One Song - Rihanna's "Umbrella"

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Usually on One Song we focus on the music's cultural impact. But this time we're talking about the meteorological impact! When Rihanna's Umbrella topped the charts in the UK, it coincided with a period of heavy rain and flooding. The same thing happened in Romania and New Zealand. Coincidence, or did Rihanna's hit change the weather?  On this episode of One Song, Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY explore the song's backstory, delve into the stems, and get to the bottom of how Rihanna arrived as a global megastar and made it rain. Literally.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luxury on this show, we talk about songs that have a huge cultural impact. We do. But this time, we're talking about a record that had a huge meteorological impact. I have no idea where this is going, but I'm intrigued. Please explain. Luxury, what if I told you then in 2007, when today's song reached number one in the UK, it coincided with, or perhaps triggered, dramatic floods all over Britain? I would say that's definitely not a coincidence, but, you know, please explain further.

No, that's true. It's true. The days before the release of this song, clear skies. Sunshine. After it hit number one, the UK had some of the most dramatic rainfall ever since recorded records began. Okay, that's super crazy. I kid you not. And that's really safe. I mean, like, the British get a lot of rain. They do. Wait, just to clarify, how do we know that this wasn't just coincidence? You're sure they're connected? Because it wasn't just the UK. The song's rain. You see what I did there? The song's rain at number one. In New Zealand also coincided with extreme

weather. There was flooding. There was a tornado. And that's not all. The same thing happened in Romania. As goes, Romania goes the world, said so many people. Romania also had extreme rainfall and terrible weather, while this song topped the charts there. I say all this to say, this song had everyone reaching for their umbrella. Nicely tied together, their dialogue, I'm impressed. Well done.

That's right. On today's one song, a record that forged a new global pop star and literally changed the weather. It's Rihanna and it's umbrella, Ella, Ella A. And I'm actor, writer, director, and amateur meteorologist, Diallo Riddle. I think after today, you're a professional. I think you just made the jump. If you can say the word, you are that. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury,

aka the guy who talks about interpolation on the internet. So Diallo, I think we can both agree that Umbrella is the song that announces Rihanna as a true global pop star. Yes. But tell us a little bit about her earlier years, those first two albums and maybe even how you first heard about her. Absolutely. I first heard about Rihanna because this is during the time when I'm DJing twice a week

at Boulevard 3 in Los Angeles big nightclub, sometimes 1,500 people through the door, super packed. And, you know, when you're DJing that kind of room, like, you got to hit people

with the big hits. Thankfully, the aughts kind of throughout the aughts. Everything was sort of like a major hit. Like, you always sort of knew, oh, that's a song that's going to hit at midnight. It's going to, you know,

everybody's going to hit to the dance floor. and along comes this song, Ponda Replay, which was by an artist that we hadn't heard of. There's around 2005. And that summer, I want to say, it was pretty much the unexpected hit of the summer. Nice. Like, it definitely ruled the charts,

but also the club charts. So catchy. So catchy. Yeah. I love the dance hall stuff in the early stuff. Okay, so let's talk about that. It had a dance hall vibe. The video had like some amazing,

dancing, which also caught people's eye. And you could hear her patois. And I was like, where is this patois from? So let's back up a little bit and talk about where Rihanna is from. She's from Barbados, which I think makes her Barbadian. Well, I mean, I admit, I just learned this word recently. So I love that you don't call someone from Barbados or Barbadian. What? You do, actually, technically. But if with the patois, it becomes Bayesian. Because Barbadian, the D becomes Barbadian. And they just, they're called Bajians. I found this really cool clip where Rihanna has her like Barbadian or Bajun Petois, and she talks about her pride. Check this out. This is Rihanna speaking at a graduation.

The world is going to know that we bajer into the bone. We baysan to the bone. That's Rihanna at National Independence Honors Day. I love that. Oh, that's so cool. It's so fun to hear her voice, you know, when it's not singing. Right. You know, she's just got charm in those vocal cords. By the way, I think you have an interesting story about why she goes by the name Rihanna. Well, I understand that when she was signed very young, by the way, she's a teenager, like 15, 16-ish-aged teenager. You know, her name is really Robin, Rihanna Fenty, as all the big fans know already.

But her middle name is Rihanna. Her first name is Robin with a Y. And at the time she was signed, there was already a Robin. The dancing on my own Robin, who we all know and love from Sweden. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, because it's got the Y in there. There's also Robin S. There's Robin S, but there's no. There were too many Robbins basically.

So she goes by Robin to her friends apparently. And just to make one of those wonderful connections that we do on the show, T.I. had the same problem because he was known as TIP. Oh, really? And when he got signed, they were like, there's already a Q-Tip. So that's when he went by T-I. So Ponda Replay comes out.

And the reason Ponda Replay releases a single is when she gets over to the States, there are a lot of people who want to meet with her. And one of those people that she auditions for is Jay-Z. but this was like a new artist. By the way, just like Beyonce, when she was originally getting sort of shopped, they were, they had, she had two backup singers, like not even backups. They were sort of like a girl group. Oh, right.

They were like Missy Elliott. Yeah, they were doing like three-part harmony stuff. You're right. Yeah. And I guess people immediately saw like, no, that's the one. This girl's special. This is the one that's really special. So Ponda replay, really big hit that summer, really big hit in the clubs where I was playing it.

And the second single comes out. doesn't do as much, but that's fine. It's her first album. And it has that very Bayesian feel, if you want to call it that. Next album, she's still playing with that sort of tropical, you know, sound. And the second album has a huge hit on it. And that song is SOS. Now, when SOS comes out, this is like 2006.

We're in the heart of the decade. And, you know, 80s retro was so big. Like everything from like, I think it started with like the, wedding singer, but like all the, sort of like all, yeah, like all the millennials, like they're going back to the music of their childhood, the way that like Gen X had gone back to disco. Yeah. So all these 80s songs are coming back.

Um, for those who don't hear it, SOS contains a very prominent sample by this group. Man, I love that song. It's so fast. I love it. And let me give it up to soft sell. Gloria Jones, amazing version, but she ain't got the claps. She ain't got the claps. Soft sale put in the claps.

And the sonar. Softsale put in the claps. Yeah. The song or sound, yeah. The Gloria Jones version is from 1965. It was not a hit at the time. It was actually a flop. The reason why Mark Alman knows about this track

is because there's this movement in the early 70s in England called Northern Seoul where a small group of DJs picked up these obscure American mid-60s RV and Soul records, these 45s. This is actually kind of an accident of history that just this one British DJ goes to America and buys a bunch of records from someone who died.

And these are records that were never hits, but they sound like they could have been hit. Yeah. Like if they had been signed to Motown, they might have these would be in the canon. So it turns out that Gloria Jones, by the way, who was married to Mark Boland from T-Rex and is driving the car, which tragically crashes.

They did not know that. Yeah. And that's how Mark Boland passes away. Mark Almond, by the way, different Mark with the same spelling with the sea, is a co-check boy at one of these Northern Soul Knights in England in the late 70s, Which is where he hears the original Gloria Jones version. Oh, wow, that's so cool. Yeah, pretty cool.

