And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 217: Rodney Jerkins (pt.2) | The Alchemy of Greatness

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

He believed before anyone else did.Before the Grammys.Before the 39 billion streams.Before Say My Name changed the sound of radio forever.He was just a kid on a New Jersey bus, chasing a dream no one else could see.In this episode, legendary producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins shares how faith, fire, and pure conviction took him from a basement studio to shaping the sound of a generation. From Michael Jackson to Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Sam Smith, Rodney opens up about the mindset behind the music — and why belief is still the most powerful tool a creator has.You’ll hear about the reset that saved his career, the changing landscape of songwriting in the AI era, and the stories behind some of the most iconic records of the last 25 years.And The Writer Is... Rodney Jerkins.Topics:The real story behind Say My Name Working with Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, and GagaWhy belief matters more than talentHow to stay inspired (even after burnout)AI, music tech, and what’s missing from today's processWhat every songwriter needs to know about their valueSponsored by:SONA, DIMA, Amazon Music, and YouTube Songwriters.Thank you for supporting us and protecting the future of songwriting!Produced by Ross Golan, Joe London, and Jad Saad Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's now a good time to be a musician. Why would you ever stop? He's one of the most influential music producers in music history. Rodney, Darkchild, Jerkin. I was actually in the studio producing Beyonce, Michael Jackson, Houston, Justin Bieber. I was in the studio. They were, like, in the booth, and I was the ones to do that again.

And if this is my passion to make music, then I think that I got a good shot. Here's the tricky part, right? There's just so many ears. and so many eyeballs in the world, how do I get to them? I tell you how we do it. What's the lowest part of your career?

True, that's a deep question. I needed to break from everything. I need to reset. Even computers know they need to be refreshed, and I needed to refresh. And that's when I came back and did deja vu. And it was my breath and telephone, and one wish. And as long as you love you.

You can learn to take certain phrases out of your vocabulary. You have a better shy life. Whatever you sow, you shall read. Welcome to And the Writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. Today's 2025 songwriter Hall of Fame inductee is back. He is making his second appearance on this podcast. He invented the sound of an era.

He defined the trajectory of superstars. He mentored some of the greatest writers of the past decade. We discussed a lot of this in our first time around, but we are just getting started. Thank you songwriters of North America, aka Sona, and the fine people at Dima and YouTube music because we are here in front of a live audience

at Amazon Music in Brooklyn, New York. to celebrate songwriters with my friend. And the writer is the incomparable Rodney Jerkins. Good to see you. The jokes on you, all. I'm interviewing you today. Oh, my God. You know, he gives so much of his energy and his time to all of us

and we should be giving it back to him. I appreciate that, man. Yeah, man. You know, from Ocean Blue. Oh, yeah. I mean, every time I see Benny Blanco, every time he goes in the handsomized he and I was like across the ocean blue which is a song I wrote with Rodney and you have to understand this is what makes Rodney great there are a lot of

people in the music business who are trying to find the next superstar that someone else found right before them like they're willing they're willing to put their name on the line as soon as they know a few other people put their name on the line first. And that is not Rodney. Like, he brought me in to a studio before I had, you know, hits. I had some songs out, but I didn't have, like, there's no reason why, we spent a lot of time together. And you didn't have to take that risk, but you did. And you've done that a lot. And so, you know, you can get rewarded a lot this week for the songs that you've written, but you've made careers, man.

Oh, thank you, bro. Thank you, bro. Thank you. You know, in the last podcast, I don't, we don't have to repeat too much of it, but I think it's good for people to recognize that you're just a kid from New Jersey. South Jersey.

That's right. And, you know, it's an Atlantic City, like outside of Atlantic City, a suburb of Atlantic City. Yeah, I was born in Atlanta. Lank City. And I was raised in the suburb of Lank City, probably like 15 minutes west of Llan City.

And I built a studio in Pleasantville, New Jersey. It wasn't always pleasant, right? But it was, but it's just stomping grounds. You know, and so I enjoy going back home every summer for a few weeks just to see that. You go back there a lot? I'm there every summer, three weeks. When you walk into CVS there, people like, People are like, oh my God.

Yeah, it's fun. It's fun, man. It's really fun, you know, that part, whatever. But for me, it's more so just to know, like, the air, the air in which, you know, you breathe and where you come from, it means a lot to who you are. And so the stories of me being 16, 17, 18 years old, catching the New Jersey Transit from Atlantic City to Manhattan, 42nd Street. trying to meet with Bruce Carbone, who gave me my first production deal.

Me and one of my boys from high school, his name was Hodge. And we had a song that we did called Head Not, and somehow my attorney at the time introduced me to Bruce Carbone. And he's like, I love it, Rod. Let's go! And we did a singles deal for that, and then it turned into another deal with Gina Thompson, who's from Violin, New Jersey, which is my best friend right there who, with my phone right there, lives in Violin, New Jersey.

We've been best friends since third grade. And so for me, when I go home, I'm reflecting on that. It's like, man, like, yo, I don't look at buses the way everybody else looks at buses. Right? That bus was my Bentley. That bus was my Mercedes. And for me to get on that bus as much as I did to know that maybe there wasn't, maybe it wasn't a studio with the best speakers in South Jersey.

But there was a kid who had a vision and his little brain of his to make music and know that one day somebody would care, right? Someone would care. And then you get in those offices and you get next to a Bruce Carbone and you get next to Evan Lamberg and Brian Jackson and these different people. And you start to realize, heck, some people care. And that's why I always encourage songwriters to keep writing. Like, don't stop because you never know when that thing is going to just come where. It was like, wow, I got a revelation, I got a vision. And the song that hit me today, it might have took me 15 years to get to it, but I got to it.

Right? I got to it. There's a philosophy that taste isn't something that you teach. Skill is something you teach and that you're born with taste and not everybody has that. And most songwriters, when they're just starting out, they have to, they write that first song, it sucks. They write the second song, it sucks, but they're starting to figure out, man, I know I can write like Rodney Jerkin someday. But I'm listening to my songs and they do not sound like that. So you keep writing, keep writing, keep writing, keep writing until your skill matches your taste.

