And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 248: Rogét Chahayed | From Pianist to Sicko Mode, Kiss Me More & APT.

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Today's guest is a prolific producer behind Sicko Mode, Broccoli, Bad at Love, Kiss Me More, Laugh Now Cry Later, First Class, and APT. — but whose real story isn't the catalog. It's how most of those songs happened by accident.A classically trained concert pianist who spent his teens grinding through Liszt and Prokofiev knuckle-busters, Rogét quietly became one of the most important producers in modern pop and hip-hop — and almost none of it happened the way he planned.This is one of the more honest conversations about what mastery is actually for — what happens when a decade of preparation collides with a 9pm pull-up, a stock preset, and a flute sound turned on by accident. When the world keeps rewarding your simplest moves, who do you become?And The Writer Is... Rogét Chahayed!In this episode of And The Writer Is, we go deep on:Years of grinding Liszt and Prokofiev — and a first big check from four major triads on a fluteThe three-week run in 2016 that produced Broccoli, Skywalker, Bad at Love, and the seed of Sicko ModeThe Mr. Miyagi era under Doctor Dre's right-hand man — and a pajama meeting at Dre's hidden studioSicko Mode — made on a stock preset in a closet-sized vocal booth — and the moment he heard it open AstroworldKiss Me More — a 2-5-1 with a walk-down — and what jazz school actually trained him to doCo-executive producing Jack Harlow's album from 4pm to 4am for a year — and how First Class came togetherAPT. — the song he forgot about until Bruno Mars mentioned it at a friend's barbecueAnd much more...Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Every week, we go deep with the most interesting creatives in music.Follow us on socials: @andthewriterisA special thank you to our sponsors for making these conversations possible.Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.Chapters0:00 Intro2:12 "How does a classical pianist come up with the chords for Broccoli? By turning the keyboard on."4:24 The 9pm Yachty pull-up and the original Korg stock piano6:35 Hearing his flute everywhere — Macklemore, Drake's Portland7:50 The early break that taught him how the music business actually works13:39 "I believe in the good of the business — we can be the generation that watches each other's backs"15:59 Lebanese father, Argentine mother, and a meet-cute at a gas station17:00 Why his dad named him Rogét19:35 Discovering jazz at 15 and the chord that opened the world up24:14 College, hip-hop, and reading liner notes for Scott Storch and Ryan Leslie33:30 Telling Eastern parents he was leaving Juilliard-track for hip-hop37:03 Getting kicked out, teaching 25 piano students a week to survive41:45 The Mr. Miyagi era — Mel-Man, strip-club errands, and getting hazed46:17 The pajama meeting at Doctor Dre's hidden studio50:08 His Lebanese dad hearing Broccoli on the radio52:17 NMPA54:36 Bad at Love — the beat he made and forgot57:50 What is a songwriter? Rogét's answer1:01:28 Skywalker, Hit-Boy, and the arpeggios that became the splish1:04:00 Sicko Mode: a stock preset, a closet-sized vocal booth, and Travis pulling up1:07:08 "Drake comes in and says 'Astro' and I lost it"1:14:23 Laugh Now, Cry Later: a Big Sean intro session to a Drake single in a month1:18:15 Kiss Me More: "the perfect riff" — a 2-5-1 with a walk-down, sped up1:23:15 "Genius comes out of editing" — Miles vs. Dizzy and what jazz actually trains1:24:54 First Class and a year co-EPing Jack Harlow's album from 4pm to 4am1:30:39 APT. — the song he forgot until Bruno mentioned it at a barbecue1:36:04 What he'd tell a 16-year-old version of himself in the Valley right nowHosted by Ross GolanProduced by Joe London and Jad SaadEdit by Jad SaadPost Production VFX by Pratik Karki Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I spent years of my life suffering, learning how to play like classical music, knuckle busters, and then the first big song, my first big check, was literally... I didn't even know what songwriting or publishing or anything was. Somebody's job is to walk in the room and make the most amazing riff ever. I want to be a part of that somehow. There was like this three-week period where I made broccoli, what would become Skywalker, what would become bad at love, and what would become sick of more. Talk about like hitting the lottery.

Do you start feeling pressure? My dad sat me down outside. He's like, look, I'm going to help support you. But you have to be the absolute best. And then Drake comes in and says, Astro. And I fucking lost it. This isn't not happening. People are going to tell you you're crazy.

People are going to tell you all sorts of things. But you use that as fuel. You will find yourself eventually at the right place, at the right time. What's something that you played on but didn't really get credit for? We basically got robbed. What happened was... This season is presented by NMPA, the National Music Publishers Association.

Champions of songwriters and publishers everywhere. Welcome to Anne the Writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. Today's chord master is a sound designing guru. This musical architect has crafted major modern pop smashes and hip-hop evergreens. He ain't the loudest in the room, but the room ain't lit without him.

because if one thing is true in the music business, it's that you can't teach taste. And the writer is The Tasteful, Roje, Cheyhaia. Thank you. Ladies and well done. We wrote once together. We did. Do you remember that?

That was probably like, what, like 2017, 2018, maybe with like Lewis the Child. Yeah. Scrillix came through out. That's right. He did. Sonny did come by. That is a wild session. I was thinking about that the other day. I was like, I really want to hear that someone has a balance of that somewhere.

Somebody does. We're going to find it. How does a, and we'll tell your story in a second, but how does a classically trained piano player come up with the chords for broccoli? By turning your keyboard on and telling the engineer that I need sound, It was literally just me kind of pressing it just to make sure the sound was on. What? Yeah, that's how it happened.

It's a crazy story, actually. Wait, you have to explain that. I will. So, like, literally, the guy just like, you're just like trying to get audio, and then you just are, that explains why it's just like major triads. Yeah, it was, it was like, we had a session that day that just working on, on drums album. kind of like finishing up songs that were already started and then as I was packing up drum runs back into the room and he's like yo he's like Yadi just called and he's about to pull up and it's like 9 p.m. and I'm like we've been working for like you know eight hours whatever and I was

we were exhausted and he was like could we just like do one more idea? I was like yeah why not so I'm like setting up the keyboard and you know like we had a different engineer come by that day and like later on coincidentally like I had a friend coming to drop something off and he happened to be a pro tools expert and I was like yo like I need you actually to stick around and help us out because we got a Liyadi coming the original engineer left so he was like okay yeah and I'm like just turning back turning my cord keyboard back on and I'm just you know the original sound on there that when you turn it on right away is a piano like right when you turn that keyboard on like stock sound is just a piano sound.

So I was just like playing like this. And I was like, can you please let me know when it's on? And when he turned it on, it was literally the, you know, that's what was happening. And then the other producer in the room was like, yo, what is that? He's like, send me that right now. Gets the piano over to him,

the engineer gets the piano to him. Then he starts putting the beat together. And that's just how it started, basically. How many cuts from the first eight hours of that session. Yeah, how many, like, did any of the other songs come out? I believe there was, like, one song that we worked on, I think it was the song on his album,

on Big Baby Drum, his debut album. It was called Monticello Ave. We worked on that. We worked on, like, four or five songs that day, just, like, adding things, finishing stuff, and then Broccoli just happened. Did you know when you were done with it? you know, here you are like probably trying to flex a little bit throughout the other sessions.

Then here comes this piano part. Did you feel like, man, that's a smash? Honestly, I didn't know what was going on. It happened so fast. It was like a blur. Like, you know, once the piano and the drums were on there, a drum came back in, you know, came back up to me and was like frantically like yelling this melody to me. He was like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

And I was like, like, I didn't even really think about it, but my, like, God or somebody took my hand and just put it to a flute sound on my keyboard, and I played his melody on the flute. And Yadi was sitting in the corner and gave us like this nod and was like, that's it. Did his verse in 20 minutes. Then drum gets on the mic

and starts rapping about broccoli, about a vegetable, about rolling up weed and making it all happen. And I'm like listening to him do it. And I'm like literally like, what is going on? Like, is this seriously happening? And the night we left the session, I remember playing it back in the car with my friend.

And I was like, there's something here. I don't know if this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever made or if this is like one of the hardest songs ever. And I would play it for friends and play it for, you know, my homies. would be like, yo, this is a smash. Like you have a banger. Like this is crazy.

And I was like, okay, like, let's hope so. Do you find yourself after a situation like that trying to replicate the situation that created it? You know, it's funny because a lot of people, I feel like after that song came out, I was sort of hearing little broccoli's, like little like sort of, you know, inspirations or renditions that were, you know, songs that literally had like a plucky, bouncy, like,

keys sound and would literally be featuring Liliotti. Like, I Spy. And I think McElmore had a song called like Marmalade or something and that had Yadi on it. And I was like, and people were hitting me up like, yo, do you have any more like ideas like this? And it kind of felt like, you know, I think somehow it made the flute kind of come back in like, like a cool way because I started hearing other songs like there was like that Drake song Portland that had like a little flute in it. There's like a bunch of, I was just hearing flutes everywhere.