I love that. I love that. You know, not to bring it always back to, you know, some of my jobs, but some of the best DJs I hired while I was working at the standard hotels were not people who came into the standard hotel as DJs. They were like the people who worked at the front desk. Oh, that's interesting. They were the, sometimes the models who were in the box installments and stuff.

They're kind of picking up on what works. They were picking up and they were like, hey, you know, could I ever audition to be a DJ here? And sometimes they would have amazing. taste of music and sort of like the co-check guy. They ended up creating amazing careers and music on their own. That's kind of a threat on this show that I really love is like the fact of like you can be in your bedroom

and kind of make music and sort of guess what people's tastes will be or if you're a DJ you see firsthand what people's people are responding to. Yeah, you see the reaction first hand. It can be a different way of music making. And I saw the reaction firsthand. I mean, Rihanna, she was killing it. Like her songs, once SOS was out and like a whole new generation of people were dancing to it, I was like, oh, she's one of the,

challengers to the Beyonce throne. And there were a lot of people who were going for that throne in this period. You've got to realize, like, Beyonce is huge, but not so huge that there aren't, like, imitators and other people who want, you know, that kind of pop success. The same way, like, the Beatles spawned a lot of people who were kind of like the Beatles, but a little bit different.

British invasion. Sure. During this time, Beyonce, you know, during this part of Beyonce's reign, you've got Rihanna coming up. And there's some who, like, you know, people forget that they were almost at that level. There was Amory who had the song, Just One Thing. By the way, one thing.

Fun fact, produced by Rich Harrison, the same guy who produced Crazy in Love. Because that's what I was hearing in my head. I'm like, oh, that's a... Rich Harrison, I feel like in the mid-aughts he could do no wrong. He did Crazy in Love. Yeah. He did Amory One Thing. He did the Jennifer Lopez song, Get Right.

And all these songs notably had like that live drummer feel to them. But there's a specific thing. type of break that he's going for too because he's playing on the ride symbol and it's kind of like an almost afro-cubin beat it's not like a straight eighth beat yeah and that is that's a by the way we've talked about the meters on the show bunch that is a ziggibu modaleiste beat so he's sampling on that track we just heard the sample of o calcutta from the first meters record yeah 69 you know my dream i have some stems that i don't have and on the dream category i would love stems from the meters one day so we can do a proper meter show every time we do this show i think of at least one song i'm like oh luxury please find me

stems because I realized I really want to talk about it. The dream stem list is a very long one. Gotta get some Ava, got to get some ELO. And don't forget about Sierra. She had a lot of hits. And we all thought that maybe she was going to take the throne. So you can see that like there are a lot of people who are trying to be the R&B divo with the major, major pop hits. But at the end of the day, Rihanna is going to do all of that and so much more.

I was shocked when we were researching for this episode. Rihanna is the number two female artists of all time in terms of record sales and streams. That is. Number two. Yeah. It's number one. Apparently, according to our research, it's actually still Madonna, but Taylor and Mariah and Beyoncé are all right there, you know, nippinetta hills. But Rihanna's number two.

I would not have guessed that. That's incredible. I would have guessed maybe Taylor or Beyonce neck and neck for number one. Me too. Yeah. So luxury, we're so excited to have the stems and all the Ella's and the A's, but this song has a really fascinating genesis that might surprise some people. Talk to us about how this song gets made.

All right. Let's talk about how the song happened. This is one of those songs, which is almost a magical story of like, it came together so quickly that I think the songwriters themselves were surprised that they had just done this right in front of their very eyes and ears. It happens in Atlanta. This is a group of... Everything good happens in Atlanta.

Let's be clear. the producer team of Tricky in the Dream. That's Christopher Stewart, aka Tricky, Terrius Nash, aka The Dream. And also their third member, together they comprise Red Zone, the production team. And that's Kuk Harrell. And he's an important part of this story, too. He's Tricky's cousin, by the way. They are in business. They are making a lot of commercial music and jingles. Together, they have not had any hits as a production team. Separately, the Dream had co-written me against the music for Britney Spears. Oh, okay. An important fact. which will be coming back to in a minute. Okay. But at this point, there, basically, this is a quote from Ku Karell. We approach music as a business, as opposed to some other guys who do it for fun. We are trained to do whatever the client wants when they want it. But that means in this context that they have a very quick approach. They're extremely streamlined.

And that's relevant because one day in 2007, according to a story that I've heard actually all three members tell in various parts. So I'm going to piece together the story from all three of those people's Tricky the Dream in Kukorell's accounts. It's around 7 o'clock in the morning. They're at the studio. They're getting set up. It's just like they don't have anything on the agenda for the day

other than to just make music and see what happens and pitch it. Kukarel starts playing around in Logic, and he finds this loop. That's super cool. And out of the box, loop. And it's so recognizable. And I have a question as somebody who doesn't know this stuff as well as you. Is there an actual drummer who records that and then what he records gets put into Logic? Most likely.

That sounds very much like a live drummer. who probably made, so sample CDs we've talked about on this show. Before there was Splice, there's always been this kind of alternative to sampling from records. Because in the early 80s or so, there was this phenomenon of sampling arises out of cutting records. And the phenomenon of being sued for it also arises. So at some point in the late 80s, early 90s, now I want to give a shout out to Breakbeat Lou. I know he watches this show. He puts together some of the early Breakbeat records where, as a producer, you can use the illegal samples.

But there's a legal form that starts to come, which is sample CDs. And these are pre-clear. Very cheap to clear. Yeah, it's usually a drummer will go in maybe, you know, for the day and just make a whole bunch of beats and then sell them to the company or is part of the company. And then anyone can use these beats like the one we just heard, royalty-free. It's free to release music using it. And all you have to do is pay for that sample CD. Okay.

That's what this is. And in the 2000s, when Apple comes out with the Logic program, and garage band. These are the two. If you have an Apple computer, you probably have garage band, which is basically... One of the first things you delete

when you have not enough memory. It's like four gigs. It's too big. Part of why it's so big is because these samples are in it. You buy it, and it comes with a sample library. So you can just get started right away.

He was playing around, as the story goes, with his new copy of logic. Some people have said it's garage band because that loop is, I think, available in garage band. For the record, Kukhorell himself says,

no, I was playing around in logic. And I heard this, beat. And from the other room, Tricky apparently goes, wait, what's that? He's like, hey, what's that? Cousin? Yeah, it stops in his tracks. And he sits down and starts playing some chords. And he starts playing a baseline. And then in the other room, the dream comes in, and he hears what the two guys are doing. And he's like, wait a second. And he has an idea popping his head. He's like, turn on the mic. Turn on the mic. So the dream, and this would actually, the dream is more of like the guy who writes the lyrics

and sort of like writes the song part of it. In this production team, from my understanding, Tricky is more of what we would call the track guy. In songwriting circles, it's usually one person who's focusing on the music, the other person is focusing on the lyrics and melody. In practice, there's a lot of mixing and matching. Someone will have an idea for a chorus, like melody that may technically not be the singer. For all we know, Tricky was like, hey, man, come grab your umbrella. We don't know what it was said.