But your journey is so prodigious. you were creating the highest level of music in the world at such a young age. What do you attribute your seemingly instant success to? It was the opposite way for me. So the way I thought was, my songs sound better than what I'm listening to right now. At least for me, like I would literally have my, I would listen to things.

I was 13 years old and I was doing like local demos for people. And I would listen to my local demo and I'm like, no, I really think I'll tell my brother, I'm like, yo, I think this sounds better than what I just heard on the radio. And, you know, and maybe that was like a high thinking, but I believed it. And like no one around me could tell me differently. No one could tell me like, yo, that sucks. Because I'll be like, nah, it doesn't actually. Like, I believe in me.

And I believe in all of those things. those skill set and all those different things, like I think is really good actually. And it just needs to be heard. So when I look out the window and I see all these beautiful buildings and I see that skyline, I just know that it had to be created. It had to be created, right? So that just means that, man, if it had to be created, then I think I'm an error of whoever created it.

So I must got, and if this is my like passion to make music, then I think that's a great, I think that I got a good shot. Now, here's the tricky part, right? There's so many ears and so many eyeballs in the world. How do I get to them out of the basement of Pomona, New Jersey? Where the wires, you have to go like this. How do I, how do we do that part? Right?

I tell you how we do it. We do it. We'll hold you back. The day that you thought about doing a podcast, you did it. Right? There's no holds bar. It's just like, I got an idea. And the writer is.

And now this is helping millions of writers. Right? So the concept of everything as to what? Dream it. Believe it. And then go out and achieve it. That's it. You're still making music.

I mean, the first song that was on The Real just now was Ray. Are you better now? than you were when you were 16? I'm wiser now. I don't know if I'm better, but I'm wiser. My approach is definitely much smarter. What would you tell young Rodney Jerkins if you could talk to him?

Go to sleep, bro. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. I would tell myself what my brother would tell me. Go to sleep, man. I remember 1999. I'm going out to L.A. to work with Michael Jackson. And I was so excited.

You guys have no idea. Because at 11 years old, I said I was going to work with Michael Jackson someday. So, and I met Michael Jackson through Teddy Riley when I was 16. He introduced me to Michael. And I told Michael I worked with him. And he looked at me and laughed. It said, ha, ha, ha, okay, okay. And fast forward, you know, I got in the studio with Michael.

And I never forget this. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. I exhausted myself in the moment. I could not find sleep. One day went by. I was making tracks. The next day went by, I was making tracks. The third, by the sixth day, my brother said, go to sleep.

You haven't slept in six days. It's time to go to sleep. I said, are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? This is Michael freaking Jackson. Like I said, I was going to, I'm here. He said, yeah, but you will die if you don't go to sleep. You will not make it there.

Yeah. You're here right now. And I said, you know what? I think in the sixth day, I had did 60 tracks, six days. And I went to sleep after that for one whole 24-hour cycle, went to sleep. And then did it again. People say Michael Jackson's really funny in the studio. People worked at them say he's got, had an incredible sense of humor.

What was your favorite moment in a studio with Michael Jackson? I think, you know what, I think for us in the studio was he liked to bet, he liked to bet video games. So like we would bet, like we played pool. And first time I played pool with Michael, he said, whoever wins, whoever wins has to buy the other person, like 20 DVDs. And we were in New York working at Sony Studios on 54th Street. And I just, I know I'm a shark at pool. So I'm like, this dude's crazy. Like, it's not beating me.

And I have this documented, by the way. This is on video. I played him. And I scratched on the eight ball. And it was like 11.30 at night. And Harvey Mason, Jr., who was my engineer at the time, who was also now the CEO of the Grammys, he was with us that night. And so he can confirm.

the store. And Michael's like, okay, we got to go get the DVDs. I'm like, yo, bro, it's 1130 at night. He's like, he's like, okay, and what? I was like, we're not going to shopping at 1130. He's like, yes, we are. And he put on this like funny grandmother-looking outfit. It's changed everything. And we went to, that was when Virgin Mega Music Store was in Tom Square. And me, him, him and Harvey went to the store to shop for these DVDs. And that's just like one goofy story with Michael because that's just how he was. And I was just like, this dude really wanted DVDs that bad? Like, he probably has every DVD imaginable, you know?

But I think it was more about me. I think it wanted to like show me up. You know what I mean? I mean, he won a bet, man. Yeah, he won a bet. Pay up. Pay up. You know, you've been an obvious.

obviously defining a bunch of artists from, you know, from the beginning, Brandy and Beyonce, Bieber, we're here this week, partly celebrating, you know, Songwriter Week started to be really because it was around Songwriter Hall of Fame, I believe. Maybe that's not true, but I just made that true. And so there's got to be some reflection. And when you look back at your catalog, what do you think your impact has, been on the craft of songwriting itself? I think it's been inspirational to others. You know, coming up in the time that I came up, the mid-90s, which I call the golden years.

So it's funny, right? So when I would listen, especially when it comes to R&B, I would listen to radio in that time, and it was really all about baby face. Like there was a time when you really didn't hear anything else about baby face. You're like, man, it's just crazy. It's just pretty much New Jack swinging than baby face. And when the boy's mind went number one, it changed the course of radio. It created a different tempo, a different drive, a different pulse, and it became inspirational.

And what I mean by that is I didn't produce loved love. don't cost a thing by J-Lo, but it sounds like something I would have done. So it started to inspire others and I think that's the beauty of music, right? The beauty of music is when you can create something that inspires someone else in a way that they go back to the drawing board and look at what they're creating and say, maybe I should try some new sounds or maybe I should try and sprinkle this type of thing on top. Who inspires you now? My children.

I love it. I got four kids, two boys, two girls, 17, 15, 12, and 10, and they're all musicians. My son was midnight at midnight last night. My 10-year-old was playing me beats. I assume your advice was, go to sleep. Yeah, after I heard what he did, yeah, okay, cool, not go to sleep, yeah, for sure. But I get inspired.