And I'm not saying I'm responsible for it, but I'm like maybe it's a timing thing or I felt kind of cool actually to be like, yeah, like I guess people really like that, but it's really hard to replicate that exact moment in time. Well, it's something that you played on but didn't really get credit for. well there is an album called to Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar and basically what happened was I was working with one of my close friends Wes who's like sort of you know the guitar version of of what I do so he was guitar I was keys and we had been brought into work with a producer that was working on a project of his own

So we go to this guy's studio. This is around like 2013, 2014. So like after the dr. Like during after the dr. Drey days the Dr. Drey of days I was involved in. We went to this guy's studio for a few weeks in L.A. And we were making like these crazy like kind of acid jazz.

Really like experimental records. And we were like, okay, cool. Like we did that. We were there for two weeks. we made some beats. We run into the guy at a show. And he's like, oh, he's like, yo, I got to pay you guys for that session. And we didn't know, like at the time, like I said, I didn't know about publishing.

I didn't know about producer. I didn't know about anything. Just like, how do you get paid? But I was like, oh, this is how we get paid. You run into the guy and he wants to pay you. So he invites us back to the studio and basically has us, you know, he's like, this for all the beats we made for my project. He's like, we're going to have you sign this thing. And the paper said something along the lines of like, you can't collect royalties.

You can't collect publishing on these songs. And I'm like, these are weird ass beats anyway. These are like things that are never going to be on the radio or whatever. And we were just like, cool. So he gave us like $2,000 cash each. And we were like, yo, we made it. You know what I mean? Like, yo, like look at this.

Like we got like paid cash for beats. Like this is sick. Then, fast forward about a year later, Pam, a Butterfly comes out. Everyone's been talking about this album. So I'm like, comes out, you know, put on Spotify, whatever. And I'm like listening to the album. And there's a song called For Sale.

And literally, it was one of the beats that we made where like all these keys are coming in and all these. And I'm like, wait a second. That's us. So I call my friend Wes kind of freaking out like, yo, like, do you hear this? and then we keep playing the tracklist, and then there's a song called You with a question mark, and the beginning of that song is also one of the beats we did. So two of the beats that we did with this guy end up on this album,

and we're like looking through the credits, not even musician credit, nothing. So it was like we basically got robbed. And it was like heartbreaking and also exciting at the same time because it was like, if our shit is good enough to be used on this, that must mean we're good. Like, that must mean something. So I was trying to look at it in a positive light,

but I was also like, I don't want to be part of this industry. I don't want to be like, this is messed up. Like, people are going to be winning Grammys. People are going to be making money off of our hard work that we wrote and produced. These are our sounds. These are our, you know, this is like our creation.

So basically, I just sort of used that opportunity to post. I was like on it went on Instagram and I was like yo I you know worked on these songs onto Pimba Butterfly and that caught the attention of who Greg Katz who is now my manager and has been my manager since the beginning of my career and he sort of gave me the ropes and was like hey like I'm going to explain to you how this works I know you're upset I know you probably want to you know go after this or try and like like, you know, claim stuff on it, but he's like, I think the best thing you can do is just keep working, keep working hard. And funny enough, like Greg introduced me to Imad, who introduced me to Dram, brought me to a studio session where Dram was at, and that's how I met. Drum, and that's how Broccoli happened. So a really bad thing turned into something really good because I kind of just kept my head down and kept working. Why is the advice not to go after the credit?

I think there's something about the hip-hop world where lawsuits, it's kind of like, it feels like you kind of like don't want to be that guy. You know what I mean? Like you could, but I feel like a lot of people, especially at that time, and especially since I had the history with Dre and like that was like an aftermath of Interscope release. He's like, it's going to get back to Dre. It's going to get back to Kendrick. It's going to get to all these people. They're going to see your name. They're not going to know what really happened.

They're not going to be like, well, what's his story? They're going to be like, screw this guy. Like, you know, I'm not speaking for anyone, but saying like in general, you're just like, you see, you know, I've been a part of songs where like people come out of the woodwork and they're like, this guy is claiming he, that's his 808 pattern or this guy is claiming this. And you're just like, I don't even want to think about it because you weren't there. you know so the one thing that's specific to instrumentalists that's different than if you were just a songwriter is there are unions right so like afm could be like hey he played on this and we're going to make sure that we collect neighboring rights and some of this other stuff without having go through like a whole thing i'm going to find you some money the predatory part of the music

business gives it a bad name and i believe in the good of the business business and we can be a generation of people who watch each other's backs and actually like care for each other. Yeah. Because in the end, I'd rather be in your shoes than any, you know. Right. It worked out this way for a reason. And, you know, one really bad situation, which is another thing of advice I would give to people is can turn into a million good situations if you really try to look at it the right way and be like okay like yeah your music did get stolen you're you're you're on them you know you're on like the masters of the song you're on like your chords and your writing is on this song but you know I tell the story to so many people

I've told it to so many people and they're like oh you think that's bad like wait till you hear yeah right you know and I know you've had so many amazing people on this on this you know on the show and like just so many of the big producers that I've talked to it's like and those were actual hits too like I'm not saying you know those songs that I that we worked on weren't like they didn't end up becoming like big charting songs but they were part of a monumental album that was like a part of hip-hop history a part of history in general so it knows it feels good to know that like deep down I am a part of that culture and that kind of made me realize like me and my friend that worked on it like we are involved in this and we always know that it's like our little

secret you know what i mean our little like thing that we share and it's like moving forward you know i actually ended up meeting kendrick in a session because i was working with baby keem and randomly kendrick showed up and just came into the room but i didn't mention it to him i never would because it was just like it's so far in the past that you know look at where look at where these situations got me to now and I'm so grateful that it happened the way it did. So shout out to the universe or whatever. Put that scenario together. All right.

We kind of jumped all the way to, no, that's a good thing. You know, we jumped to 2016, but the first time you played a piano was a lot earlier than that. So you're from L.A. You're a Valley native. I am born and raised. What are your parents like? My parents are very special people. My mother is from Buenos Aires, from Argentina,

and my dad is from Lebanon, grew up in Beirut, and they met in the early 80s at a gas station. What? Yeah, in L.A. My dad was working at a gas station, and my mom and her sister, after my aunt pulled up to the gas station. My dad saw my mom and like went up to her car and started like, you know, wiping the windshield

and pumping the gas for her and like giving her a smile and they just like linked up. And like they couldn't speak English either. Like my dad spoke Arabic. My mom spoke Spanish and all they knew was like hi. The name Roge. Explain why Roge. Well, I asked my dad and I was like why, you know, I'm just. curious why did you give me you know i love my name of course but why did you give me a name that's so

hard to pronounce and spell and understand and he was like my mom basically told me the story that you know when she had me they were you know they were thinking about names and i guess he was very set on i want to name him roge i want him to be famous one day you know i want my dad is actually you know not professionally but he's an incredible musician he's a singer he sings in arabic and And he plays the dervake, which is like the lap drum. And, you know, I think his dream was really to be a musician. And I guess he sort of passed that torch to me. Like, I want you to do this, you know.

And he's also the reason I got into music. Tell me that journey. And you have siblings too. So, you know, what is the musical journey of somebody who grows up in a family that's so international? all well um my i have four younger sisters and yeah at the time that i started playing piano i only had one younger sister i was seven and she was four her name's chenelle and literally one day i'm i walked down the stairs and i see like two or three dudes moving an upright piano into my living room and i'm like looking at my parents looking at my dad i'm like hey what what is this dad he was like

oh, I got you a piano, and I signed you and your sister up for lessons with the lady down the street. Were you naturally good at it, or was this something you had to work at? I had zero interest in learning how to read music or learning music theory. I thought that part of the lesson was always so boring. I would always space out, but I had a really, really good natural technique and muscle memory. So the way that I would learn pieces was I would just copy my teacher's hands. and we would work on like four to eight measures of music a week, and I would just master that little part of it.

And by four or five weeks in, we had a full, like, little piece learned. And over time, I just got a little bit better at, like, you know, being able to play a little bit more difficult pieces. But I would just watch her hands and be like, oh, she's moving like this. I wouldn't even really know what notes I'm playing. And then as I got older into my teenage years, I was like, I actually started realizing like, oh, C major seven is really cool. Or, oh, this is like, you know, keys and signatures and things like that.

Did you find that interesting once you started learning it? Or did you find it to be a chore? I actually found it really interesting because around the time I was about 15 or 16, I discovered Bill Evans, the music of Bill Evans. Yeah. And, you know, I think it was, I forget the name of the piece, but it's like a, It's like a theme. It's like a...