It could be. Because it rains a lot in Atlanta. It could have been a rainy day. It was wintertime, apparently. It was January-ish. There you go. So he runs into the studio. he says, in his telling, that umbrella popped in his head. In about 25 minutes, they had just

pieced together what is the demo, which I'll play for you in a minute. It came together that quickly. And it's just because they were all just early to the studio and listening to each other, almost accidentally, play these things just sort of experimenting. So the dream goes to the vocal booth. Apparently he freestyles under my umbrella, including the Ella's part. From quote unquote, from beginning to end exactly as you hear it today. Here's a couple more quotes. from how it came together like a dream. Because this is clearly like a moment you never forget in your life when your first career-making hit just happens out of the blue.

It began like a rap freestyle, and it just never stopped pouring, metaphor after metaphor. I was in a zone and in a feeling that wasn't going to end until I finished what I had to say, the first first was written in 60 seconds. Then we had to grow to the hook. Tricky would put the next chord on there. And I love slowing it down and just picturing the scene. So he had that first verse, the dream had that first verse in the first minute. It's just umbrella, metaphor, metaphor.

And then they sort of stepped back and thought, okay, what's the hook? Where are we going to take this in the chorus? So Tricky put the next chords there. He put some new stuff on the Phantom, I think, was the keyboard he's playing. And that prompted the dream to have the idea to sing When the Sun shines will shine together. I was like, oh my God, this is crazy.

I was getting goosebumps. And with that, let's listen to the demo. Let's hear this demo. I've never heard this in life. I can't wait to hear it. I told you out of the hope I must to get out for me. Dude, you heard it here first. The demo for Umbrella featuring The Dream.

Man, that sounds so good. And by the way, so complete. So complete. That's an important thing about this song is that demo we just heard that came together so quickly. Not only is the vocal and the lyrics and the Ella and all the melodies. And by the way, the A. I mean, you forget that when Rihanna first comes out,

her going, eh. Yeah. Like, she's going. She's that on a couple of songs. It's very distinctively her. It's the same way the Beatles used to always do, who, at the end. It was like a sort of a signature thing.

And they're not writing it for her because they don't. That's what's crazy. She's not on their radar right now. They're not thinking about her at all when they write this song. In addition to all the vocal stuff, as you pointed out, being right there in the demo, the music you just heard is essentially the same on the final version. When we get into the stems,

you'll recognize from the song you've been hearing for 15 years and also that demo we just heard. They didn't really change very much. No, I heard the whole song. The keys sound a little bit different, but it's the song. They mixed it differently, obviously. I mean, it got a little tighter. They chopped it down, so it's a little shorter.

But essentially, they had the song in two hours, which is insane. So what's clear from that story is that this song was not written for Rihanna, even though it's got so many signature things that we associate with Rihanna. They were not thinking of Rihanna. She wasn't a huge star that she, they were aiming high, right? They wanted to get it to the biggest possible star. So tell us who they had in mind for this song. Tell us some of the people.

that they pitched it to, let's hear about this song's path to Rihanna. Absolutely. Well, just backing up a second, I'll just remind our longtime listeners may remember me talking about how my first job in Hollywood when I came to L.A. was I was one of the people like these guys trying to write songs that would be eventually used by a pop star. That was the job. The job description is you go in every day and you write songs and you pitch it.

And you hope that at the time it would have been, you know, Madonna, Katie Perry. That's right. We'll use it. We'll use it on their, and that's how you make your money. It's how you make your living. So they're aiming high on day one. Between the three of them, their big music industry success so far is me against the music, which the dream co-wrote for Britney Spears a few years earlier.

So their first thought is, let's get this to Brittany right away. That can be our meal ticket because we know this song is special. Pretty, this could have been big. Not the first time, not the last time. She'll turn down a huge hit. So it's the biggest artist they knew because they worked on me against the music together. what they said at the time was Brittany was starting work on her new album

and her personal life was a little out of control I'll just leave that there we thought let's save our friend let's give her a record so in their mind they were like we've got this huge song she's a huge star she needs a huge hit yeah this was a tumultuous time in her career

so they're like hey let's get her back on track this could be a win win win for everybody so apparently they send it over and according to legend either Jive passes right away or they she never really hears it to begin with but they get the word back that it's not going so they're like oh god damn what are we going

do. Meanwhile, over in the corner at Red Zone, apparently, was this gentleman called Teo Cruz, who himself had a hit Dynamite. Oh, trust me. That was another big club hit. He's like, I love this song, guys. Can I do it? To this day, it gets fun at wedding receptions. It is a huge hit. Shout out to my friend Bonnie McKee, who helped co-write that song. Oh, there you go. Yeah. And he does a demo, which I don't have a copy of, and his record company didn't think it was a hit. And they didn't put it out either. So that's two passes already. They said no to Teo? They said no to Teo. Not in 2007 they don't. Two nose and we're not done with the nose. We got one more no. It's Grammy season. So they're like, let's get it to Mary.

Mary J. Blige in this moment in 2007 is... Now that I can see. I mean, there's definitely a sort of like a Britney Spears version of umbrella that I could envision it. But Mary Jay, like, I could see Mary killing this song. What happened with Mary? They tried to... So it's it's Grammy season. She's nominated for eight awards. So she is definitely a get. She's like, if they can get her to sing it, it's a smash. But the same day, they also sent the demo to L.A. Reed at Def Jam, who had two albums in, but still kind of up and coming artist in Rihanna. The same day, it's sent to both places. And L.A. Reed kind of gets back to them first, saying, I want this for Rihanna. And meanwhile, they're like, Rihanna, we know about those two records. She's not that big of a star. We still want

Mary J. They're in a position of like, oh, damn, what do we do? And there's a bidding war that starts to heat up. Really? L.A. Reed's people are calling them constantly. There's this two or three day period where they're back and forth, and L.A. read just really wants this, but they really want Mary Jay, because Mary Jay is the proven, she's up for eight Grammys.

Yeah. She's the proven hitmaker. So they, at the last minute, L.A. makes them an offer they can't refuse. Sounds a little bit like Jay Z making. Yeah, I'm going to say L.A. Reed, clearly, I mean, like, you know, without getting into the man's whole history, you got to, you got to give it up for his creative instincts in terms of artists and songs. He's right. He matched the right song with the right artist. It goes out to Rihanna. She's stoked. She records it within a couple of days. And that's what you hear on the final version. It all came together that quickly.

That's an incredible story how this song ends up being a Rihanna song. I love those stories. I think we call them what ifs. They're like these pop stories about songs getting passed around and then eventually somebody gets in. You're like, I mean, like I immediately think of from this era. Paris Hilton was actually supposed to have the song, Don't You? You know, don't you wish your girl was hot like me. Paris Hilton's catchphrase being hot at the time. Right. That's not so that's why that word is in there. No, it actually leads to some certain lyrics being sort of like remnants of who it was meant for. Right. Just recently found out on Instagram.