You've been up for six days, man. I get inspired by it because it's like, man, here it is. Like, of course, he's probably looking at me like, yeah, my dad makes beats. But then I'm looking back like, man, this kid's incredible. 10 years old and you doing this? Right? And I'm just like, man, I told him what I'm like, man, I wanted to be a producer at a very

young age. And I was able to start making music at a very young age. But I'm not even close at 10 years old to what my son is at 10 years old. Not even close. Do you advise younger writers to continue to pursue a career in music knowing the general landscape of things right now? Because it's now a good time to be a musician? Why would you ever stop? Why would I ever discourage anyone to do something that is such a blessing to have a gift that is such a blessing to songwrite,

to make music. I mean, think about it. Really? Make music? If someone would have told me at five years old, yo, yeah, man, you're going to be, you know, making music for the rest of your life. I'm like, really? I get to make music?

It's beautiful, man. I've been here for 24 hours, and I think there have been 600 mentions of AI and the ability to create music without any skill set other than prompting. which I suppose is a skill set in itself. So I don't want to like totally knock that. Yeah. But as somebody who plays all the instruments, when you hear technology working in that way,

do you see it as a tool or a threat? Tool, never threatened by anything. But always a tool. If I was threatened by, I always, this is why I look at it, right? Let me give you my view on it all. I was blessed to see the error of the tape machine. And in the middle of a project, Michael Jackson's actually,

in the middle of the project, we were from tape machine to Pro Tools. Okay? Pro Tools became a quicker tool for me to be able to accomplish the same thing that I was doing with the tape machine. It was just quicker. So when I look at AI, I see it as a quicker tool for me to utilize. It's not going to replace me because I'm too good to be replaced. Well, and because you were born with taste. With taste.

And no AI, at least not now, I can't tell you with the future holds, but I can tell you, no AI can't do what it does without us. So if you have to prompt it, you have to, it has to be able to be utilized by us still. It just doesn't wake up and starts making beats on its own. It doesn't write salt, it just doesn't work that way. You have to do all, still do the work, right? So I encourage people like, okay, yeah, we will evolve and time will go, but don't get, it twisted.

Like you guys, the songwriters, you have something in here, something in here that's that AI doesn't have. That's all. It's just a tool. It's absolutely tool. And I'm going to just go off on a second on the tape machines. My first record deal, we recorded to tape, which meant you had to be rehearsed. It meant you had to write a song, play it, make mistakes, fix it, it, sleep on it, go back, rehearse it. And the songs would get better over time. By the time you got to a tape machine, you better be rehearsed. It was way too expensive to just show up at a studio and record the master the same day that you're writing the song, which is what we do now. I tell all my writers this. So this is like my free advice is don't send out your day of demos.

You have to be able to go back the next day and beat what you've done. Everybody in here who writes or knows somebody who writes, the next day they always wake up and then they fix the mix, and then they send it out the second time to people being like, hey, no, no, listen to this mix. They're not going to listen to that mix. That will change your career just like that. Yeah.

When you work with, you worked with Beyonce at a really young age, watching her trajectory, how do you feel the start of her career affected where she's at now? I mean, we kind of knew going into it. The first song I ever did with Beyonce was with Dusty Shial was called St. money. And you kind of knew in the room when you're doing it, you know, it's like every choir has a leader. You kind of knew like, oh, there's the leader, right? And it didn't mean that the other three in the group at the time weren't talented. It was just that you knew that she stood out. Her control in the session or what she wanted, the things that she wanted to do, you knew

with something there, right? And we all knew. We actually talked about it. We're like, oh, when she goes solo, it's over. She's going to be, you just, you just know it, right? Just like, we felt the same way when I worked with InSync about Justin. You just fill it in the room. And I'm sure people, the producers that produced the Jackson Five felt the same way about Michael. You just know it. I think it, it was, the trajectory, I think it was, it was exactly what it was supposed to be from the gate, from the beginning, from the first day that it was ever, the group was created everything. I think they all knew like 20 years down the road, she's going to be way up there. And she put a lot into it. Now, I remember the transition. I worked

with her from the group and then I also worked with her on her solo project. And when we did deja vu, I even saw a different Beyonce than was in the group. And I saw someone who had, I saw someone who really came into our own as a solo artist. And I was like, whoa, like, you saw the difference in literally a few years' time. There was a big difference. Is Dejavu where Beyonce met Jay-Z? No. They were together before that? No, I heard they met on a video shoot even when she was in Destiny's Child, baby before that. That's what I heard. Yeah, that's what I heard.

You said your first song in the row with Destiny's Child was, say my name. How do you write, Say My Name? Oh, so I was in London working with the Spice Girls. And after our session was over, they took me to this club. And at this club, I heard this interesting style of music, which was called like Garage Two-Step. And I heard it, and it just, the inspiration happened, right? I'm like, I don't hear this in America at all. I'm like, I gotta take this back to the States.

And I remember walking up to the side, went up to the DJ and I said, hey man, I'm leaving to go back to the States tomorrow. You think you could make me like a CD to listen to on the plane. And he was like, yeah, I got you, bro. And I gave me this, came and gave me the CD. And so I get on the plane and I'm flying to L.A. Because I had a session, my session in two days was with Destiny's Child,

which I didn't even know who really Desny's Child was, to be honest, right? They only had like one song out before that called No, No, No, or something, right? So I didn't know what to give them. I just knew that I was inspired by the sound. So I'm flying and I'm listening and I'm studying and I'm studying the rhythms and I'm studying all the intricate details of the patterns and why it's moving this way. Why is it skipping these beats and why does it feel like it's, you know, in the upper hundreds verses where I was used to doing stuff like this. I'm, you know, the boy's mind is right here. If you have my love is right here. Everything I'm doing is more like this.

So why is my, why am I going there now? And so I get in the studio, before I could even touch a piano or anything, my songwriter partner, LaShawn Big Shiz Daniels, was in the lounge on a phone with his baby's mother. And they always argued, always. This was not new. This was something that always happened. So I'm walking into the lounge and there they are arguing again. And I'm just listening to Todd, kind of like sitting there.