I forget it. It was like this little piece. He plays the same. It's like the bass notes. Obviously it sounds better on a piano. But it's like a C or a G and a C. And then these C major seven and a D minor seven chord. He just basically solos over the whole thing.

But I was very fascinated with the textures of the chords. So I picked up a jazz theory book. And I learned. sort of the major sevens, the minor sevens, the diminished things. And I started inverting them. And I was like, wow, it's crazy that there's, like, you could play C major seven in like 10 different ways. And that sort of began to open me up to just the entire world of possibilities

musically. Yeah, it's really interesting because to go from kind of regular piano lessons, if you will, to getting into jazz. So much of jazz is about inversions. And this gets really dorky. So, you know, for those who are interested in this, you know, what makes seemingly really simple chords interesting are how you, like the inversions.

Like, can you explain, can you show a little bit of like what we're talking about? I mean, I think, you know, obviously a chord is, it's like choral. It's like voices, you know what I mean? So you have at least two notes, but you can put up two. you know, like you could put up to like, however many notes you want in there.

But the basic way was kind of like if I have, you know, a C major seven, which is just C, you know, C major triads, C, EG, and then you have the B on top, you know, doing something as simple as putting the bass note lower already gives it a little more space and breathing room, or if you move it up here, it kind of gives it another, it's still the same chord, but it gives it like another, color or flavor rather.

And then you can even add a 9 in there, add a D. And, you know, so I used to kind of float around and kind of just be fascinated with just arpeggiating the chord. And then as I got a little more into advanced theory and things like that, I'm like, oh, wow, you can really, like, you could put, like, any note of the chord anywhere you want. So if I took, if I, let's,

say I took the second note, which is E, and put that in the bottom and put the order as E, C, G, B. It sounds different, but it's still C major 7, but it's just got a completely different texture to it, you know. And I feel like voicings and things like that are really important when you're, especially when you're working with songwriters and or even just writing ballads or whatever it is. It's like where you put the chord, where you put the voices is really going to sort of affect the performance and give room or takes room away from, you know. Because, you know, a lot of singer-songwriters kind of just know the big. of piano, like, hey, like, which is all you need to write a good song, you know, playing, like, you know, all you need is, like, to learn the triad and move around. But if you learn how to keep all the voices sort of close together, it's a little bit more, like, I guess it's just a better way to give that space to the singer, writer, or whatever.

When you get involved, when you get excited about hip hop? I feel like I was exposed early to, you know, like Dr. Dre and I think still Dre and the 2001 album came out when I was like 11 or 12. And I remember, I mean, my parents used to be very strict about you can't listen to anything, parental advisory, no rap, none of that. So I'd go to friends' houses and their parents didn't give a shit. They were like, oh, yeah, like, you know, Eminem blasting. Cypress Hill and all this, you know, limp biscuit. And I loved it. I was like, you know, I was really like, it was just the music of that time. But as I got older, I think it was my second year in college. I had, I went to school for music. So I had some friends that were, I had this one friend that

was an opera singer. He was studying opera. I was studying piano. But he was like super into to just, you know, like Lil Wayne and Drake and Nikki Minaj and like just really good rap, really good hip hop, and he would always be playing me stuff. And he sort of gave me like, you know, I asked him one day, I was like, yeah, I wonder who's playing like all the keys on these songs? Like, who's playing this riff on Still Dre?

Who's playing this, the keys on these, you know? And then that's when I discovered Scott Storch and like Farrell and, you know the Neptunes and and um mike elizondo i started i went to tower records and bought the like when they were still selling CDs what a time but i would read i would just nerd out and read all the linear notes and i'm like scott storch scott storch mike elizondo my and i'm just like trying to find out everything i know about these guys because it sort of came to me when i was in college like okay somebody's job is to walk in the room and make the most five

most amazing riff ever and it was sort of that time that I really started digging in oh I'm like learning more about like timbulin and and uh Ryan Leslie and like I watched the YouTube video of Ryan Leslie making those beats it was like the most iconic thing and I was like this is this guy's job like this is what he does he just walks in there playing all these chords all these major seven minor sevens whatever all the chords that I love and putting it together and I sort of just, you know, develop this fascination and obsession with like, with hip hop and like wanting to be a producer

or wanting to be just involved somehow, not even like, I didn't even know what songwriting or publishing or anything was. I was just like, I want to be a part of that somehow. There's this quote I saw Steve Jobs talking. This is about hiring people, but he's something like, I've never been able to teach someone to work. hard who doesn't want to work hard, you know, some version of that.

Yeah. And there's like, I feel that way about people who work in, in, who, who love songwriting. There are people who want to be famous. Then there are people who are obsessed with, oh, I want to know who's writing on these songs, how it's done. I want to learn about the music theory. I want to learn how to record it. And like you, that person is someone that is, that's someone you can see having a career. The person who's like, you know, wants to be in the room, that's fine. That's a separate thing. But the person who's, like, obsessed with, you know, who's producing it, who's playing the keys, who's doing that stuff.

At that age, you find that person now, and you can bet that person will figure it out when they're, you know, in their 30s. And they're like, they've been doing it at that point for 15 years. Well, I think it sort of stemmed from, because I was studying classical piano, I was in school to be a concert pianist, essentially. And my professor at the time, who was a great teacher, he really changed my whole approach to technique and piano playing. But I would play like a crazy piece by Franz Liszt for him or by Chopin. And the first thing he would tell me is like, what do you know about this? piece what do you know about what list was going through in his life at the time and i was like i don't know and he's like well go read about it and come back to me next week and very cool yeah so you know all these

pieces and all these compositions have such deep you know meaning behind them and stories and these composers were you know not normal people like you if you really like look into the life of mozart or list or rachmaninov they really all went through so much and each piece is like, you know, a timestamp of what they were like going through, whether it was like their country was going through a revolution or they were having some kind of insane affair or some kind of, you know, inspired by some literature. So I was very fascinated with that. And I think that fascination bled into my love for hip hop and being like, okay, like,

who's today's version of that? What are they going through? How did they start? What was their journey like? Yeah, Franz lists things interesting. because, you know, Lysomania, which is a song that, well, what's that group called from the French group? You know what I'm talking about? Just looking at it.

Oh, Phoenix, Phoenix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, Lysomania is like what, you know, Barry Manilow went through in the 70s, what Bieber went through in the 2000s. Like, he was so famous. he was this tall, handsome, brilliant piano player who would tour around Europe and was like a long line of women. This guy was like a massive womanizer. And like I think it's one of those things

where if you don't know the music history around these people, then you don't like, it's one of the things that bothers. Well, we'll get in interpolations in a bit. But like that whole era, you know, even after that, 50 years after that, when this is again really dorky but like when ravel and chikovsky are taking the same refrain and playing off each other and it was like an homage to each other it wasn't like you're ripping me off and so i'm ripping instead it was like it was like this love amongst musicians and this support

and not like a litigious you know this is pretty close to what i wrote one day so isn't that instead it was like oh cool that's what i wrote like i love that you're like Thank you, you know. It was respect. It was also a time when music wasn't recorded. Right. I mean, if you wanted to hear the music back, then you had to learn it. Yeah, yeah.

Or somehow find out when Beethoven was performing or List was performing and travel. I don't know how they did that. They had like newsletters or whatever. But what a lot of people don't know is that List actually invented the recital. What? He did. I didn't know that. He was one of the first people to be, he was the first performer to be like,

I'm gonna play a bunch of my own stuff. And I'm also gonna throw in a little Beethoven. I'm gonna throw in one of my homies' works. Oh yeah, Chopin, that's my boy. He just wrote this nocturn. I'm gonna throw that in there too. And he would go and he was like, like you said, the big celebrity, the like the rock star of his time.

And you know, women would like fight over his like cigar butts or like his like, like the gloves he would like throw like into the audience after and literally like they would contemplate suicide after seeing an experiencing list and being like that was probably the height of their like because he was such an electrifying guy and performer but he coined the the recital coined the term and that that's just something insane i'm like you invented the recital like who are you there was a there was a part of a music history book I read when I was in college and it was like the first part like the first page of this music

history book and it talked about standing outside of a house and listening to somebody playing piano inside and described like how beautiful was to listen to this music and what you realize is like if before the gramophone before editing creates you know the what we think of as a record player or wax or whatever the only time you ever heard music is if you played it. Yeah. That there was no, there was no, you know, we're so used to music being in cars, which obviously didn't exist at the time, elevators or restaurants or whatever.

And you can compartmentalize this audio magic of recorded music. But in most of history, you had to be able to play music to hear music or you knew somebody played it. But if you were, you know, you'd be so fortunate to walk by a house where someone was practicing inside. Right. Otherwise, it was silent. Yeah.

The world was silent. You heard wind. That's crazy. That's crazy to think about. You know, like this is, we're in an industry that's so nascent. It's such a baby industry. And we think of it as like the way things always have been, but it hasn't. This got, again, I think a little far from where we are in hip hop.