I don't remember who posted about this, but notorious B.I.G, they wanted notorious B.I.G to do doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it well. And eventually it ended up being the big hit for L.O. Cool J., but that, is the reason, because they were shopping it to B-I-G, that's the reason you hear, go Brooklyn, go Brooklyn. I mean, L.O. Cool-J is not from Brooklyn. And I remember when the song came out, they were like, why does it say, go Brooklyn on an L-L song? He's from Queens. He even had to address it in the course. He's like, you know, I'm representing Queen, she was raised out in Brooklyn. It's funny to see how certain songs, maybe one of the weirdest. That's a good adjustment.

That's a good adjustment. Okay, I just got to say, that reminds me, you know the story of rappers delight how like, okay, so Sylvia Robinson finds three guys at like a pizza parlor. They're like, hey, you guys want to rap? You look like you could be rappers. One of them is this guy's name, he goes by Big Bank Hank on the song. And he didn't have any wraps. So he asked his buddy, Grandmaster Cass, he's like, I'm going to go rap on a song. By the way, don't forget in 1979, there are no songs with raps on that. No, no, no. So no one has any thought about what this means to go rap on a song. So Grandmaster Cass is like, yeah, take my lyric book. So it goes in the studio, Big Bank Hank. If you listen to Rappers Delight, you'll hear him say,

spell out He says, check it out C-A-S. Yeah, like he spells out Cassanova. He spells out Casanova Fly, which is Grandmaster Kaz's full, like, name. He doesn't even change it. No.

Next on the mic is my man, Hank, come on and sing that song. Check it out. I'm the C-A-S-N, the O-V-A-A, and the rest is F-L-Y. You see, I go by the code of the doctor of the mix, these reasons I'll tell you why.

You just literally lifted that lyric. And then Grand Master Kaz is like, what would say it's on the radio? He's like, what the hell was I thinking? This other guy is saying they're mean. and not even, so not even realizing that he should have done a Brooklyn Queen's transition like how he did. I mean, this is a little bit

of a weird story, but in the first season of Miami Vice, there's a character played by the late actor Charles Barnett. He's supposed to be like this street informant. Okay. And at the end of the episode, when he's driving off in a car, he starts rapping Rappers Delight. And he gets out a full bar of Rappers Delight while Crocket and Tubbs are waving by to him.

And I think the only reason that stayed in there was because nobody at NBC, think they thought he was making that stuff up on the fly. It's really, it's like a season one. I think they thought he was making it up, and nobody knew about rappers to like it. Nobody paid Sylvia Robinson. I'm sure her enforcers are on that one now.

Oh, shoot. You know, like, if we just snitched on Miami Vice, I apologize. And Sylvia Robinson. NBC Universal, don't hate me. You can be my boyfriend. You surely can. Just let me quit with my boyfriend on Superman. I said he's a very...

By the name, Louis Lane, and you can be my boyfriend. by the way there are a couple of these that I think are really missed opportunities. I heard that Meatloaf was originally supposed to sing Total Eclipse of the Heart. Oh my God. That makes so much sense. I could totally see that. It's such a meatloaf song. That's a Jim Steinman rock opera. And we're all poor for that not having happened.

But it kind of works perfectly, you know, turn around bright eyes. Absolutely. After the break, we'll hear the isolated vocal stems that literally made. it rained. Literally. Welcome back to one song. All right, luxury. Time for the stems. Where do you want to start? All right. Let's start with the drums. And by the way, this is a song that comes out March 29th, 2007. Just two and a half months after what we're about to hear got made. It went from demo to chart topper in 17 countries, including seven weeks at number one in the United States. Insane. Just less than three months after they just sat down and accidentally made it.

So we already played for you that drum loop. In addition to the Apple Vintage Funk Kit-O-3, which is the name of that loop, which I'll play for you again. They added just a little bit more on the kick and clap and hat side. I'll play that for you now. Here's just the regular beat that comes when you buy a Mac. You get this beat. And then I'll add in the extra kicks and claps so you can hear how they come in.

Starting with just the beat. And there's these kicks and some claps. You hear that little high-end thing. I'll just play that clap for you. It's quiet stuff. You can hear what it sounds like. Here's the kicks and claps they added. And with the beat, it sounds like this. And then there's a little open hi-hat that's really light in the mix. You can barely make it out. But it sounds like this. Just quarter notes. And then when you put it all together. And that is the entire duration of the song. You're just hearing that pretty much the entire song. It's so good. It's so good. You don't need to mess with it. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. You know, the fact that it went from demo to the radio as fast as it did

speaks to the fact that sometimes you can end up overthinking this stuff, guys. Oh, my God. Sometimes that first thing is good where it is. And that's the value of having some other objective ears in the room. Yeah. That three-person team to be able to say, hey, no, no, no, don't mess with it. That's when you need somebody with the creative taste of an L.A. to read to just say, you know what, this is good.

Let's just give this to Rihanna and let's record it. Yeah. And you know what? When we get into the synth, which is coming up next, you'll hear all kinds of little imperfections and glitches. To my ears, and I'll play this for you in a second, to my ears as a maker of music and a maker of many demos, I can hear how this might have been literally the first pass

because he's sort of playing with some ideas and then you don't hear them again. But those are all in the final mix too. It'll make sense when I play it for you in a second. Let's start with in the synths. And this is just a little arpeggio that goes throughout the entire song. It's a four bar loop.

and you'll hear it a lot in the song and it sounds like this. They're just cycling through those two chords. It's got a lot long delay on it. I love it. Really simple stuff. And if you like simple things you hear throughout the song, you'll love this.

I do like simple things. This is another just three-note loop that goes through the whole song. And I'll play that with the other one. And with the beats, sounds like this. We got a couple more since in the mix because we need a little bass content.

The real bass itself doesn't really come in until like, 30 seconds-ish in when you get this... Oh, but by the way, as a DJ, I know exactly what you're about to bring in because you feel it. Like, when the speakers are loud, you feel this extra bass coming.

Let's hear it. Yeah, there's two moments where there's, like, kind of a build-up. So you get a little preview of it at the end of the verse, and it sounds like this. Just this little one note. It's really dirty, though.

Nasty. Just that one bass note. Three, four. Technically, it's a whole note, the entire bar. And I'll play that for you now in the mix with the other synths. And that plus the beat is all you're hearing when Rihanna comes in. So minimal.

She's singing over this. But then, to your point, in the chorus, we get this. Sorry, technically, that's a whole note. That's a whole note. I was going to say, I think the other was like a quarter note. I misspoke. The other was like maybe even an eighth note. It's the only thing through the entire bar.

Then you get the proper whole note in the chorus. and that is mixed with another synth that enters in the chorus only, which sounds like this, including that little together with all the synths, together with the beats. Here's the L-O part. Exactly.

Yeah. It's what you drop out. It makes a big difference. By the way, who knew that the instrumental and basically the keys of umbrella could be so Gary Newman. Yeah. Like, it sounds like, I thought about that.