Sessions about to start. No one's there but pretty much us. And I hear LaShawn say, now mind you, they're not even together. Okay, let's keep that. That's just understand this. They just have a kid together. They're not together. But I hear LaShawn say to her, well, if no one's there, then say my name, say my name.

And it's like the bold, light bulb, just. And I said, hang up the phone. Hang up the phone. It's like, what? Say hang up the phone. I got to go. I said, say my name, say my name. That's it.

Let's go. And we wrote the song, Say My Name. That's a good song. We can go to Dejave. I mean, that was a big hit. Good job. Thank you. How did you write DejaVue?

I was really challenged for DejaVu by... Max Goose gave me a call her A&R at the time. And he goes Beyonce's in the studio in New York. I just want to let you know, we're looking for, you know, some music, some records or whatever. And I said, what's the vibe? And he's like, you know, she just wants some energy. She wants some energy. So this producer slash incredible bass player, John John, was at my studio.

And him and I got in my car. We drove to 7-Eleven, which is literally two to three minutes from my studio. We drove to 7-Eleven. I'm in my car and I'm listening to Michael Jackson's. don't stop until you get enough off-the-wall album. And I'm listening. I looked at Josh and I was like, yo, we got to get in the spirit

of that for Beyonce. And I went back to the studio and I started playing this groove on the piano. The melody's in the piano. You can listen to it. And then John picked up the bass. And then it was over. It was really that simple. And then we had

Macciba and Delicia, different writers in the studio and everybody started rushing. Like whenever anybody hears like music that's inspiring, everybody bum rushes the room. Everybody bum rush the room and then next thing you know, deja vu formed. And then I went to New York to play it for Beyonce and like she was writing the video treatment as I was playing it. Like that she was like, no seriously like I was like playing it and when it went off she was like, yeah, I see the video, I see, then I want to put Jay on it and that and I was like, yeah.

So when she says she wanted to put J on it, you know it's a single. Like that's what you're shooting for, right? You're like, you're hoping you get the single, right? And soon she said, yeah, I said, yeah, we got J. Okay, we're good. That's also a good song. The, you, you know, we started about talking from tape machines to, before we go back to some more songs, we're talking about tape machine going to Pro Tools.

You've seen consumers go from CDs to MP3s, CDs to LimeWire, to MP3s to streaming. How has the development in consumer technology change how you write music? Oh, definitely. I mean, I think the technology, when I think of someone, of those songs, like you just pointed out, some of those songs were like leaning into the five-minute mark. And I think when technology started to form, we started finding ourselves like, oh, we got to come down a little bit on these time stamps, right?

Four minutes starting to feel too long. And you start listening to other things, like, oh, well, oh, this phone is out and this is out and people kind of want to hear songs even shorter. I was working with Ray a few weeks left, a few weeks. ago and she was like, I just want to do some seven-minute songs, right? Cool, let's just do it. But I think how technology forms, even like, so just just hear me out for a second why, again why people have to be wise about AI, right?

So for a long time, think how long it took for everyone to have the phone. Like an Apple phone, like a lot of people have Apple phones. I bet you, like I said, raise your hand in this room, probably 95% this room probably has Apple, right? But think how long it took for that to happen, right? Now, like with AI, think how fast it's happening, right? The adoption of AI, how fast has happened. And when technology starts to form, and us as songwriters, we do have to say, somewhat think differently, right? Because MP3s, I used to hate it in the beginning.

Because I was like, man, my quality is missing. Like, I'm not hearing it the way I know it's supposed to sound. You're supposed to hear my music a certain kind of way. I feel bad that in the last 20 years, so many people have been robbed of the joy of what a tape machine truly brings. Right? Like, what that sonically really? really means, I think people don't even know now. And I think that's why when someone discovers something from 30 years ago, they're like, whoa, why just, it just sounds so different. Oh, that's probably one of the reasons, the sound quality, right?

But we've been shrinking things to fit into technology. We're shrinking it constantly, shrinking it, shrinking it, shrinking it. We got to be careful that we don't shrink it till it's no more. Got to be careful. Because a few years ago I was in the car with my daughter. And just not a few years ago, she probably was about six or seven. And I noticed a pattern. We're in a car driving.

And every song that was playing, after one minute, she went to another song. I literally was looking at it. I was literally clocking it. And I was like, okay, I'm seeing something happening. And I got to, okay, this Gen Z world, I see what's happening. They hear something for one minute. and their attention spans switches to the next. And that's why we have the TikTok generation.

Now, mind you, my daughter wasn't on TikTok. This was just a natural response to music. She'd be like, I can't wait to hear the song. I play the song, Daddy. Put the song on it in one minute later. I can't go go to that other song. Like, oh, snap. Like, she's not even listening to the whole song.

She's like an ANR person. You said it. I didn't. You wrote telephone. It does look at some. Thank you. Lady Gaga featuring Beyonce. Yeah.

That's the two most powerful singers maybe of that entire decade. How does that song come together? It comes together through the genius of Jimmy Ivan. Because the genius of Jimmy Avine decided that he wanted Lady Gaga and rock. to write for the Pussy Cat Dolls. So I'm in the studio every day with Lady Gaga writing for the Pussy Cat Dolls. And then one day I get a call from Larry Rudolph, who was Britney Spears manager, and said, I needed something for Brittany.

And I said, Gaga, I just got a call. You want to go do something for Britney? And she said, yeah, let's do it. And we get in the studio and I start playing my infamous harp sound and next thing you know, telephone forms. And then Brittany came to the studio to lay it down and we didn't like it. And I worked with Britney since like the 90s and for some reason this was the right song for her. And two years later, Gaga calls me up and she goes, remember that song we did call telephone?

I was like, yeah, she goes, I want to do it, I want to put it out. It's like really she's yeah, but I want Beyonce on it. You think we get Beyonce on it? And I was like, yeah, let's try and do it. So I called Beyonce and she's in Japan. And here's a key part about this. It had to be done that night in order to make Gagas deadline because she told me literally the day before.