But I think the idea is like we've, we've progressed from, you know, Beethoven's fifth and, you know, I think those first recordings are like olding, Zine and, like, and jingle bells. And, like, he's like old 19th century and earlier records were the first things that were recorded. And only 100 years after that, less than 100 years after that, you have, like, NWA. Right, right. Like, less than 100 years, you go from people, you know, less than 70 years from, like, you know, Louis Armstrong to NWA. So it's like

where we're at now is still so baby you know trying to explain hip hop to your parents and that you want to get further into that. Was that a weird conversation? Oh, it was were they disappointed?

It was not a good time. My mom sort of has always been like supportive of what I wanted to do. My dad, you know, like most Middle Eastern parents are kind of like, you know, are you going to be a doctor or are you going to be a lawyer? And initially my interest in wanting to be a concert pianist was something that my dad supported. And he sat me down outside.

And I was like, look, I want to like, I found out you can go to school and learn how to do this because I really got more into around the same time I got into the music theory and jazz. I sort of re-fell in love with classical to an extent where I was like, you know, I remember watching the movie The Pianist and there's that scene at the end where he's playing the Chopin First Balad in G minor and gives this dramatic performance and the guard like saves his life or like lets him live. It's like this whole thing, but I heard that piece and I was like, I just want to learn that piece. So I learned the whole thing and it was definitely too advanced for me. But I just spent an entire. month practicing like 12 hours a day even when my family was asleep I put the mute pedal on the piano and I would just quietly like like again master those eight to 10 measures a day and by like a few months I had the entire piece under my fingers and then I ended up like auditioning for some music schools Juilliard Manhattan School of Music I got rejected by all of them except for San Francisco Conservatory so I I got a scholarship there and my dad sat me down outside. He's like, look, I'm going to help support you. I'm going to help you, you know, go to school.

But you have to be the absolute best. Like, I want you to be the best. I'm not going to settle for anything less. Otherwise, I'm taking you out of that school. I'm not going to help you anymore. And so I had his support. And obviously, you know, I'm in school. I'm in college.

I start listening to rap. I start listening to, you know, falling in love with hip hop. and I sort of started coming back to L.A. a lot to play shows with groups and go to the studio. And my dad was kind of like, what are you doing? Like, why are you out so late? Like, you should be practicing right now. Like, you've got, like, you know, you've got exams and you got concert coming up and this and that. And when I got, when I finished school, I sat down and talked with him and was like, listen, I want to come back to L.A. for a little while and just kind of like figure out what's going on because there's something.

really exciting going on. I feel like there's something special happening with music that's not classical music. And he, you know, I was like playing in groups with rappers and like working in the studio lay and he sort of caught on to it and he did not support it. He was like, I think at one point he told me to just move out of the house because of my lifestyle. I was just always out until two, three in the morning. Like, you know, I'm in the studio or I'm hanging around people. I'm at shows. I'm doing this and were there other parts of your life that were not you know is there drinking drugs anything like that that got yeah there was you know i think he found like a like a little um you know the little weed canister thing i think i just like tossed it in the trash at my parents as and like he'd found

it and was like that's it like i want you out of here so i had to figure it out and it sort of taught me like at the time that I was you know trying to make my name and like working with people and going What year is this? This is like 2011. Yeah, beginning of 2011 my day job was a piano teacher.

So I was teaching piano to kids and you know teenagers, some adults. I had like 20 to 25 students a week. So I was teaching, you know, it was good money. It was like, direct money and on the side i'd be doing like jazz gigs anything anything that was like hey we need an accompanist to play and like anything that involved the piano or music to make some money that's what i was doing but like after all that stuff was done at night i'd be going to the studio i'd be linking up with

friends i'd be like any opportunity i got i would you know just to be involved with either being in the studio or playing live, I just was there. And my dad was not about it because he's like, where's the money? Like, where is the, like, you know, where's the sustainability in this? Like, how are you going to have a future? Is there sustainability for a piano player that isn't working in pop or hip hop? Honestly, it's tough to say, I think nowadays, one of the most difficult, things you can achieve is to become like a professional concert pianist that makes a living getting paid

playing concerts and concertos and things like that it's like the amount of repertoire you have to know by heart is very demanding it's technically physically demanding i think it's damn near impossible to make a really good living as just a piano player which is something i started realizing at the end of college, I was like, most of these people are just going to be teachers. And no offense to people that that do that, because that was my path at one point. I wanted to be a professor and teach piano and a university or whatever. But I just, even the faculty at my school sort of saw my grade slipping and they realized, like, it looks like you got like bigger fish to fry. So we'll just pass you and just go back to LA and do your thing. So from 2011 to 2016 and broccoli, what's the

what's the version? How do you get from, okay, I'm about to get kicked out of the house, I'm doing all this other stuff to like finding yourself in the room, you know, some of these other rooms? Well, it really started in 2013 was the year I met a singer.

I was playing, I was rehearsing at the Guitar Center Studios when they used to have the GC studio thing. And I had like a jazz group that I was rehearsing for a show. with and this girl walks in and she was like you guys sound really good like are any of you hear a producer because i'm a singer and i'm looking for someone to produce my album and i was like i'm a producer like yeah i could do your album for you and i'm like i've never done anyone's album or anything or like

written songs like that with somebody and i mean i've written songs but not like you know full like hook verse bridge with somebody like like her so um we end up ended up working together and we made like a small EP. We did a few shows and she happened to be married to this artist, this rapper, Stack Quo, who I guess, you know, he used to be signed over to Dre and Eminem and he's still very active in the music industry and like management and stuff like that. But he was like, hey, I love the work that you've done with, you know, with my wife. I'd love to introduce you to some people that, you know, work for Dr. Dre and do stuff like that. And he basically introduced me to a guy named Melman, a very special guy named Melman,

who was Dr. Dre's sort of right-hand guy and did, you know, a lot of, like, the majority of the, like, 2001 album with Dre, a lot of stuff for Eminem, Mary Jay. like just he was a huge part of that sound so mailman became my mentor and i started you know stat basically put me in there and was like you know you guys are going to just you know make beats together and like just work with him and kind of just do what he says and i slowly realized over time that he's also the same person that sort of you know trained or worked with mike elizando and scott Storch in that same light they were all the ones that made like you know all those riffs and things so he became my like mr miagi you know crazy yeah do you still talk to him uh i haven't talked to him or

seen him in a while but but the time we spent together was definitely it was you know he in like many ways i i sort of got like hazed and yeah it was like a very just interesting situation. So when I first met him, the first day that we worked together, he basically, you know, took me out of the studio and was like, we're going to take a little trip. And he just tells me to drive. And I'm like driving. And I'm like, where is this guy taking me?

And we end up stopping at this place called deja vu in North Hollywood. And it's actually a strip club. And I'm like, it's like, you know, it's like Tuesday at like noon. Like what are we doing at a strip club? And I guess that was just sort of the thing that he did before session. So I was like, you know, not having any idea what's going on. We walk into the strip club. We leave.

And then we get back to the studio at like 2 p.m. We set up and we start making beats. So, you know, I would essentially like make beats with him in the daytime and do errands for him sometimes. Like, hey, can you run to the store? and pick up some stuff for me. Can you drop me off here? Can you do this? Can you bring me food?

Can you like, you know, so whatever it was, it was like I just, whatever he called and needed for me, I just showed up and did it. And then we would end up making music together. And he was very strict and very particular about the sounds that he wanted me to use. And he showed me so much about sampling. And he used an MPC to make his beats. so I would record his MPC into my laptop and he had this formula where he would have some kind of insane or obscure sample.

It would be anything from like Kat Williams telling a joke with like a drumbeat on it. And I'm like, how did you even find a tempo to that to like, you know, weather report or DeAngelo or Stevie Wonder or he would just sample all this incredible music. So I was he was sort of nurturing my mind and like exposing me to. sonics and sounds and situations and I'm like how am I supposed to play on something that already has music on it so it was already a really big challenge for me being like I thought I was going to go in there and just you know make riffs and do that but it was like no there was obstacles at every point and you know if I played like a whack bass line or if I played something that wasn't good he would just you know throw his hand like that and you sometimes turn off the computer or tell me to leave or tell me to come back when I have something better. And I never wanted to be repeated the same criticism again. So I would always come back a little bit more polished and refined the next day.

Did you ever write any hits that you weren't credited out? I, yes, actually, there's, well, sort of, there's a story intertwined. wind with this one, but basically what happened was he surprised me one day and was like, hey, tonight we're going to end early. We're going to end the session early, but I'm going to need you to drop me off somewhere. He's like, it's a VIP strip club. And I was like, I'll drop you off, but I'm good on like hanging out and doing all that. He's like, no problem.

