch. I put on classical music. I get out of the realm. I take myself back to my childhood. My childhood was a five-year-old learning classical music. And I go back, that's why when you listen to the boy's mind and you hear those harps and you hear the harps and you hear the

harpsichord sounds on if you have mother. That's my childhood, man. That's what I listened to growing up, listening to classical music for my classical teacher. So I go and I just lay on the couch. I pray and I listen to classical music for like 30, 45 minutes. And then I jump up and I'm back at it. So I don't even believe in a whole writer's block theory.

I believe that we crutch ourselves, right? by not resting our creative properly. Right? We were made, think about it. We were made to create. We were made to create. Whether you want to or not, right? But we were made to create.

Whether it's having children or whatever, whether you want to or not, you're made to create. Right. But if you don't rest your mind properly and do the right things, put it like, here's another way to look at it. This is great for all these up-and-coming writers

and producers, right? This is how you got to view yourself. You and I right now are communicating through technology laptops, right? Probably, I'm sure your laptop is top-notch just like my laptop's top-notch, right? But even our laptops need to be refreshed. When they're getting too much information, they still need to be restarted. And that's, we're humans. We got to refresh ourselves.

We got to take breaks. We have to understand that, that you, you know, Michael, Jackson used to always say, you got to exhaust yourself in the music. And I'm like, what's that mean, Michael? He goes, you got to work so hard into the music that it burns you out. It forces you to take a break. It forces you to say, okay, I got to step away from it from a minute. I'll be back in a week or two.

Reset. Refresh. It's amazing how a few people even recognize how something like classical music or gospel or... listen to Brazilian music, listen to whatever kind of music you want that's different than the music that you're sitting in front of right now because it really does inspire different chord changes. It inspires different emotions. And the truth is the only songs that work are the ones that are different enough that have a harpsichord in it.

Otherwise, everyone else is busy writing that same song that sounds like the last song you wrote. And in your case, like you start to hear your song on the record, radio all the time. It's like, do you start trying to repeat some of the success, you know, by creating the same kind of song at that time? Well, I think what happens is I think you, you, you buy into the height of your own formula. Yeah. And that definitely happened with me several times. If you, if you study my, if you study my career, which is 25 plus years, you'll see, like, my 90 sound is different from my 2000 sound. My mid-2000 sound. My mid-2000 sound is.

is different from my 2010 to 15 sound. My right now on the sound that I'm in is different from all of that, right? And it's because you buy into like, once you make that hit, and the record companies are a big part of this, right? So you make a hit like the boy's mind, and the record companies are telling you they want another boy's mind. And you're like, I can't make another boy's mind, but I can make something that has that feeling, right?

And then you make another record that has a feeling of it. Boy's mind, and if you have my love, is two completely different records, right? But if you probably press play, you probably would know that. If he did that, he probably did this. Because there's certain things in it, there's certain feeling, whether it's in the drums,

whether it's in the musicality, whether it's in the songwriting, whether it's in the melody, certain things that's going to bring you back to the base of what we're doing. I feel like you're part of this generation, of producers that kind of changed the business on things like publishing and

like the entrepreneurship attached to copyrights, the entrepreneurship attached to being a producer. Did you have business partners? Where does that really come from? And do you know what I mean by that? Like I feel like the way that you were approaching your business was not how producers before your generation were doing it?

Definitely not. At the time, my father was my manager, and he was very aggressive. Very aggressive, because I was his son, and he didn't want to see anyone burn me. That's the first thing, right? But he also was super, like, creative, and we would talk constantly about, like,

he would say things like, I'll give you a story real quick, right? Because nobody was doing this, right? So nobody did this. So we were doing a song deal one time with the record company, and it was a 30 song deal. And it was at my top thing for each song, no discounts, all 30 songs, right? And my dad told the record company, he goes,

I also want in the contract, okay, they had a certain amount of platinum artists that they had to deliver to us, each to fulfill this commitment, right? my dad put something in the contract with them that said if they don't give us these certain amount of artists within a certain amount of time to produce then they had to give me a million dollars

bonus pretty much and they didn't so they had to cut a check a seven-figure check you know for something that they didn't do. And so the lawyers would just be like, we never, they would actually say we never did deals like this. We never seen anything like this. And we were, and we were kind of just creating what we thought was, and at the time, he was protecting me, right? Because he was saying, okay, if we're doing

these many amount of songs, I need 20 of them to be on platinum artists. I don't mind him working with your new artists or your, or your gold selling, but I need 20 out of those 30 to be on your top selling artists, because that's only going to grow his brand. And when they couldn't reach the threshold within that year of what they were supposed to deliver, they had to pay for it. And so we created all these different type of business. You know, I think that I was one of the first ones to create, you know, all up front producer fee.