So Beyonce says, sends me the song. I sent her the song and she goes, I can't do this. And I said, why? She goes, it's too techno. It's too techno pop sounding. And I was like, give me 20 minutes. And I went back in and I redid the beat for the second verse. Flipped it a little bit to fill more her, sent it back to her.

And she says, send me the file. She was in Japan. And then she cut it and sent the back. It's wild. Yeah. I mean, considering also where she ended up two albums ago, that when she's like, ah, that's too techno. Hey, nothing new under the sun, right?

I think I had something to do with it. No. One of the fun things of watching Rodney Jerkins in his studio is how many broken synths they're on the floor because he plays a synth like it's a drum kit and it's still not a drum kit but he'll play it like it and he'll just, they're just broke, there's synths with keys missing. They're just all over the place. Nothing better.

Nothing like breaking a keyboard, man. My brother used to, my brother used to playing church. I kid you not. My brother, I kid her, I get it for my brother. He used to play so hard, like so hard, his fingers would be bleeding in church. Like, they had to bring him, like, they bring him tissues and fingers would be bleeding. So I saw that as a young, I was seven years younger than him. I see that, and so I'm like, er-h, hur-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h.

You know, try to break the-old. But you have soft songs, too. I mean, stay with me. It was all right. Yeah. Kind of soft. That was a big song, too. Kind of huge.

It's not like all the other. songs you have. No. How does it feel to have a hit that is out of the ordinary from other songs that you've done? I mean, it's a beautiful thing, but, you know, it comes from the people who, you know, created the song, right? So Dan McCarroll, I was at Capitol one day, and Dan McCarroll said, we got this song called Stay with me with this guy named Sam Smith that we're trying to get.

right, he goes, I keep sending it, I've sent it to four different producers and no one has been able to capture what we want. And he played it for me. It was just piano and vocals. And I said, give me that song. And he said, what are you going to do with us? I'm going to take it to church. And I remember, like, the first thing I did was get to my house and I told my engine, I said, fire up that B3, I'm going to hop on that organ. And I had never fired it up in my new studio of my house. So it was like, fired up and I'm going to get on that B3. And that was the first thing I did. And then it was just more about what a song that good,

you have to be very careful. With that song, let me tell you, I don't know if there's any producers in this room, but the art to producing is to be very careful. When something's good, you got to make sure you compliment what's good and what's great because you could easily overproduce and take away from it. And I was going that route in the beginning.

And it goes back to what he says, like, don't send the song in at the first demo. I was working on it and working on it and building. And then I'm like, nah, we got to strip it back. It's starting to get. We're losing the song now. We're losing the song. It's starting to sound like Rodney's song and not Sam's song. And I started to strip back the layers and started finding what I thought was the ear candy that worked for it.

And then I sent it. And then Dan said, you nailed it. You nailed it. send me an email thanking me. He was the A&R over in London. He sent me an email and I said, see you at the Grammys.

That was my response. And he responded, he said, from your lips to God's ears. And then literally like six, eight months, I saw him later at the Grammys. You have 19 Grammy nominations. I do. Thank you.

I didn't know that. You get that from like AI? Like, who told you that? I don't know. Whoever wrote the notes? No, AI is... Like AI, like AI is really cool though because like the other day like my friend like no this is truly true.

I don't know if you guys are like Muso .a or something like like I don't be checking that type of stuff right. So I have a team. It's my team right here from, they're from Sweden actually called Chapter 2. You guys should look up Chapter 2. It's really dope for songwriters to know about your songs and what the value of things are, right? And that's what they do. I had somebody the other day called me, he's like, yo, you know you have like 39 billion streams.

I was like, how do you know that? Like, I don't even know how many, any of that stuff. He's like, man, go look up yourself on music.comboos. And I'm like, that's where AI works. Because now what we could do is, which we couldn't do before, check this out. Now we can actually see what the value is that we really have. So when you guys are building catalogs, you get with a company. like chapter two and they show you the data, right?

And be like, yo, this is the true value. A lot of us don't know our true word, our true value. Right? That's frightening, man. It's real frightening. I'll tell you why. Because what happens is the other side, they tell us what they think we're worth. Right?

They said, oh, yeah, you had some hits here, you did this. And this is what this says. And then the company like them says, no, that's not true. This is what it's really worth. This is what your value truly is. And they show you with that graph and what that really looks like. You're like, oh, yeah, I like this. And everybody needs that.

Every songwriter needs to know their true value, their true work. Every songwriter. Are you an aspiring songwriter right now? I am. Want to make a song? Yeah, I do. You get a keyboard. We do it right now.

This would change this conversation. You know what we do? It's early today. We go to studio right down the block. I mean, my family's in L.A. right now. Hey, you know. And the writer is live sessions. Like, that could be the next thing.

Hey, I'm, I didn't say no. No, I think it's one of the things that I always say about the podcast genuinely is when I was younger and my mom used to tell people like, oh, what's rostering in L.A.? And she's like, well, you know, he's a struggling musician. I was like, no, I'm just a musician. And what the whole point of this podcast. podcast is to show that we're all struggling musicians. I don't care where you are. Like, not every session you do is a hit.

You know how hard it is to get a placement. Do people really know that? Do people really know how hard it is to get a placement? Right? No, no, think about it, right? Someone says, oh, yeah, dual leap is working on a project and we're looking for this type of song. You know how many songs are being created to try to get to,

that project alone. And then the ones that produced her and wrote for her before are always going to get the first opportunity and look. So the one who might have something really special might not even get a chance to be heard because the line is too long. The point of entry is too much now, the days. It wasn't like that in my coming up time.

Right? because it was specific. Like they knew who they wanted to hire. They knew who they wanted to get. These are the two, three, four, five people. We're going to do this project and that's it. It was just that simple. Now it's like, I hear so many about like 200 people trying to, just two that I know, 200

that's trying to get on this same project. Man, this is crazy, you know. But that's why it becomes really rewarding when it does happen, right? And that's what makes it exciting at the same time because it's like, Like, dang, word, I got that, I got on that project. It's like a thousand people trying to go on the project. We must have really did a good job this time. And that could be for an album track.