So we're driving through Sherman Oaks. And he's like, you know, a lot of cool stuff goes on around here. And I'm like, I guess. I said, Sherman Oaks. I don't really know what he means by that. And he pulls up to this building, this like unmarked gray building. And it's like we get out of the car. The gate starts opening and these two security guards are running from each side of the alley like towards the car. And Melman gets out of the car and kind of like waves them down and they slow down realizing it was him. We get into the building and I'm like, where are we? He's like, strip club. And we walk into the we walk into the building. There's like a guy at a front desk, and I don't know what's going on. It's all like plushed out, crazy,

nice artwork, nice couches, and, you know, the door opens, and it's Dr. Dre mixing a song on the SSL at his studio. And I'm like looking at Melman. He's looking at me, like, giving me kind of like that nod. And Dre looks at me and points to me, and he's like, I heard you're nice on the keys. Like, I'm going to put you to the test today.

And I'm literally like wearing paj. Like I'm wearing like a beanie and sweats like I look like shit like I didn't know I was going here So I had no I didn't feel like I was presentable, but it caught me off guard and that's the moment that I met Dr. Dre and we ended up Working on a track that night and changed my life That's wild Yeah You know we jumped to broccoli that we just talked about when How do you balance? How do you balance? I

the credibility of being able to play, you know, Chopin and, and then having like your biggest song at that point be major triads. It's interesting because I feel like that maybe might have pissed a few people off, like colleagues of classical music, like people, maybe some professors or maybe some people that like, you know, knew me in that in that stage of like, wow, like, that's what you have to offer the world. You know, coming from that world, it's sort of like, I wouldn't say frowned upon, but it's actually funny because a friend of mine that was working with us in Drum, he was one of drums, like, main producers at the time. And my friend Gabe Niles, and he was like,

you know, there's something really special about the way you play that flute in broccoli. He's like, it's very like Mozartian, you know? And I thought about it. I'm like, yeah, there is a little bit of that like trill in there. There is a little bit of that. So aside from like the really simple chords, I feel like the melody of the flute sort of gave it this, you know, little taste of maybe Mozart or maybe classical technique.

But it's actually really funny to think that I spent years of my life suffering and almost hurting myself, like injuring myself, learning how to play like the Mephisto Waltz by List or Prokofiab's Piano Concerto number one, which are like knucklebusters. And then like the first big song, my first big check was literally. And I just, I don't know how it happens. What did your dad say? Was that a moment of your dad being like, you know?

You know what's really funny is my dad actually, I remember I heard Broccoli for the first time on the radio. Like I put Power 106 on. And I was like in my car and I was like, holy shit, like that's me. I did that, you know, like that's me playing and it's on the radio and people in the world can hear it. And I called my dad. And I was like, dad, dad, dad. I just heard broccoli on the radio.

And he was like, yeah. He's like, I heard that song. I heard those lyrics. I don't like that my last name is attached to a song like that. He was very just like, you know, he's like, he's like, growing up like you. couldn't like cuss in the household. You couldn't say bad words. And he knows that that song has bad words and he heard it. And he was very upset. And it kind of like hurt me a little bit. I was like, what? And I called my mom and she was like, don't listen to him. You know, I'm so proud

of you. And then I think it was one day my dad at the store that he owns. He had a customer walk in and he was playing it on his iPhone. And my dad was like, oh my God, like that's my son's music and I think he just had like a change of heart and he kind of like came around and was like you know getting your Arab dad to like like hip hop and be down with that shit is like one of the it's like one of the craziest things like to me it's a bigger accomplishment than making the song itself I'm like he actually we I went on tour with drum in 2017 we did like a run of I was his MD for a few months so we did like a US tour and a Paris shows in Paris. in London and my dad actually like came out to the Paris show. He surprised me and there was like

weed smoke everywhere. I was so worried. I was like, oh my God, dad, like, you know, like, I know you're out here. You're going to come to the show, but this is like not like the shows you go to. And he was just like making jokes. He's like, oh, there was a lot of broccoli like in the, in the, you know, being smoked at the venue. And he was like laughing. And he was cool with drum. He met everybody. And now like my dad just he's my biggest you know like he's the biggest champion of my music and what I do and he'll he'll like jokingly like when sicko mode came out he would always like come up to him and be like sun is down freezing cold and I'm just like he's so cool I love him so much NMPA is our lead sponsor yet again what is the national music publishers association

what do publishers have to do as songwriters anyway well unlike artists who can be unsigned artists, there is no such thing as an unsigned writer. You can be a self-published, a co-pubbisher, a published writer. Publishers only make money if songwriters make money. So NMPA goes and fights for you. They go to Congress, they go and support the community, they fight DSPs to get you paid more. That's what they do. They fight for you and they fight for this podcast. So thank you for fighting for songwriters NMPA. Thank you for fighting for us too. I've said this story before, but my parents didn't get what I did until they could see a song in a karaoke book. Right.

And so they would go and I would get them tickets to see arena shows. Yeah. And they would see this. And it was almost like, yeah, but you used to be on stage at the whiskey. And you used to be like, you used to play at the Viber Room. You know, and I'd be like, you know what that's great. Like I sold thousands of records. These are like millions of records.

It's a very different thing. But then once they could see something where, like, somebody else in the building could be like, hey, my son wrote this. That's when it became like a moment of like pride. Bad at Love, which you did with some of our podcast friends. Tell me about the story of Bad at Love. Because this is like, this jumps to a little more, probably more music that I think, your parents could digest and it still is like on the you know it's forward thinking but tell me about bad at love so i met ricky uh ricky read through um one of my best friends in mod royal who's an

amazing producer and uh songwriter and basically um yeah i i had some sessions where me and rickie were like cooking up and this was probably like two or three weeks after I had made broccoli which was like early 2016 so yeah around that before it's but you did that before broccoli was ahead yeah it was like it was like there was like this three week period or two week period where I made I'd worked on broccoli what would become Skywalker what would become bad at love and what would become sickomode it was just like sessions like two to three sessions a day so I was just going from you know working with drama then i'd go work with ricky reed then i'd go to work with hit boy like the same night because i was just like that's all i wanted to do i was like i'm just gonna be

everywhere i can you know so basically like um i end up doing a session with ricky and i just got all these new keyboards and i got like a prophet aid and like this little cassio keyboard with like a toy keyboard and i was in there kind of showing him the cool sounds of the prophet and i was like yeah it's got like these really cool synths so i started playing this um like this little and i didn't even know he was recording it and he's like cool he's like what else you got and like after i had that little uh riff i sort of went on the cassio added a few more sounds and he had a loop of it so that was just me sort of being like yeah i got all these cool keyboards i think we cooked up some other ideas that day and then literally like a year later um i got a call from my manager gregg and he's like yo so one of the

beats you made with rickie is now a halsey song that's going on our album and i was like what what are you talking about which one like i don't even remember making anything for specifically for her so i guess what had happened was that he brought that beat or that progression into the session with justin tranner and her and he built the beat around that loop and they wrote the song to it and I wasn't I was there in spirit rather but it was like a very nice surprise you know there's a lot of there are people who produce reproduce songs that exist and those are producers in that way but you're one of you know I think uh people think of like omar Omar in the way that he plays guitar the right in what you do with keys there's so many people

in the loop space and you're the seed of the idea versus like the thing at the end what makes you know how do people get into the loop game and can you explain what the loop game is to people who aren't familiar with that i feel like it's you know basically what you're what you're doing Rather than being seen as like a session player or a musician, just because you come into the studio with an instrument, a lot of people will automatically be like, oh yeah, he played keys on it. But it's like, no, when you're offering sort of what is the nucleus of the song,

which is, you know, going back to like Scott Storch, like when you hear the riff in Still Dre, when you hear that, you know, like, what is that song without that riff? Like, I know Dre heard that riff and was like, there's something there. So I feel like providing something really strong, melodically, quarterly, and I think, you know, sonically, like finding those sounds that really make the song, you know, hit different.

You know, sometimes it could just be a piano or sometimes it's a flute or sometimes it's a crazy weird organ sound or a synth that, you know, pop up on. I think you have to be really tasteful when you're making loops. And I feel like I didn't, I never. really became one of those guys that was like oh yeah like I made a loop pack and I sent it to like 50 different people which a lot of people do and you can get a lot of I mean I know people that have gotten many hits that way and many cuts that way but I think I was sort of custom do it for people so like like ricky would hit me up and be like hey could you send me some stuff I'm working with so and so I'd be

like yeah or hip boy would be like I need some ideas I would sort of hand tailor ideas just for them It goes back to the list thing. You know, it's like you kind of learn who you're writing for. Right. So you can gear towards those things. You learn what the story is a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, the loop game is interesting because I'm, you know,

I'm pretty loud about song splits and I'm where that should go. And I think that there's a difference from a song that's written to a track, written two chords. that's different than what I'm referring to. I think when I think people who sort of are additive at the end of the game feels different as far as songwriting versus production. I think when you're starting with something that becomes broccoli without those chords is not broccoli.