When everybody was getting half up front, you know, we sat down one time and was like, yo, I don't like this half up front thing, right? Because what happened was you would get half your producer free up front, right? And then you may not see your other half, right? Or if you did, it was like almost a year down the road. So we was like, okay, what we're going to start doing is getting 75% of our producers here. So we feel we were closer to the 100%. Let's get 75.

So we made that our thing. 75 produced. 75%. That's the thing. Then once it works. And then we got successful, it was like, you really want us to go on with so-and-so, we need it all up front. And nowadays it's all spec, right?

Now it's all spec. Right. But the thing is now if they want your record, they'll pay you up front. And I think that that's the same kind of thing of songwriters asking for points from labels outside of a producer fee. You know, it's like if songwriters start doing that in mass, then we'll get it. Do you know who created the songwriters fee? when songwriters get paid fees now to write songs.

Do you know who's the first one getting songwriter fees on records? I remember Esther doing it, but I'm sure there's someone before that. Sean Garrett. Sean Garrett. Sean Garrett, Jimmy Ivy. First one, Sean Garrett. And that's what I'm saying. It's like you are writing history.

You're better in your community. Right? I was better in the producer community by changing some of the standards that was, that was, that would, no one was used to certain, certain deals. And now you got other producers saying, wait, Rodney Jerk is going back. I could do it now, right? Yeah. You had songwriters who were not getting fees. And Sean Garrett was the first one to say, man, I need like,

you got to give me 20,000 if you want me to write for you. Yeah. Now you got people like James Funger where they won't even go to the studio without a fee. Yeah. And some people would be like, man, he's tripping. Other people are like, no, that's business. Like that's, you know, if you go to a hotel, you've got to pay for the room. Yeah, and it helps your timeout, you know, three of the biggest writers in one sort of handful. It's like, but some of that trickles down to the writer who gets their first cut,

and a producer gets their first cut. Now we'll get their fee up front because of setting the standards. So it's like, once you get those guys at the top, it's so important for the rest of the industry to start to follow. and for the younger people to demand, well, Rodney gets it, can I get it? You know? Yeah, we definitely changed the game.

For me, for me, I think differently now than I did back then, right? For me, I've learned how important the back end is. So back then I used to think the upfront was the most important thing in the world. And then as I got older, I was like, nah, actually the back end is really where it's at. Like, if you can position yourself on the back end, you'll do way better than the front end. Yeah, take less of a fee and more points.

and take a gamble on yourself. There you go. There you go. You know, you have these ebbs and flows in your career, and there's obviously these moments where shit just blows up out of nowhere. Obviously, telephone is famous because it had, you know, it's Lady Gaga and Beyonce, but it was supposed to be for Britney. Brittany.

And that's super famous, you know. And, you know, then you end up with Black IPs right in their, you know, in their prime kind of releasing. songs and having these top 10 hits. And when you have that having had sort of ebbs and flows, do you start to appreciate it differently? Oh, totally, man. Totally. For me, man, I appreciate the process so much.

I appreciate, you know, there's a, there's an art to reinventing yourself, too. You know, and I appreciate that, I got to say, I appreciate the blessing. of being able to sit back and go back to the laboratory. It's like a mad scientist, right? And you go back to the laboratory, you're like, okay, what can I do different now? Because I've done that, and I don't want to keep doing that. And even though people want you to keep doing that,

you know, I always want to challenge myself, be like, man, could I do, man, can't get, I just can't get enough for the blackout piece. Sounds nothing like the boy's mind. Right. You know what I mean? To me, that's more of a testament to the game creation. As long as you love me on telephone, I almost, they're at, you know,

they're totally different than other stuff, you know, and Bieber at that, that's actually the year, I think that's right when you and I met and first worked together on stuff was around. But Ross, you know what's interesting about this, though. If you listen to telephone and if you listen to the first, first two bars of, telephone. What's the sound that I use? I use the same exact sound that I use in the boy's mind. 20 years later, I did, I wrote telephone with Lady Gaga in 2008. It came out in 2010, I think. I did, the boy's mind came out in 1998. So you're talking about literally 20 years later and I use the same exact sound in the harp. And I just wanted to prove to myself that I could use the same

sound but then put pop and technosonics around it to create something completely different. And I'm going to do it again probably in the next year too, just to prove that I can do it again to myself, that I can create other sonics around that sound. In 2012, I had just started getting cuts, you know, I don't think I'd had a hit or anything at that point. But that was the first time that I started going to your studio and there was all the rooms were going and there were all these people creating music around you.