Which gets a lot of shoutouts on this show. But if you just hear those keys by themselves, it kind of sounds like the guy who made, I get in my car. Like, it just sounds like that. That's a great comparison. I love that. Apparently, that's the Roland Phantom F6, according to what I've read. And that's going right into logic. and a lot of what I'm hearing is a first time, maybe a second time performance

because there's lots of little moments that aren't quite perfect. They're not gridded. They're not like being programmed. They are performed by a person. And yeah, they have little human touches that are imperfect. I'll play a few more of those moments for you now. Here's one more synth. This is called fuzz bass.

This is in the second verse it comes in. And I'll add some more parts. You can hear the context. That little moment right there is what I was referring to. He was like, he just kind of played. that in the moment and never does it again. It's almost a mistake, but it's just like, no, let's keep that. I'll play it again.

There's something like very Atlanta does New Wave music about this song that I think is very cool. You recognize, you identify with it? I do, man, because even though it sounds like New Wave, like, I can't help but sort of like, you know, do my Atlanta dance to it. You know, like, you know, not that this is an Atlanta dance, but like, I feel the groove. Yeah. It's funny you said that about Gary Newman, too, because Gary Newman tracks. don't have drum machines. There's a live drummer. Oh, wow. And this beat sounds a little bit

like what could have been a Gary Newman beats. That's a really good call. Gary was sleeping. And then in the bridge, we have this beautiful little piano part, which I will play for you now, isolated. This sounds like an entirely different song. It is the classic bridge, which often sounds dropped in from another song. Okay, okay. Now I read, until you said the bridge, I was like, what part of this? Out of context, it does sound like, you're right. Sounds like a totally different song. I mean, When you don't hear the vocal coming out of the chorus into this and you're out of the context, you're like, what just happened? We're in a new section altogether. Like, you know, immediately my brain starts saying like, ooh, we should write a song that sounds like this.

But then you're like, oh, it's the bridge. And I'm like, oh, yeah, this is the bridge. Yeah, in classic songwriting, like when you're writing a song, the bridge is often the last thing you do. Because you start with whatever you start with and then you've got it. If it was the hook, you've got to write the verse. Yeah. There's the verse you got to write the hook. Writing the second verse is always usually one of the hardest things to do.

do. And then the bridge, which is the goal with the bridge, is to go somewhere different so you can come back to from that place. What you're saying about the bridge makes sense to me, why do you think the second verse is so hard to write? Second verse is often hard. You mean like lyrically? Lyrically, you're trying to find the next part of the story. And it just so happens that you this is by the way, my own experience. Clue. I don't know. I mean, this is where we get in your head. Yeah, yeah. I think that the second verse sometimes you can get tripped up on what we have, what we have is working perfectly. You almost don't want to break it because story flow, from the verse into the chorus is usually how the genesis of the idea.

And then you've got to decide where the story goes from there. And in the second verse, you know, is there some sort of conclusion? Or are we also are we getting into the bridge from the verse? Like all of the pieces fit together like a puzzle. And it's the puzzle that you're determining in real time. How, what is it going to look like at the end of the day? I'll say right in the second verse for some of the Sherman songs was like, how can we keep whatever sort of like joke?

didn't do jokey songs. I think we did songs really well. But like, how do we keep the, the humor of this thing going without starting to feel like an eight-minute sketch built around one joke? There you go. And I think that that's, but also that's why story comes into play because I think about, for some reason, the first song that pops of my head is Copacabana. Like, no, third verse is when, you know, it's now a disco. Right. You know, and she lost her lover and she lost her mind. So if you have a story that you're telling, you know, that that rule of three actually helps you write the And also, I'm coming from the perspective, I'm mostly a track maker and lyrics are secondary to me. I think if you're a pure, pure, in quotes, like lyricist first, then you probably are thinking

storytelling as a core part of what your job is, along with the melodic delivery of that song. I myself struggle sometimes with what the storytelling is. Because I do think musically first and lyrically secondly. So, anyway, just sort of an interesting thing. That is interesting. What's the next Emmy have for us? If you're in the mood for little fun things, after the bridge, there is a little section where it's slight variations on what you've been hearing. It's just a reversal of the chords.

The verse chords, just to get musical logical for a second, are 4, 5, 3, 6. And then the chorus, the chords are 4-1, 5, 6. For a moment after the bridge, you have those verse chords in the chorus. And it sounds like this. But just for a moment. Just for a moment. Just for variation. Five, three, minor three, minor six.

Blues, blues. So that's happening, that's just a little variation. And then finally, little fun things on the synths, again. This is tricky playing the track all the way through, like before there is a lyric, because this is happening in real time, they're all working together, and he's just having little fun bits at the end.

Rainin, raining, yeah. Oh, yeah, it's raining, raining, roaning. Wait, I like that note. What was that note that came in out of nowhere? What was that little note at the end? Little chord change that happens right there. Play that just that very end again. Little variation, a little melody.

I need a 20-25 remix now. I have never heard that little change in there. I love that. That's how they make the variation so that across the song where it's so loopy and similar, just little change is to vary it up. Speaking of loopy, I feel like we're a little loopy. But hey, can you play me that little fun bit again just by itself?

Sure. Oh, that's where you're hearing the beat. It proves our theory about BPM. Okay. Because drum and bass is about this tempo if you just double it up. So when I heard that part, I was like, I can hear the... By the way, drawing bass is really hard to imitate with your... Yeah, exactly.

That's about as good as you can do. You can do the... Goong cat, the cat, dude. But if you try and hit every note with your hands, you just sound like you're messing stuff up. I'm playing it again with the drum and bass. Ready? Let's do the kick clap. Ready?

That's the jungle remix. Check, check, check, check, check, check. That's the Pink Panther. That's the Pink Pantheras. Yeah, exactly. The Jay-Z section. This is actually a big part of the song's appeal, in my opinion. Like, you know, Jay-Z, when he would co-sign off on your song by giving you a verse,

like that was a big deal back then. Yeah, oh, my God, huge. And by the way, as we said earlier, he didn't just co-sign off Rihanna. He signed Rihanna. He was a major reason why she got signed to the first place. He would not let it. And the song starts and you're hearing him. out of the gate you're listening

Oh, it's a Jay-Z song I'm gonna listen to whatever this is Uh-huh Uh-huh No clouds in my stones Slet it rain I hide your plane in the thing Coming down

Like a Dow Jones When the clouds come we go We rock a fellas We fly hiding weather And she flies her better You know me Um A couple of things

One If you're gonna do Jay Z at karaoke night Make sure that you know Because he's like He's weird He's like Frank Sinatra Like it

it comes out sounding easier than it was. I remember one time a friend of mine tried to do Empire State of Mind at karaoke night. Like his lines, his lyrics don't fall in the natural places. He's definitely doing some weird... You rehearse at home before you show up at karaoke night. He's doing verbal jiu-jitsu on the beat, and that's one of the things that Jay probably doesn't get enough credit for. Another thing is that I think I hear an interpolation of UGKs,

I got a pocket full of stones. pocket through the stone. That's what he says, No clouds in my stones, which is not like, it's just a reference. It's just a reference. It's just a reference.