But it also wasn't, they didn't give you the chords and the, you know, the acapella. and then you made those chords at the end, that I feel like is a different order of things. Yeah. And it's just interesting to be part of the very few people who managed to, you know, there was this era when people would send out tracks, they would send it to, quote, top liners,

and they'd be like, man, this track is a hit. And you're like, what? Yeah, what are you talking about? If it was a hit, you don't need me. Right. What am I doing it? But like reality is like when you send out some of these loops like they sound hitish without the top line. It's also different in hip hop where melody is secondary to flow if that makes sense.

So like the melody comes from the track. Right. You know, in a different way. What did they like tell me about the loop for Skywalker. Tell me about how sicko mode, you know, all in that era. Like how do those loops sound when they come? when you send those out? Well, it's really funny because, you know, Dram, who's still one of my really close friends,

he connected me with so many people. And, you know, he had been doing a session one day with Happy Perez, who's a legend and also one of my homies. But basically, this is the first time I met him. So I'm, like, walking in the studio, I'm about to have a session with Dram. And Happy's about to leave. And he's like, yo, you're Roger. Like, I heard about you. Could you like do me a favor after you set up?

Just leave me some like some loops and some ideas to, you know, to mess with. So I had these guitar pedals and I hooked up my keyboard and I sort of just kind of played like like just like kind of slowly played some arpeggios with this delay effect on it. And again, similar story to Bad at Love. It was like I think a year or something goes by. and I get like an email from my manager, and he's talking about, like, yo, there's a track that you did with Happy Perez and Travis Scott's on it. It's from Miguel, and it's called Skywalker, and I hear the song, like, I hear like, whatever demo of it is, and basically Happy had taken those arpeggios I played and made them

into those little sprinkles you hear. So like when he says like splish in the song, it's kind of like, I feel like, I feel like that effect sort of gives it that like splish or that like kind of like wetish sound and he kind of you know he just took my loop and and worked it into the track somehow so i'm grateful that he thought it was cool enough to do you check up on you know you go in with these guys are you checking up on these throughout the year or is it just sort of like good news and mailbox money when you hear about it those were good news in mailbox money it was just like i just kind of forget about. I tried to just forget about things like, okay, that was a day. That was music.

Move on. Now I feel like I've been a little more like, is that coming out? You know, whatever happened to that one, you know, whatever happened to that one thing we did that one day, you know, like any news on that, any movement on that? And before it was just like, dude, just go, go, go. And same thing with Sickle mode. You know, that was just a cookup session that I did with Hit Boy. One night showed up to Chalice and I was like set up in a small room near his studio and basically he was like, just make some ideas for me. I'll be in here working on drums and working on other stuff and you know so I'm like going through sounds and I, you know, I made like two or three ideas. He came in and was like, okay cool. You know, like I'll come back and then I stumbled upon this

And talk about like hitting the lottery. I feel like I just, I went through the contact factory library, which I had not actually opened before because I had some sounds in my library. And I just look through this vintage toy section and there's a sound called Ratman Wow. And I'm like, what is that? That sounds insane just by looking at the name. And I remember the first chord I played was this like, E flat major chord and it literally like shook me like I played it in that you know the organ

sound it sounds like a cat meowing organ like kind of this really weird obscure thing and it was like whoa and then as soon as i played that the next chord just something told me like keep your thumb on that e flat and it gives it that special and then I just kept going down so I put it down I found a tempo. I put it down. I threw a little bass in there. I threw some stuff on top of it. And I'm like, yo, like check this out.

Hit Boy comes in, listens to, literally listens to the idea on the headphones. Because there was no speakers in that room. I was on a little, like a little closet like vocal booth space because he didn't have the whole half of the studio at the time. It was just a room that night. And then he drops the headphones. I was like, send me that right now. Like send me the files right now. get him the files go in there he starts putting this crazy drumbeat to it and um there was actually

another kid there at the time like a songwriter he like tried putting a hook on the beat and it was completely different and i guess he had sent like a few weeks later like he told me of that idea we made like i forget what it was called but it was like he's like it was the name of whatever the song the kid was trying to write to it, but he was like, I sent that idea to Jay-Z. And I think he has it. And basically, like, a year later or so, he's like, yo, actually that idea became a song with Drake and Trave. And, like, they were going to, like, paper it up just as a song with the two of them.

And I was like, oh, sick, like a song with Travis Scott and Drake, cool. And then a year goes by. And I'm like, yo, whatever happened to that idea, to that Travis Scott Drake song. He was like, I don't know, but I think that we have something on Astro World. He's like, I think we may have the intro because, you know, Travis, Travis was teasing this for so long. And you're reading about Astro World on Twitter and Instagram. He's typing it up. And I was like, whatever, you know, okay, like, I guess, whatever that means. And track list comes out. And I'm like, there's 16 songs on here. I wonder if we're on. I wonder which one it is. So the night Astro World

comes out. I'm like sifting through the the songs and suddenly I get to sicko mode and I hear the organ. I hear the beat that we made and it's like literally my keys playing for like 25 seconds. And then Drake comes in and says Astro and I fucking lost it. I think I like tiered up. I was freaking out. I was like no. Like this isn't not happening. And then the The funniest part was the beat starts, you know, and it's like 50 seconds in. And then the beat switches. And I was like, oh, I guess they only used, it's like a little 50 second interlude. I was like, sick.

And then like two days later, it was like, no, no, no. To myself, I'm like, you idiot. It's three beats put together in one song. So I'm reading the credits. And I'm like, oh, shit. And there's samples in the song. There's like, they sample Biggie. they sample like, you know, a few other people.

And I'm just like, okay, like, you know, there's, how did they put three beats together? How did, you know, and I was like, I guess this is what that is. It's just a kind of like a mini suite of bangers, you know. And that's when I realized like, oh, I guess this is going to be maybe a little more difficult to figure out on the business end. But I'm glad to be a part of it. I was credited as a producer, obviously, and a songwriter. And, yeah, along with Hit Boy.

So shout out to Hit Boy for making that play and doing that together, you know. Does it bother you to have, you know, to work on a song to do the thing? And then when you see it back that you don't have control, I mean, this is the songwriter plight. Does it bother you to have no control over the outcome? It did bother me a little bit. I was also like, okay, like think of the positive things. Like this is one of the going to be a big song.

It's growing. People are like, I'm seeing videos of him performing it like at his shows and it's just like insane. And it's playing on the radio. But I was a little. I was a little bit, I wouldn't say upset, but it was a little discouraging and like, damn, like, now I have to figure out business with all these other guys. There's like six other producers on the song. Did you guys figure it out? We ended up figuring it out.

And I'm still cool with all of them, you know, like me and hip boy are still, you know, pretty close. We work together when we can. I'm cool with Ozzie, Tay Keith. It's so crazy. I mean, this is an all-star. Q-beats. Yeah, it's like I was. Yeah. And, but the thing that made me happy was like, you are the idea that opens this up.

Like a lot of people were saying like, you know, the organ is that that's the part that I, you know, really remember. And it had gone like, I think it's like 15 or 16 times platinum now. And so crazy. Yeah. So at the end of the day, it's like, you know, we all figured it out. And I think for what it was, it was, it was fair. considering, you know, there's two of the biggest artists on it. There's samples on samples. Sway Lee says like two words on it.

You know what I mean? And he's part of it. And like there's just little, you know, tricks and little like kind of ear candy everywhere. And I think that's what makes it so special though. Yeah, it's a weird thing. It's like in that environment, it's a beautiful thing that everyone gets credited for making this piece of music together. on the other hand it's a hard thing to just you know to understand why everyone gets listed as a songwriter on something that's you know and i mean this is the debate you know what what is a songwriter

to you what is a songwriter i mean it's like the most basic answer is yes somebody who writes the song somebody who is writing the you know uh i think now the definition has sort of turned to, you know, people contributing to a song, but contributing to, you know, a song like that is made up of so many different little pieces. And I feel like, you know, you got 32 writers on there because the samples have samples in them. You sample Biggie saying, give me the loot. But give me the loot itself has another sample in it. So we had to cut in all those guys as well. a lot of deceased greats were like on that song. So you got to go through estates and clearances and things like that.

I mean, I wasn't really a part of that process, but I heard about it. And but luckily, you know, we were able to get everything sorted. But I feel like in to go back to your question, you know, if you put something, it's kind of a, it's kind of a strange thing to think about. because I feel like ever since, you know, when you started seeing like, um, on like certain albums that like Kanye West did, when you start seeing for the first time, where there's like 10 producers on a song, I'm like, I'd never really seen anything like that before because it was usually like, you know, produced by Farrell, produced by the Neptunes, produced by Timbalin, produced by one or, you know, maybe two people.