I mean, that's the part that's, you know, that's hard to explain. I'd say if there's one obvious part of technology that's been difficult for songwriters, is that those songs that weren't say my name, weren't deja vu, but we're on those albums, massively valuable. And now you get, you know, you get that 10th song on Thriller, you're set for life. You get your 10th song on that Duolip album, which is phenomenal and huge. And, you know, you're not set for life. You're not even set for a year.

Yeah, and that's why we have to keep on as writers. We have to bond together to take a stand against this. because it's just not fair. There's no reason why I should have a billion streams on a song and I might be able to pay my apartment note.

That kind of like doesn't make sense. The whole idea of it doesn't make sense. One thing that I have been advocating more and more about is to have fewer songwriters on a song. No matter what we say about it, That was a pound if you're listening and you didn't know what I just did and you heard everybody laugh. It was really loud.

We just didn't have the mic on it. Give him a pound. But people don't recognize that the dilution of a copyright is maybe the most detrimental thing to the songwriting community. Because it's normalized now to giving out percentages to people who are not songwriters. and that is not normal and that will not stand and songwriters will eventually stand and say we are not going to give publishing

to the guy who just showed up. Yeah. Like, you can't have it both. If you have a billion streams and you're one writer, you're okay. If you're Diane Warren, if you're back in, you know, you're fine with your one writer.

But you are not if you're one of eight writers. Ross, let's speak on it real quick. Okay? Well, I can speak on it because recently, you know, my team in Sweden and I remember Jonas telling me, he's like, man, you got 50% on like every song you do. I was like, yeah, well, I created 50% of every song I did, right? And let me speak to this. Technology has ruined that art form. And I'll tell you why.

It's called Share Ring Files. So, I was actually in the studio producing Beyonce, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston, Justin Bieber. I can keep going. I was in the studio. They were like in the booth and I was the ones. Do that again. No, no, that's flat. That's sharp.

Do it again. I was in there. Now technology says, hey, can you send the files? Because I want to cut it tonight. Well, well, let me get on a plane. and then we can cut it to, no, I want to cut it now. Tonight, I want to get this, right? So now what happens is your work has went out to whoever it is, right?

When it goes out, that person might be like, yeah, I think the verse could be, let me send this to Ross. Can you write the first verse on this? I feel like the first verse is strong enough. Now mind you, I don't even know this is happening. So then Ross strikes the first verse, sends it back. The next day, you're like, how's a song? You're like, how's a song? I'm still working on it.

Then they're like, you know, maybe we should tweak it a little bit more. Then they send it somebody else. Or I like his second half of the first verse. Am I right, wrongs? So after two, three weeks later, like, yo, guess what, bro? Like, what? You got the placement on that artist's word? Dobe, I can't wait to hear it.

Then you get it back and like, dang, it's a little different. And then this time, this is when you have to have the realest conversation. the publishing splits. And then the publishing splits say this. Three, five, four, ten, six, five, seven, twelve, twelve, forty eight. And you're like, whoa, when I sent it, it was literally two people. Now it's like seven or eight people on the record. And I'm being kind by saying seven or eight, by the way.

Because if you don't believe me, just check the charts and you'll see where you see multiple names like 13, 14, 15. Like, how does that even work? Like, is someone so scared to go with it that they feel that just one word has to be written differently by somebody else? Like, I'm trying to still figure it out. And the only thing that I keep coming up with is the power of sharing the file. sending it out to multiple people. And then it keeps going, it keeps going. And then finally it comes back and everyone's, well, I did that, I did that.

I did that word. That was my word. And then intern in the studio. Now, I actually said that word. That's what happened. One of the tools that songwriters can have is to say, fuck you. You can't have that song.

No. And tell me how many times you've heard that. Tell me. I mean, I've, I, I, do you haven't? You haven't? Don't stutter. Well, you know, it's weird, you know why? Because I can write a song by myself.

I have the skills. This is, this is what I think heard songwriters. I think the minute that I was called a, the minute that I was called a topliner. I'm not a topliner. I'm a songwriter. Who started, can I ask a question? Who started the whole topliner phrase?

I never heard that until like, I want to say probably like 2011 or 12 was when I started hearing that phrase. I never heard that. People kept saying that. I always heard like, no, we want to put you with the songwriter. I want you to work with this songwriter. I want you work with this producer. That's all I heard.

I never heard that one time. And then now I hear that more than I hear songwriter. It's more important, you know, these are the things of defining who we are as a community, but going out there and saying, no, I'm a songwriter. I can write a song by myself. I can write all the lyrics. I can write all the melodies. It doesn't mean that you should.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't collaborate. But the skill set to be able to write and produce a song, whether it's, you know, the production doesn't have to be as good as a Rodney Jerkin's record. Doesn't, the song doesn't have to be as good as, you know, whoever. It's, but the idea that you have the skill set to do it means that when I go into a room, if the producer doesn't show up, I can sit at a computer and I can do a beat. And if the, you know, the artist is like, I don't know how to write lyrics. I can write lyrics.

I can write the melody. And if I want to write a song alone, I can do it. And there's a reason why it's called songwriter and not like verse writer or voice writer, like song in entirety. Yeah. You know, we're talking about one of the things I think about a lot, especially when I talk to somebody who is, you know, I'm so excited for Thursday to get to go up and be inducted in the Hall of Fame. The reality is that I had a conversation with Allie Willis at one point who, you know, wrote September and the Friends theme. She passed away a few years ago. And she said, no, you shouldn't ask about the hits. should ask about what happens between the hits because that's when the hits were written. No? What's the lowest part of your career?

True. That's a deep question. The lowest part of my career. Man, I don't, it's hard for me to answer that because I don't live in that space. That's an answer. I know how to get back up. I don't live in a low spirited frame of mind. Like I'm always, let's go.

Let's rock, let's go, let's get it like it don't matter. So the lowest part of my career, I will say would be it would have been 2003. Okay? And it was, and it spilled over from a lot of long sessions with Michael Jackson. I exhausted myself so much until I couldn't create. I couldn't hear. I was like trying to find it. You know how you're able to try to find something?