And there's, you know, you're there all the time. You said some really interesting things that I still like quote you on some shit. What I say, you know? I mean, there was a, I had started getting cuts with a lot of different artists or they were about to come out.

That same year 2012, I think I had Maroon 5 and Nikki and Bieber and some of these other ones. and there was somebody that I had mentioned that I had already had a cut with and you had a cut with and you were like, yeah, but you can only put their name on your discography once.

Like, no matter how many cuts you have with them, you only say like, oh, I worked with Michael Jackson. They don't go through like all the different eras of these artists. And you've worked with so many different artists at different times in their careers and then you kind of go to the next artist. But I always thought that that was really interesting because there's some artists, there's some producers

who live and die by the artists that they're connected with. And you kind of have your own thing and you're just constantly like, oh, I haven't worked with that one yet. I want to work with that one. And I just remember thinking like, oh, that's cool. You know, two are totally valid,

but I liked the idea, if you look at my discography now, it's like, it's all the, so many different people because I just was like, oh, yeah, I've never worked with that person. I want to go there. Not necessarily like, I want to hit up. that guy I had a big record with last two years ago and see what they're up to.

I just always thought that that was really interesting. I don't know if you still feel the same way. I feel the same exact way right now because I feel like it takes, number one, it takes a, what do you call it? It takes a village to build, to sell your sound and get your sound out there, right? But think of it. I mean, you bought a beautiful home and you got this land and you got this land around your home, right? and no one wants to build one tree.

Somebody wants to walk out the house and look at one tree, right? That just makes no sense to me that you got this beautiful home, all of the land, and you got one tree. So you want to build a lot of trees, right? And that's how I look at it. Like, you know, I want to be creative until I can't be creative anymore. And I want it to sprinkle on all artists of all different races and creeds and genres all around the world.

That's what I want to do. I also don't remember if I've ever seen somebody beat up a synth more than I saw it. Like when you play drums on a synth, you play it like you're playing the drums. And those are not the same instruments. But you play a synth, you'll beat the shit out of a synth. I bet you break synths all the time. Yeah, definitely got a lot of keys broken. I always tell my guys, you got to fix those keyboards over there.

It's like I felt like it wasn't secure enough. You just see this thing hop around. You're just slamming on this thing. Yeah. I just didn't realize that you're supposed to play a synth like that. I've always been aggressive like that with keyboards and drums. You know, my brother always said, my brother used to like, I don't consider myself the best drummer, right? But my brother always liked when I played the drums in the church in different places.

He says, yo, you hit him so hard. Like even if you're not the best, people are going to feel it. You're right? Because I just was like, bat, p, p, bat. I was just like hard. But I played in the heavy metal band when I was in eighth grade in school. So you had to be aggressive. So I just like my stuff to, I like my stuff to feel aggressive.

But I think that's what it is. And it's funny because you can hit a drum pad the same way. You can hit it soft. And it's going to do the same thing as you're going like this. but this just makes me feel different when I'm like this, you know? Yeah, I feel like it sounds that way. And then in the end, you're still quantizing everything anyway. So it's like, but I totally get it now.

Your family, all of them are musicians, were they, are they supportive, envious? Was it exciting for everybody to go on this journey with you? Yeah, me, my brother was one of my co-writers. He co-wrote on The Boy's Mind, see my name, Rockmore World. it's not right. A lot of songs, probably 20 hit songs he wrote, co-wrote on.

You know, I used to follow, I used to watch him when I was a little kid create. That's what made me want to create. He was actually the first one into production in the house. I didn't see too much jealousy in our family when it came to the musicianship of it all because my sisters didn't care to be on the music side of it all. Like that, they didn't really, you know, it was more a church thing

for them. Right. But, you know, and me and my brother, we had a, a balancing and all. You know what I mean? We,

we had a balance. Would you do anything differently with your career? Obviously, you know, you're still making music, but you're such a crazy journey and you started so young

that I feel like you'd have advice for you along the way that's different than most, than most producers who like, You know, it's like by the time I had cuts, I was 30.

Yeah, I don't know if I would have ever, like, you know, like creatively, I don't know if I would change anything, like creatively, but I don't, like, when I got, when I was working at Def Jam, for example, you know, there's, you know, a lot of times record companies will, them being a producer to be an A&R or something like, I don't think I would have told myself, don't do that, don't do that. That's a crutch. That's a crutch. Right?

And why is it a crutch? Because I feel like, you know, where we're supposed to be is right here in the studio. making music all the time, not listening in an A&R meeting with 17 other guys in the room, girls in the room, and you're playing music back and forth and, you know, that,

I don't think that's where we're supposed to be. We're supposed to create. We're supposed to be the ones that should be in the studio creating constantly. So I felt victim of that twice where it was like, you know, someone took me to dinner and was like, you know, you would be really good on the A&R side.