And now to see, you know, to be fair, Sycomod only has six producers on it. So it's me, hip boy, Q beats, OZ, and take. Keith and I believe one other person. But it's, you know, I think in that case, everyone's contribution, whether it was, you know, an 808 or a high hat or, you know, one little word or one little phrase, I think in that scenario, it's somebody that has contributed something, you know, sonically to the song that makes it stand out. But I think there is a fine line between somebody that, like, starts the idea and then it's like hey this idea is done can you add some stuff to the end of it that's definitely a different situation and which i agree 100% with you on like it's you know like

when it comes to splits when it comes to things like that it can get a little tricky it's like oh he just came in at the end and did that so yeah now everyone has to have a piece of the pie i feel like it's before it's like oh i hired you know so-and-so to come play a guitar on this or someone to come do this and I told them what to do and you know it can get it can get tricky but Drake's big do you start feeling pressure I mean like when when Drake's you know laugh now cry later that's like a you know a Grammy nominated song yeah that's uh like are you starting to feel like do you feel pressure because you're not really part of you're you're kind of I feel like your career is like being this island that gets maybe

is in it like you get to play in all the sandboxes do you feel pressure to to what what what does it feel like to work in the drake camp well it's it's just i feel fortunate to have so many friends in this industry that i can actually consider friends that are just you know cool people and they happen to be involved with these incredible artists and particularly with uh laugh now cry later That was something I did with Gry, who is one of my close friends. And basically the first time we ever worked together was the day we made the beat for Laugh Now Cry Later. It was like he was a friend of hit boys. He was kind of always in the studio.

And I know that he'd done stuff for party next door and Drake. And he was kind of known for that. But we were actually working on Big Sean's album. And we were working on the intro to his album. This was during COVID. This was like June of 2020. And Big Sean's like, yo, you guys should like, you know, well, we're all here. Why don't you guys like make some beats, you know?

And Hip Boy was there too. And Hip Boy and Sean kind of like sat back. And me and G. I started just messing around. And when we came up with this beat, he pulled up the drums. I pulled up the horns. And we did that. And they, you know, Sean and Hip Boy were kind of like, you know, making a song idea to it,

kind of jokingly, kind of whatever. like yeah I'm gonna you know I'm gonna figure that out later and then I kind of like other things I kind of forget about it and then Gry calls me uh one night like a week later and he's like hey that beat that we made I need you to resend the files because I actually sent it to Drake and I think he likes it or he sent it to Drake's engineer and I'm like okay so I go back to the computerist I have the horns I have the piano thing that I laid down saved send it to him month goes by I'm like that was probably bullshit. Like, you know, when you hear people like, oh, you know, I'm going to send it to Drake or I'm going to send it to some. It doesn't sound real. Even still to this day, sometimes it's like,

is he even going to hear it? Is he even going to like it? Like, and then G. Rye calls me again in about a month. I'm like sitting at like cactus, like eating a burrito, like a breakfast burrito. And he's just like, yo, like, remember that beat that I sent to Drake? I'm like, yeah, he's like, that's Drake's next single coming out tonight, little Dirk's on it. So much faster, though, that release from that. Yeah. Like these other. ones that took years that's like whoa that's yeah and I'm like it's like yeah we got to get the lawyers

talk and so and so and then you know Drake brought in some of his other guys to to do their thing on it and like work on some of the drums and stuff and the song came out that night I saw the video and I was like to have a song like that come out during COVID was crazy but

but as you know the hits sort of kept piling up I was like starting to feel like okay maybe you're like here to stay and maybe you got to like find a way to keep doing this because when you do it you're just like you want more of it you want to be able to be like you can rely on me for this it's a drug it is in many ways and it can be an unhealthy drug at times mentally you're just like you go in the studio with the wrong intentions because like we said earlier a lot of these things you can't call

you can't be like i didn't know i was going to do it that night i didn't i didn't make that beat and be like shit like that's that's a hit it's a beat you know let's talk about kiss me more i think you know being involved in the beginning of somebody's career which we'll we'll call this the beginningish part of doge's like you know run yeah tell me about kiss me more tell me about that you were saying earlier that it was meant to be slower than it was yeah the funny part about that whole thing was that I met Yeti, who I did kiss me more with and is one of my super close friends, but I met Yeti because Yeti's studio was where we made broccoli. So I made broccoli.

Like the next day, this guy walks up to me with a beanie, super long hair. He's like, hey, Euroget is like, you know, I own the studio. I'm Yeti. He's like, you want to work with, if you have any time next week, I'm working with this girl Dojikat. Like if you want to come in and this was like 2016, 2015, whatever. I think 2016. And I was like, sure. You know, I don't know much about her.

But yeah, it sounds cool. Like he just seemed like a cool guy. So that's when I met Amala, Doja Cap. And so I'd worked on her first album. And we'd been working together for a few years at that point. And this was like 2020, I think Yeti hit me up and was like, yo, I'm about to go on this trip to Hawaii to work with Doja and some people. Like, you know, do you have any, uh,

time today. I'm going to come over and maybe we can make some ideas so I could bring with me for Doja. And I was like, yeah, cool. So he comes to my house and he gives me like sort of like a key word. He's like, I think right now Doja is really into like anime music. And, you know, I grew up in a household with four younger sisters that all loved. We all loved like, you know, Totoro and studio Jeebly, spirited away, you know, Pokemon, like, cowboy bebop. All that kind of stuff was like, you know, we loved that growing up. I kind of had a hint of like, you know, a lot of that music has sort of like a cute, jazzy element to it. And we started making a few ideas.

And the second idea that we came up with was this progression, which was, maybe the lower octave might be better. So that was about the tempo it was at. Yeah. And yet you put a beat to it and the beat was like, you know, it was really slow. So it was like, it kind of sounded just completely different. And again, like we made three or four ideas that day. There wasn't anything to write home about like, yeah, you know, like we did something crazy. It was just like, here, take these hope she likes them.

And funny enough, about a year later, this is the funny thing about Yeti too. Like he'll call me and just, you know, I love him so much. He'll just call me and be like, hey, Roje, how are you? Like, how are you doing? Like, how's your family? How's everything? Like, he really like, we just, you know, he asks how I'm doing. And then like it's almost like he forgets to mention.

He's like, oh, by the way, dude, I forgot to tell you. Like, Doja did a song to this beat that we made last year. And it's like a, it's like a song about kissing. And it's really good. And I was like, I want to hear it. So he invites me to the studio. I hear the song and I'm like, you know, holy shit. Like, I remember this beat, but I don't remember it sounding like that.

He basically told me that he had a few sessions with her where he played that beat, the tempo it was at the slower tempo that I played earlier. She was like, nah, next one. Did it again. Nah, next one. The third time, something told him to speed it up. So he took the same beat and just sped it up. And that's what gives it that sort of special little twang in the guitar.

There's like a special kind of like, you know, sampleness to it. Like, I don't even know if that's a word. But you know what I'm saying. What's the BPM difference from what you started with to where it ended up? I mean, if I could remember specifically, we're going from like, like, literally it was like that slow to like. So whatever that is like, it sounds like it could be like 30 or 40 BPM or something like that. I mean, it's like a different song. Yeah, but everything just like, you know, the key changed and like everything went up a little bit.

And I think, you know, she heard that. He said and she was like, oh, I have a song. It's about kissing. And she, you know, sat there on her phone and, you know, she would write the song and like just be sitting, writing it for like an hour, hour and a half and then just lay it down. And like, that's how when I've worked with her in person, she just, I've seen her knockout two or three songs in a day. Yeah, it's crazy.

Done. Like hook verse ad libs, little funny shit that she says all in there just perfect. And I'm like, who are you? I would like to be a co-writer on that song. Oh, man. A lot of people tell me, have told me, like, I just want to let you know, I think Kiss Me More is one of the greatest riffs of all time. I think it's one of the best. It's like the perfect riff.

And in many ways, going back to what we were talking about, jazz and chords and progressions, there's really nothing that special behind it, chord progression-wise, other than it's a 251, then it goes to a 4. And maybe the little lockdown, which I think inspired, can you kiss me more? pause in the song. So, yeah, I mean, like, I guess studying jazz really paid off, you know? You know, there's genius is in simplicity. It just is. Genius comes out of, out of, you know, editing.