It's for hip-hop fans. It's for people like you to notice. It's for people like, oh, yeah, he brought that in. That's right. That's right. This is one of those songs. This is one of those Jayze verses.

Anybody who's heard it, it's so iconic in the mid-2000s. If he came in on your song, like people learned it. And he has some of the best cameos and features, specifically on R&B diva songs of all time. We don't need to mention his voice. verse on Crazy in Love. I think

everybody at this point has heard it. If not, Chinchilla. Get up on a... The best fur. What? The best fur. Chinchilla. I mean, exactly. I was going to say, if you haven't heard that one, do that on your own time. I want to play one of the first verses from his career where I realize, oh, this guy's amazing on the hook.

This is Best of Me, Him and Maya. Best of Me. Part 2, JZ. Yeah. Yes, y'allin. Jig a man be bawling. Leave chicks pigeon toad. Some of them be crawling. I mean, like the best of you whenever I put my all in. Have mommy's calling for the Lord, darling. Jigger and Paulin.

Ash drop. Who's for having. I mean, like, she hasn't even started singing. I might hasn't even started singing, but as a DJ that, you know, it comes in with that iconic drum break that cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, and then it's yes, y'all and jigger man be bawling. Like, he knows how to enter the track. Yeah.

And I mean. Get your attention. No clouds in my stones? Like, he's instantly roped you in. Absolutely. I just think the Jay's just, he's got that. magic. And I love how he's interacting with Rihanna on the track and, you know, name checking her literally and mentioning the album title. I know. Do we know that this was

take three? He says, take three. Yeah. Well, I found a story about that. Oh, my gosh. Why don't you share it with us? There was a different verse originally. And at the last minute, Jay-Z went in and replaced it. And he didn't even ask permission. He didn't need to. No. But Tricky Stewart later. I think he's still the president of Jeff Jam at this time. He can change it even now if he wants to. and change it on Spotify. He goes in and he alters his verse. I found this quote from Tricky Stewart.

There was actually another version before the one that ended up on the record, which in Tricky's words was perfect. And right before it was about to get pressed up, he went and changed it. Nobody even knew he changed it. And at the time, I didn't know why he did it. But now when I go back every once in a while and I listen to the old rap, what he wrote instead makes so much more sense because it sounds like he added the metaphors about the weather and he sort of responded more to the lyricic constant of the song.

We fly high and weather. And G5's the better. Yeah, exactly. He made it fit and better. So he's also got literally her intro sounds. I didn't know what to call them coos are already entering. And one thing I noticed on this listen, because we just listen to the demo,

is that Wiki Wiki, Wiki is from the dream. It's from the dream's demo. So we've got all three of them on that in a moment. The dream. Can I just take a second, take a step back, and just say that I think the dream, along with T.Pain, they gave us so many, just those two guys, gave us so many wonderful sort of like, I want to say sugary sweet, pop songs, pop rap

songs, pop R&B songs in the mid-2000s. Like, I'm such a T-Pain fan, such a The Dream fan. I mean, like, if you look at the songs The Dream has written or collaborated on, it is so many songs that I think will stand the test of time. One song I feel like he does not get a whole lot of love. It's just because it's an album cut. It was actually sampled by Drake for one of his first remixes, but I just want to play a snippet of one of my favorite The Dream songs before we.

we move on. This song is called Fancy. This is towards the end of what is, I think, an 11-minute song. Fancy is a really long song. Actually, it might only be about seven minutes, but, you know, in the world of R&B, that's a long time. This is just a little bit of the end of the song Fancy by the dream. One of my favorite moments, check this out. I mean, yeah, there's just so much going on there. I hear a lot of similarity with the keys there, so he's probably still working with his guys. So I really just, you know, big fan of the dream. Maybe we can do an episode and do one song, one career with The Dream. That'd be fun.

That'd be helpful. Let's hear Rihanna. By the way, Rihanna, one of the most identifiable voices in R&B and pop, like, you know, between the patois, her ability to just really sound just. Her tone is so specific. Silky. Personal. Sexy. Like, she's fantastic.

I want to hear some Rihanna vocals. Right. I mean, perfect segue because the song starts with her doing like the barest minimum of a sound, which in 2007 might have been new to a lot of ears, but now all you need to do is hear just the sound eh.

Only Rihanna can make that sound, right? Distinctively. Well, let's get into the first verse. Here is Rihanna. This is Umbrella, verse one. You have my heart and we'll never be worlds apart. Maybe in magazines,

but you still stay. the be must die. I love it. I mean, like, you know, you can hear the dance hall influences there. You know, you can hear the island influences, not just in her pat-twile, but also, like, in how they master her sound. It's definitely got that dance hall, you know, dove.

I totally agree. That's well-put. It sort of reminds me of that sister Nancy sort of vocal sound, you know? It's when their voices are high, it's like, I always say, like, most of the greatest rappers of all time, with the exception of, like, you know, almost all of them have high voices. Whether there's Jay-Z or Drake, like, Because if you can go high, then that bass can go really low

And people like that sort of like high, low tension Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's well said. Let's continue. Baby, because in the dark, you can't see shiny cars. And that's when you need me there with you all always share. And I'm sorry to cut it off there. Oh, gosh, I feel like you can't do that to me next time.

Give me a chorus. I just, I love the because. as a songwriting thing. Because, yeah, no, I... That's how you get from the verse to the chorus sometimes. I've never thought of it. Yes. And then you do it.

No, I, no, seriously, I was going to say the same thing. I had never thought of the because as like a link. Exactly. It's a segue into the chorus. It's such a segue. Because, as a result. Yes. Yes, we heard the same thing.

You've probably been thinking about this for years. I heard it for the first time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, without further ado... Yeah, I'm still in limbo. And now I'm... Emotionally.

Because, why because? Why because? When the sunshine, we shine together, told you I'll be here forever, said I'll always be your friend, took a note of thomas to get out to the end. And before I play the next section, of course there are backing vocals,

I'll stack them so you can hear it with the full beautiful harmonies that are there in the final mix. Now that it's raining more than ever, know that we'll still have each other. You can stand under my umbrella. You can stand under my umbrella. I mean, that's so good.

You play some backing vocals in there. Can we hear just the backing vocals? I'm so glad you asked. I wanted to hear those I stated too. We shine together. Be here forever. And there's a second backing vocal with a harmony, and that sounds like this.

Shine together. Here forever. And together. that lower one, yeah. The two of those together harmonized like this. And then when you add the lead, we get the full stack. Yeah, forever. It's so good.

It's so good. And, you know, admittedly, there's so much on the vocals so that when it's coming out of the speaker into like, you know, a dark cavernous club like I used to do, it just bounces off the walls perfectly. Yeah, her voice just like cuts through everything. I'd love to hear the bridge. It's sort of like the part, if you're DJing like a busy nightclub,

you don't always get to this bridge, but the bridge is pretty sweet. Can you play something off the bridge? Yeah, let's do that. And as I was saying before, from a song-learning perspective, think about this. The bridge is the opportunity to go somewhere different

so that you can return and it'll sound fresh again to the chorus, which is what after this section takes us to the end of the song. Here is the bridge, Rihanna, isolated vocals, umbrella. Because takes us out of the bridge. Because, yeah, it's a good, it's a good, what would we call that? Just a segue or a transition, yeah. Segway transition, it's so good.