It's past writers' block. This isn't writers' block. It's not that. This is like, like, where am I type thing. And I never forget, the lowest part was this, from a career perspective. Because I don't, like I said, I don't get low. But this was it. Usher came to the studio.

He was working on the biggest album of his career called Confessions. He came to meet with me. And he said, yo, came and played me like five songs. Like, yo, we got to work. We gotta do a song together for the album. I said, I can't. Which is so unlike me, right? Because I'm the one that's going to, like, give my all.

I said, I can't. He's like, what you mean, you can? I was like, I'm just not in that space right now. He said, what? I said, creatively, I'm not in that space. And what it was was like, I was just burnt. I needed a break from everything. You ever need to just break from everybody and everything?

I needed to break from everything. I need to reset. Even computers know they need to be refreshed. And I needed to refresh. And that's when I came back and did deja vu after I refreshed. And it was my breath and telephone. And one wish. And as long as you love me, I refreshed.

So you did have a little moment, man. And you got yourself out. Yeah, got out. You don't stay in your funk. You got to get, you got to get, you know, like, you did a little moment. Like Leah said, dust yourself off and try again. Like, you know, the thing was, is like, you have to recognize what you need to do. And for me was a lot of times, and I might have been there even before, but I would work myself through it.

I would know how to work myself. This time was different. I needed a break. I needed a break. I needed a physical break from everything. I needed to just stop for a second. So I took, you know, some time to myself and kind of just reset. And when you reset, what's interesting about the refresh, the reset, is that you start

to hear things differently. So now I'm always about new sounds and evolving and trying to find out of the first sound. I couldn't hear a fresh sound when you're in that space. So now once I refresh, it's like, oh, now I'm hearing like, I can actually hear the birds seeing outside. You know what's crazy, like with nature, if you go outside and just, if you're loud and you're busy, you don't hear nature. But when you refresh, now you start to hear like, y'all, those birds are chirping kind of nice over there.

Like, wow, like the rain sounds really good. And it starts to open up everything else now. Now we can create again. Let's go. Yeah. Do you ever see yourself retiring? Of course. Why, not of course.

You? Of course, yeah. I don't see you retiring. Yeah. What are you talking about? I didn't say what I was going to retire. This is not what I thought you were going to retire from. You didn't let me.

Okay, go ahead. Okay. I just don't believe you, but go for it. No, okay, okay. So you think you could retire? Listen, I see myself, and I believe I've been doing a great job of this for, for at least 25 of my 30 years, I feel I've been doing a great job at this. I've been doing a great job at seeing other people's ability and talent.

I've been doing a great job of being able to nurture and develop other talent. So I could never retire from that. I think my future would be what I don't want to ever be is. You ever see rappers who are still rapping and they're like almost 60? I don't ever want to be that. Like I just don't want to be that. I just don't want to be the person where like, you know, we might have to get the wheelchair. And like, there's people like that, by the way.

There's people that I look up to and they still be wanting to do studio sessions. I'm like, nah, you don't need to be doing a studio session anymore. Like, you've really done it, right? I don't want to be that. But what I do want to be, I want to be in people's lives to give them wisdom and to give them hope of what they can become if they just keep pushing themselves and be able to give them some knowledge on how to get there. That's all I mean.

Retiring from going in the studio every single day of my life? Absolutely. Absolutely. Like I have children, I have family and I love my children and family. So as I want my children to succeed in life, so if it took me to stop, if my 10-year-old says right now, Dad, I need you to stop making music because I need you to focus on me, I'm done. So I know what that means, right?

Right? Thank God he hasn't said that. Hopefully he doesn't. But for me, it's more about like, how can I give back? How can I help writers succeed? How can I help people see that they have a value that they might not know they have? How can I tell people that your unreleased songs are going to be worth more than even your release songs? All those different things.

I'll help you focus on... on the kind of people you've developed in the past. I don't think we've had, I don't know if we've had a guest that has had three different protegees as guests on this podcast. Really? That's cool. Which ones? Dima.

Yes. Tommy Brown. Victoria Monet. They were all, this is so great. They were all sharing an apartment together. If you haven't listened to Die Mile episode, you should do that. They were all sharing an apartment together, going to the studio with you, and pushing each other. Like, I think the group I came up with in the business, there was a lot of healthy competition.

We do writing camps. We be in the studio all the time. It's like, oh, no, I'm going to write the best song that day. That's, to me, one of the things that's really hurt the music business, why I like that I have a studio as multiple rooms, is that when people write alone in a room, they forget who they're competing against. And there was a really talented writer I met with in Nashville, who's the best writer in his school right now. It's like, that's great. But you're not competing with anyone at that school.

So until you're writing 20 songs better than I'm writing, finish school. because your competition isn't the people at school. That's right. It's the people who are out writing songs professionally now for 20 plus years. And when you're in a studio where you can walk in like the old hit factory or whatever, you can walk down the halls, you're like, oh shit, they're doing that album right now and that artist. I got to go in that room and write a song. Now I go in that room and I'm saying, I need to write a song that's better than any song that they have there.

Because I'm going to go before they're done tonight, I'm going to walk this song over and be like, I need to play you a song. And that competition is just gone. That's what I miss the most. If anything I miss the most is that part right there. That's where we flourish. Anybody that has a competitive nature knows it's like, you know, you get up for the fight. You know what I mean? Put me in a room, put me in any studio at any time of my career, as long as it's multiple.

multiple people in that studio and watch what happens. Yeah. Let's go. Like, that's what we long for. What's it like to see the success of your protege? It's amazing. It's funny because I got a text, I got a text from Tommy Brown the other day. And Tommy Brown texts me as BMI plaque of the boy's mine for Ariana Grande.

It says, I got mine too. Right? That's sweet. Even though mom's better. But no, that's no story. But, no, I'm just playing. That's just a competitive side of me. But no, and I love it.

I think it's, I think it's amazing because I remember, like, D. Mile coming to my studio in Jersey from Brooklyn at 15, 16 years old. And like, it could be, it could be play music, okay, that was cool, man, have a good day, or it could be, nah, you stay in here, like, you got it. You got it. Like, we just got to develop it a little bit, right? And so when I see, whatever you sow, you shall reap. That's scripture.