It's not the, it's never the guy who can, I get the dizzy Gillespie era of Bebop and like, watch how fast. I can play these notes. But I think the reason why Miles Davis is Miles Davis and Dizzy's Dizzy is because of simplicity. I think when it comes down to it, in the end, you want to be able to sing along to something. Yeah. And it takes a lot to be able to play, you know, preludes and then choose to do a few chords that make sense and a walkdown that's, clean like that that's that takes that takes those years of playing jazz to be able to play that

simply either that or you're just like you know just quite not good enough to play jazz but i think it's the other part being a co-executive producer on on jack carlo's album is a different thing you start taking on more of like the business role of everything of the business of the whole arc of the album uh you know tell me about that experience tell me about first class well working with jack who's one of the greatest guys i know he's you know shout out to him that's that's we know we're still really close friends and um and he basically i got a dm on instagram just from him like this was around the time i think it was just like what's popping was really big and he was like yo and i was like yo and he's like i would love to work i'm going to be in l-a so

So we basically, he invited me to the studio and there was a bunch of other producers there. And we all started jamming, making ideas. And as the weeks went on, the rooms got smaller. And it ended up being like me, him, and Angel Lopez. And basically we sort of became, you know, he kind of looked at us and was like, I think this right here is the core team of what I want this out. album to be. So we were sort of, you know, in charge and responsible for like, you know, we were there damn near every day for about a year. And I'm talking like when people rent the studio from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. it usually means they show up at like 7 p.m. and maybe end by like one or two. But Jack was there from 4 to 4. Like on the dot. Always on time. Always, you know. So. We had made a bunch of songs, and I remember that, I remember the day he pulls up and, you know, he shares with Angel this list of songs that he wants to sample or like this list of samples that he wants to flip.

And he's like, I love, you know, glamorous by Fergie. I think we should do something with this. And he sort of had the idea there. and basically they're playing the song and we're kind of like struggling to find like sounds to go around it because it's just you know the G L-A-M and a drumbeat and I'm like shit I'm like trying to think to myself like when at what point did I ever you know

like work on anything similar to this or like work around a sample like this and like suddenly it flash back to the times where I was working with Melman. And I remember there was one day we were working with this rapper. He's like, I got a friend coming in. He's an artist. And his name is Boaz, B, O, A, Z. And he pulls up this sample of like, it's like Sesame Street or something.

And it's like these kids shouting the alphabet. And they're literally like, he flips it. So the kids are like, B, O, A, Z. And it's like a bunch of kids screaming the alphabet. And it's that and a drum bee. And in my mind, I'm like, when the hell am I ever going to like have use for this kind of? You know, I'm like, so I try to come up with chords, a baseline, we figured it out. And flash forward to, you know, that was like 2013.

Now we're in like 2021. And like, here I am sitting at the keyboard. And there's G, L, A, M and a drumbee. And I'm like, oh, shit. you've heard this before you've dealt with this before so it's almost like he foreshadowed the future for me or something like you've got to be able to make a beat to anything and it somehow all came together so basically yeah jasper was there as well and charlie hansom was also there so it was like me angel charlie and jasper all kind of like put together the pieces you know that were

missing and I was able to you know we added like that song is just so special because it and and a shout out also to Dougie who's a writer on that song as well but we basically um kind of worked around the sample the way that jack sort of just is so playful around the letters of it and makes the hook around that it's like it's one of like my favorite songs that I've ever made because it feels you know it's like a it's like a big song but there's like a softness to it there's like a sort of you know smoothness to it that you don't really get a lot of songs like that that are like it's not really like in your face but it's there you know it's there and i just think the way that we broke up the sections of the song like the first verse and the second verse have completely different

like instrumentation there's like a moving bass like if you really pay attention to that song there's there's all these little like Easter eggs and little things like that you'll hear production wise that are very different so Jack is just one of the best you know artists and in many ways was like a producer on that song because he handpicked every single sound and every single drum sort of in the same way that Dr. Dre would work like when I was working with him he would like that snare not that kick that kick that chord and just be like this and this and I'm like seeing Jack do the same thing so in a In many ways, I saw the training that I had kind of come to life more than ever when I was working on this album because I'm like, you're working with a guy that knows what he wants. You're working with a guy that knows sonics, that knows samples, that knows taste, which is very much Jack. And how do you figure out the publishing splits on a song like First Class? Well, you get the blessing of, you know, I guess Fergie and Polo de Don and everyone who did that. And we basically, I think that was a lot more on the, you know, generation now on like, you know, DJ Drama and Don Cannon and those guys. I think they have great, you know, relationships with people and we're able to get that figured out.

And we, you know, we were actually, I think it was a, it was a very fair good splits on that, considering, you know, the sample took up a good chunk of it. But I think it was fair enough, like considering for what it was, it made sense when it turned out the way it did. I was like, okay, this is, this is cool. You know, this is a huge song. Like, I feel like, yeah, we didn't have any, like, worries about that one. So, yeah, thankfully everyone was well behaved on that song. Apaté was a pretty big song. Yes, that is.

That's a big one. Good job on that. Thank you. Thank you. You know, what's it like at this point to get more nominations? What's it like to talk to your parents who helped you get through jazz training and then seeing now understanding the journey? What is it, what does it mean to you to have the success of Aputte in a year like this?

It means a lot. It's the thing that sort of keeps me going and keeps me motivated. Like, you know, and Apate, you know, APT was a song that we did in the room together with Rosie and, you know, circuit, Omar, Amy, T. Ron. And again, like, not really knowing like what's going to happen or what's going on. And it's kind of like, wow, there's a drinking game being put into this hook and into this song. Like, you know, and for some funny reason, I always feel like I'm always involved in these songs that have like either a sort of strange structure or a strange sound or something interesting about it. And I think the fact that it became what it did and, you know, Bruno getting on there and making it this massive worldwide hit. like it's you know it also taught me that sometimes simpler is better like intentionally being simple

not like oh you know I'm turning on the keyboard but like but yeah like and I think Omer was a big help in you know that when circuit pulled up the drumbeat and Omer was kind of like yo like just do like stabs just do like horn stabs so I pulled up like the melitron and I'm like playing the little email You know, and we were like, oh, cool. And then we, you know, together we kind of came up with the the little chords for the, don't you want me like I want you. And it was like, it happened so quickly and, you know, she recorded the song and I don't even know how she felt about it really.

Like she wasn't like, I think she was a bit unsure about like that being a song to come out or whatever. So again, I forgot about it and ran into it. to D. Mile at a friend's barbecue. And then, you know, I've known Bruno for a while because I had worked with him years ago on a project, like around 2016 with an artist he had at the time. So he was like in the room writing. We knew each other.

And I was asking D.M. Like, yeah, how's Bruno doing? And he's like, we were actually talking about you the other day. I think he's working on that song that you did with that Rosie Girl, the APT song. And he was like, yeah, like, he's like, yeah. And he was kind of thinking, like, should I get on this? And yes.

And I was like thinking in my head, like, that sounds wild. Like, I don't even know what to think of that. I didn't say anything to anybody. I was like, that's cool if that is actually happening. And then three months later, get a call. Hey, check this out. Send me the bounce. And I hear Bruno on it.

I hear, like, all the music we did, like, elevated to another level. And I was like, this sounds like it's going to be the biggest. song like ever and sure enough you know it was and I'm so grateful for it I feel really good I feel grateful to be in a position where I'm able to do work in all these different genres from a song like a pt to a song like sycomo to a song like laugh now cry later it feels kind of crazy to look back and be like damn I've been a part of such different genres of music but I think it's reminding me like to keep sort of, you know, keep my head and my heart in the same place, musically, just going with the right intentions to have fun

and to like make something good and make something fire, whatever it may be. What would you tell a younger kid who, you tell a kid in the valley right now who's 16-year-old version of you? You know, people are going to tell you you're crazy. People are going to tell you you're not going to make it. going to tell you that you can't, you know, make money playing keys on tracks. And, you know, these are all things that I've been told. Like, it's insane. But keep going. Work with your friends. Find people that you can trust and that trust you. And, you know, definitely like, if something feels good,

do it. Like, if it feels like an artist you want to work with or a situation that you, naturally find yourself wanting to be a part of just keep working hard keep going literally don't give up and people are going to tell you you're crazy people are going to tell you all sorts of things but you use that as fuel to keep pushing and you will find yourself eventually at the right place at the right time the right chord the right keyboard whatever it may be well thank you for doing this podcast thank you for having me uh you know Everybody goes on their journey and does their thing. But there's a basic path that I think people take in L.A.,

which often ends up with people sort of writing, aiming for the middle. And what's so cool about your career is how authentic you are to you and how that translates to so many records and how, man those chords in sicko mode are not normal for pop or for hip hop

they're sophisticated but in that sophistication is the the editing down to just what matters

and we're all just trying to do something unique and you're the uniqueness you're that X factor on so many songs so it's just fun to watch what seems so simple and it's so hard to replicate and that's because you write from such an honest place. So it's a lot. You know, it's amazing, man. Your career is so, so unique. And it just touches a lot of people, man. You've billions and billions and billions and billions

of streams to, you know, to back up that too. So amazing work, man. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Thank you for having me.