I mean, like, just epic. It's so epic. And I was feeling goosebumps, even though we weren't hearing the music, but knowing what the music was doing in that section, I'll just play that part with a little bit of the music underneath it. So you can have the full satisfaction of what happens when she sings that long note. Oh, epic. I mean, that's amazing.

I love that transition out of the bridge. It's just so epic. And speaking of transitions, so what I did there, I just want to say a little bit, and I know you do too, about some of the songs that she's sampled along the way, some of the interpolations that she's sampled along the way. Yeah, let's talk about some really fun ones.

Let's talk about some Rihanna sampling and interpolation. All right, so let's get started with another track from Good Girl Gone Bad, same record as Umbrella. This is Don't Stop the Music, which sounds a little bit like this. In the background, you're obviously hearing a sample. Yeah. Is it a sample or is it an interpolation? In the background, I'm hearing a sample.

And then later in the song, she's also interpolating it. Absolutely. And it's of this Michael Jackson song from Thriller. Who? It's this gentleman called Michael Jackson. Some people called him Mike. Okay, maybe related to Randy Jackson. He could be one of Tito's brothers here.

Want to be starting something from Thriller, 1982. So this is one of those songs. where there's a sample and an interpolation of the same song. You know, from a songwriting from a money perspective, maybe there's something because once you've sampled, you're already paying both the master and publishing sides. You might as well throw an interpolation in the mix. And here is where it happens in Don't Stop the Music by Rihanna.

All right. By the way, even the Michael Jackson is an interpolation. I was going to say the story doesn't end there. Right. Because as we both know as disco fans, one of the first technically disco songs, according to some, certainly was played at some of the loft

in the earliest disco experiences, is the 1972 mana-de-bango song, Sol Makosa. Mamako, Mama-a-ma-sa, macosa, Mamako-ma-ca-ma-ca-ma-caca-ma-caca. Which is technically not the same lyrics, and there's not a melody happening in that. He's just, blah-la-la-la-l-l-h.

It's monotone. Yeah. But it was enough for there to be some court cases and some payment. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, which I can. can tell you very quickly about. So Michael Jackson basically put out want to be starting something just without clearing anything. He just put it out there. Because maybe in Quincy and Mike's mind,

they're like, you know, this is influenced by, but we did something different. I'm a same, Mama Sammamakus. This is different phonemes. I also think in the early 80s, let's just be real. Early 80s, that's true. Nobody was, especially, they really weren't thinking about sampling. And I think people just liberally borrowed from one another. In a way, it would be unimaginable down. There's a sense of, like, musical language and building blocks. We're all sharing the same notes. We're all sharing similar ideas. So sometimes you use my chord change.

Sometimes I use your melody. There is a little bit going on in this era, which, by the way, I think is healthy. I do, too. I don't mind that. However. When Mono DiBago found out. Yeah. So anyone looking at the credits might notice that Michael Jackson is credited as a writer on Don't Stop the Music, but Tobongo is not credited.

What happened is that in 2009, Tobongo filed a lawsuit in a French court against both songs. He said they both used his hook. without permission. Jackson admitted that he did. He said, yeah, you're right. I did. And they settled out of court. And apparently, Rihanna had asked Jackson for permission. Jackson gave permission, but didn't mention the source of his interpolation. Apparently didn't make it all the way to the end of the line here with the publishers, which somebody, you know, should have done. Basically, the way this whole situation ends is that it turns out this sort of a technicality. One French judge said that DeBongo's claim was inadmissible against Rihanna because a year earlier, a different French

judge had required the record label to actually add his name in the credits. I don't want to overly complicate things, but the bottom line is that because it sounds like DeBongo is like, oh yeah, you're putting my name in the credits, I'm done. I'm withdrawing any legal action. He couldn't do it again. He couldn't like refile for it. There's a little bit in the weeds, but all this to say that DeBongo's Solmokosa is the source for both want to be starting something by Jackson's refrain, as well as don't stop the music, but he's only getting credit and he only got paid for the Michael Jackson one. That's the world of publishing and royalties and clearance for you. It's crazy. It's all over the place. That's really fascinating, but now all I can think of is

please don't sue me, mano, please don't sue me, manu. Feel free to use that. I won't sue anybody overuse of that. You know, I got to say, it's very cool that Rihanna can call up M.J. and just be like, okay, can I use that part of your song? I just think she's the coolest. She's got good taste. You know, I always say like a strong pop artist has to be their, you know, own A&R in some ways. Right, totally. And, you know, they have to keep their eyes open for, you know, exciting new places to go.

Yeah, something's got to be in her own voice. It's got to be to her taste. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to that point, I love this song. She has same old mistakes. I want to play it and then I want to play the song.

It's so obviously sample. So that's same old mistakes. and it samples this song from Tame Impala, New Person's Same Old Mistakes. Like, it's just a straight-up, she's basically singing over his song. It's a cover is what it is interesting. It's like, it's like she took the track.

She took the track and made it a rhythm. Absolutely. And she used the rhythm and sang over it. So it's classic Caribbean form. She's Bayesian, not Jamaican, but that's part of that culture. By the way, I think artists should do this more often. They should take some of these instrumental,

you know, songs in electronic, music and just sing over him. Because, you know, I mean, like, they're basically like a producer. We're like, hey, why don't you sing over this? I think if good music, I think the idea of reusing it in other ways and extending the life of it and creating a musical dialogue. I mean, we talk about that a lot in the show. I love that phenomenon.

I think you don't need to just start from scratch every time for it to be creatively, you know, authentic. I can't think of two more cooler people than Rihanna and Taman Pell. Pretty much the pinnacle of cool. That's the pinnacle of cool. You have another song for us. I do. You might be familiar with this other hit from Good Girl Gone Bad. This song is called Shut Up and Drive.

Anyway, you know this song, right? That's Blue Monday, right? It is definitely Blue Monday, right? It is definitely Blue Monday by New Order, which sounds like this. Right, so New Order, Blue Monday, and it's the chord changes. It's not a sample, it's everyone altogether. Everyone in podcast land, one, two, three, interpolation. There you go.

We got the chord changes and we got the melody from New Order's Blue. Monday. Yeah. And all four members... But it's not a sample because they're not taken from the master track. That's exactly right. It's not the recording. And all four members of New Order get co-writing credits on Shut Up and Drive from that reuse.

Very cool. Anytime you start playing Blue Monday, it just feels so wrong to cut it short. It's such a good song. You gotta hear the whole thing. You gotta hear the whole thing. Exactly. So do y'all, like we said, Umbralla was a massive global hit for Rihanna. Looking back, how do you think it changed Rihanna's career?