And you go in there. And then it's like, you're thinking you can change the world in there, right? You're thinking like, man, this company needs some help. Man, no. The way you help change the company is getting a studio and make music and send the music to put out. That's how you help the company. This has to do with that idea of, you know, you get paid a check.

There are a lot of writers who listen to this too, who are our peers. And how many of them have taken a consultancy with a labor. you know, and it drains the little bit of their life force out of them. Yeah, but you know that's part of the reason why those consultancies even exist is because the label wants them to feel like they're part of their company to get more of their stuff from them, more of their brain power from them. And then what it does, it kind of makes them feel like they're exclusive when they're not exclusive, right?

and now they're giving most of their stuff to just that one company when there's other companies that needs, there's other artists that needs their goods. Man, I want to keep going on this, but I know we're running short on time. So we're going to go to the next segment, which is a five for five. I'm just going to list five people,

and I'm just curious what you think about them. We're going to start with your father. Man, the great man who, if it wasn't for him, investing $1,200 off of his life insurance to get me a, I roll it over here, MPC, not this one, I got a 60 back then when I was 12 years old. He invested $1,200 off his life insurance and get me my first drum machine. If it wasn't for that belief in the fate that he had, that his son would become something special. I don't know if I would even be making music today. Your brother.

My brother was the fuel behind me watching his genius on a local level at our home growing up as a seven-year-old kid and he's 14 and he's making beats. If it wasn't for him making those beats and me seeing it, that's what inspired me. That's what motivated me to want to become a producer. The Grammys.

The Grammys, when I think of the Grammys, I used to, when I came up, I used to think of the Grammys as just this gold statue that everybody wants to win. But now I look at it as an example for me is the advocacy part of it, being part of the Recording Academy in helping push issues for all the songwriters and producers that I care about, that I know that they should care about, educating the writers and producers on different things that we advocate for. So I see the Gramers in a completely different light than I saw my first half of my first half of my. my career. And so I get very involved in that part of going down the Capitol Hill and on a local level, all types of levels with Recording Academy, because I really feel like they really are fighting on behalf of us creatives. Beyond that.

The closest, the closest artist, the closest artist to Michael Jackson from my perspectives. With the work ethic, I worked with them both. And I think her work. work ethic is the closest that I've ever seen to Michael Jackson. Lady Gaga's close too up there, but Beyonce is neck and neck when it comes to work ethic. Joy. The greatest human being I've ever met, the person who changed my life in so many different ways that made me a better man, made me a better father, and taught me taught me. how, what balance was.

Told me to understand. And I'm still learning, by the way. I don't have a downpack, but I'm learning. Like, it's okay to leave the studio at 6.30 to go have dinner with your family. It's okay to take a break and go somewhere for a week and get away from it. She just teaches me so much about life and to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Oh, man. That is like... And by the way, y'all enjoys my wife. Yeah.

It's just that's the realness that's so hard for probably any entrepreneur, but specifically, you know, people who have to, you know, you create an asset from scratch. And if you don't, then no one else will do it for you. And then when you have that mindset, it's impossible to leave that studio. And it helps to have a good partner in this life. Everybody needs a joy, bro. Everybody needs a joy. Like, I've had a lot of number ones, thank God. she's my number one. She's the ultimate, she's the ultimate number one.

Well, thank you for doing this podcast. I know we've talked about it before, but, you know, for on a personal note, man, you opened your doors to your studio to me. I still think, I still think oceans are a smash, man. I still, we got to figure that one out still. Like we, you open the, you opened the door for me when I didn't really know, you know, I was just starting to walk through doors. And you were, you, you were, you. opened it and you kept saying come back and I would keep coming back and I would keep coming back. And it was like, you know, I always have a special place in my heart for the people who believed in me when I didn't know how to, if what I was doing was up to par.

And I hadn't proven yet that I could write hits at that point. And you still open doors. And it's like, you know, from then till now, like you and I have maintained a friendship. And that's been 10 years, bro. Yeah. 10 years, man. It's a decade that I've known you. And, you know, obviously your achievements do a lot of things,

but I'm not the only writer who, you know, started their career by walking through your doors, you know? I appreciate that, man. I appreciate it, man. I appreciate it. And we'll have to have you back when we're all used to running. Anytime, bro. Anytime.

All right, homie. All right, buddy. Appreciate it. There you go. Take care. Peace. Later. This episode is produced by Joe London,

Hypnosis, Mega House Management, and myself. Shout out Paige McDonald, Kelly Fox, Casey Robinson, David Silberstein, Tim Kirch, and Zach Weinstein. See you all next week. I'm Ross Golan, signing off.