Whatever you sow, you shall reap. So if I sow into these young lives, then I believe we're going to reap the benefits of hearing great things. And so I continue to look for young talent. One of my guys, Spacey Kay right there, who is the young talent that I love. so much. Because, like, I want to see it, I want to see them flourish and get to that, just to the pinnacle and know what it feels like, right? And then, and if we could be part of that experience for them, man, it says, this is

a blessing, bro. It's a blessing. It really is. I think that the part of being a publisher that is, especially, creative publisher. So you really become part of the musical education. The whole thing is just connected in that way. Are you going to church? When? I don't know. I have church. I mean, your dad's? I have church. Yeah. No, I'm serious. So every two weeks at my studio, I take my lounge, I have a lounge and I turn it into worship service. I set up the organ. I set up all a lot. And

And we just get in there and we play music for like two hours. We pray together and that's it. And we do it and it's a beautiful time. It's a beautiful fellowship. We feed the people and we laugh and we just have an incredible thing. You know, I don't consider myself anything close to what my dad was coming up, having a church or whatever. But I just think that God has been really good to me, bro.

for my whole entire life has been really good to me. And I don't, I'm not taking it for granted. I think I took it for granted for a while, but I'm not taking it for granted anymore. Like tomorrow's not promised. And so I just want to be encouraging to other people as much as possible. I mean, music in church is really the family business. I got my whole sound from church, by the way. Everything you saw on that video earlier came from me being in the, being in the family business.

church. I used to run from my church to the studio. When I was working on Brandy's albums, my studio was right next to the church, like literally. It's like 50 yards away. So I would like be in church playing something. I'd be like, well, that sound good. And I run over to my studio and lay it down. Seriously, like a lot. So, you know, I always, I believe that's part of somewhat if you want to really get technical. I believe some of the problem that I've heard, heard amongst music is not having enough people that came from church recently. Like there was a moment in time where like everybody was like, yo, came, D. Mile came from church. You know what I mean? Like, they came for church. You hear it. Like, I hear it. When I hear certain

music, I'm like, I hear that musicianship. I know what that is. I know what it is. You know what church is? Like, from a musician standpoint, it's tough. It's tough for a singing. It's tough for a fingers on choirs. It's like you don't want to call it a competition, but a lot of times they be in there competing for real. And I remember me being kicked off the drums. You know what I mean? Times I got kicked off the drums, bro? You don't understand how many times I got kicked off the drums because I wasn't able to keep up with some of the fast music that was going on. And they're like, get them off the drums. Get songs or get them back on the drums. That's the beauty in it. And it made me get back and sharp in sharp and

helping myself, get tighter because I didn't want to be kicked off my own mother's choir. It's so embarrassing. Do you make all your kids play, quote, real instruments? Oh yeah. They all have to play two instruments, even though my oldest son, who's a golfer slash piano player, he thinks golf is his second instrument. All my kids have to play two instruments. I had to play piano growing up. So me and my wife created a house rule, like play two instruments. But piano is necessary. So they all have to play the piano, which they all do.

And then my oldest daughter, she plays guitar and cello. And she wants to start taking the bass. She plays piano. My youngest daughter plays violin and piano. And my youngest son, he plays cello on piano. It's fucking awesome. It is. It's a blessing.

Do you guys have a, have you done family recordings? We have something really special happening really soon. Ooh, my kids, very soon, very sooner than soon. And I'm excited about it. Any more elaborating on that? Um, no. Just have, thank you, Buzz. You just have to see it.

Thank you for doing this podcast again, man. Why wouldn't I? You're lost, bro. Why wouldn't I? Thank you. Thank you. Why wouldn't I? I mean, look, before we finish, you know, I...

It's one of those things where the same thing. Teddy Riley opened the door for you, right? You know? Like, you had... He's opening the door for me this week, too. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Thank you, Teddy.

You know, like, we... a lot of us, you can't underestimate how valuable quality mentorship is. Just knowing that somebody says, keep going when you play them that shitty song, and they said, now that's not it, do another. That's not it, do another, because I know, I know I see more. And, man, you were just, you were one of those guys for me where it's like, I walked in, and I was like, I don't know, you can beat that. And the fact that you knew which song right just now, you sat down, that we wrote that

song 13 years ago, it still hasn't come out. It still has value. It still has value. Yeah, it has value. It is. And I just want everybody know that, you know, if you can learn a turk, if you learn to take certain phrases out of your vocabulary, you have a better shot in life, right? So it's like, for those who like to constantly use the word can't, maybe just take that

apostrophe that T out, remove it. And every time you want to say can't, just say I can't. And I think you'll see your life start to get better if you just speak positive things in your life, not only in your life, in your family's life. Sometimes, you know, families get separated, broken in different things, and it's all because of disagreements and all these different things, right? But if you start to be positive about it and be like, we're actually going to be okay. Like something is going to happen where we're going to get together again. We're going to talk. We're going to songwrite again together.

We want to be friendly. You start talking positive and I just believe things start to change and good things start to manifest. But if we live in a space of the apostrophe tea, the can't, I won't, all these things and we'll never see the real possibilities of what we can really be. we're really destined for it. Everybody is destined for something great, and sometimes we just got to dig a little deep and find it. And I'm glad that I've found it early, and I'm glad that I've been blessed enough to be able to hopefully encourage and inspire other people's to find it. And you're helping everyone find it, by the way, man, man. Everybody give up for my man Ross, because what he's doing is, is the platform is allowing us to be able to speak freely.

And every time I watch, I learn something new, right? And I love that I can keep learning. And so I'm blessed him to know Ross and know that he has a platform that's here to help everyone. In all facets, too, not just the songwriter, but executives are here, producers are here, like managers are here, catalog specialists are here. Like, you know, you bring them out and you give us the nuggets and the jewels that we really need in a very simple, unique, honest way in. So, thank you, bro.

You're welcome. Thank you guys so much. There you go.