I mean, after umbrella, nothing was the same. Yes. You know. Absolutely. And after this, she's, you know, I mean, like, let's just talk about Fenty. It's important to remember that Rihanna is a billionaire. Yeah. She's in the billionaire club.

She's one of those brand, one name, brand artists. And, you know, the Fenty fashion line, those outrageous, really, really cool, you know, fashion shows that, you know, come along and sort of like take over the screens in my house for about a month after they come out. you know she she embraced a level of of superstardom and also she did it her way because if you look at how if you look at how she has sort of stayed out of the public eye in a lot of ways you know um you know she I was going to ask you about that that seems like a like a like a decision like a smart decision so clearly a decision you know saving her sanity and her family yeah and now she's got kids I mean like you know, so, you know, she, and by the way, props to her for doing the Super Bowl while pregnant. I feel like the same way that she's always been very particular with her sound and her music,

she's been very particular about her public image and what she's willing to put out there. She's just not one of those people who puts it all out there for everyone to see. There's a lot of mystery. Yeah. There's a lot of time in between, you know, music being released. Will we get another record? I don't know. You know, maybe she's, maybe she's, maybe she's, maybe she's,

tired of doing music. I guess we'll have to see. All right. Now, earlier, we touched on the idea of how this song was originally meant for Britney Spears and Mary J. Blige was also offered this song, which is just crazy. I mean, like... I missed out. I don't even think either of them necessarily heard it.

Yeah, we don't know that they actually heard it to reject it. But man, I mean, Mary J. Blige, Britney Spears, we'll never know what those versions of umbrella would have sounded like until today. Oh, boy. With the help of artificial intelligence, and our producer, Matt.

Yes, prior to this taping, Matt worked with the robots, known as AI. A and I. We get very technical here. He worked with the robots to create a version of umbrella with vocals by Britney Spears. Luxury and I have not heard this before. We're going to be hearing it for the first time when I hit play. We are so looking forward to hearing what I'm sure is an improvement on the Rihanna. Let's see.

That's the Jay-Z Oh No clouds in my stones Brittany rapping First of I think the real life Britney could probably Rap a little better than this

Well it's hilarious because it's obviously trained on her like Rasty voice She's like No clouds in my sounds It's like It's like trained on those moments From her songs

So it's like Raspian sexy I guess I can't wrap it It's around Like not every person on the track Is Britney Spears so they're just like, make it all, Brittany. Let's hear some singing.

She sounds like she's falling asleep. I mean, you can almost see, you can almost hear a Britney song in there. Sure. I mean, it's funny, again, this is just an AI thing, not a Britney thing. AI is trained on the songs, like different algorithms. Trained on other people's copywritten material. They found the sleepy parts of her material. Because I feel like she's about to fall asleep

I was hoping in the chorus she'd wake up But it was just like When the sunshine It was very sleepy It was very low energy That's really That was really interesting It was very interesting though

Oh by the way Here's the Mary J. Blige version Oh by the way Well little missa shall be out of where you're at New heart in the high And we'll never be well-to-pie Maybe in magazines But you'll still be my star

I'll say AI It's probably going to seem like, yeah, no shit. It doesn't nail the personality of these singers. No, you know, the uncanny valley, you know that idea? It's so uncanny valley. It's so lifelike that it dips and is extremely not human sounding. Well, not just that. Yeah, technically it doesn't sound like people.

Yeah. But also... There's no person on that track. It's having something that's supposed to sound like Mary J. Blige, but it's singing the song like Rihanna sang it. I would just imagine that Mary would have different riffs she would go for. She would just do it differently. Yeah, the way she would phrase it or information.

Like all the choices would be different just normally. But that's just a human distinction between singers. But like the difference is super noticeable and strange. Yeah. Because Mary wouldn't normally sound like that. No. Those choices we're hearing. No, not at all.

Mary J. Brittany, your jobs are safe. Yeah, you guys are fine. Your jobs are safe. Okay, it's time for one more song. where we share a new song with you, the One Song Nation, and with each other. For my one more song, I have selected Kingdom Hearts Key.

That is by JPEG Mafia and Danny Brown, and it's featuring Red Veil. I'll say something about it on the other side. Here it is, Kingdom Hearts Key. I mean, first off, the sampling in this song is insane. I had no idea where that beat was going to drop. I love being lost before it leaves. First of, obviously we can only play a certain amount of a song before.

We can't play the whole song here. And check out this song. It's got so many time signature changes. Okay. So that was just one of many moments. Time confusion. It's going all over the map. I love that.

The samples, they're sampling video games. They're sampling, I'm probably going to butcher a name, but I think it's pronounced Maya Sakamoto. And this song called No Need for Promises. Yeah, they've got video game samples, obscure Japanese artists, well, from the American point of view, obscure. To us. And yeah, and it's got so many different, you know, like I said, time signature changes. But trust me, if you listen to this song, it will get stuck in your head. There are times I'm just walking about my day, and I'm just like hearing that sample playing over and over in my head.

So I felt like I had to choose it. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing it. Luxury. What's your pick? Well, this week is one of those one more songs, which is one of, one of the one, my own songs because I just dropped a new single. It's called Strangely Familiar. Part of the fun of this song for me is in tandem with our whole conversation about Jamaica and reusing rhythms. I had a

project where I decided I wanted to have a song where the vocal, I was essentially remix my own song, but like it would be a new song. So this is the same lyrics. Did you clear it? Did you clear it with yourself? I cleared it. I have not clear it. Oh, you know, I'm in trouble now. I am snitching on myself. I need to sign the paperwork. No, of course it's cleared with myself. I am an independent artist and I decided that, yeah, strangely familiar is a brand new composition by luxury. And it sounds like this. Are you ready? All right, you're driving a car very fast right now. You know what I just realized? I could play the whole thing because I do have the right to clear that chamois. So the next five minutes, we're just going to play my entire song. There you go.

But that track was inspired. I really like it. Thank you very much. much. That track is inspired, obviously, by Georgi Marauder. One of my heroes, the king of 16th note pummeling synthesizers. The interesting thing about this track, by the way, is I completed this and put it out, uploaded it to the internet a few months ago,

and then the new Justice track came out and is doing a similar thing, kind of going back to that Marauder, 16th note pummeling thing. Their track is very different. It's very good. Go check it out. But it's just interesting. Maybe this Maroder vibe is in the air right now. The 16th note, boom, boom, boom. I love it. I always called

like a galloping bass. Totally. Yeah, I really like that song. Thank you so much, my friend. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram or TikTok. And if you made it this far into the show, I think that means you probably like the podcast. So please don't forget to give us... But we'll take hate listeners too.

Just listen. No matter what your emotional state is. Please don't forget to give us five stars on whatever platform you listened on. Leave a review and share it with someone you think would like it. It really helps keep the podcast going. Luxury you help me in this thing. I'm producer DJ. songwriter and musicologist luxury.

And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ D'all Roald. And this is one song. We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by AI Robots and Matthew Nelson, with engineering from Marcus Homme, additional production support from Casey Simonson. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart,

Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Weil, and Leslie Guam.