I knew of Tricky in Atlanta
I was just literally starting
my songwriting career
at that particular time.
We knew each other
we respected each other
we knew what each other had done
being the producer and the
producer knows best
It wasn’t until I’d met
someone who had the ability
to song write and bring
as much creative to the
process that I felt that
I was bringing where I
would even consider the
word partnership.
Partnership was meeting
somebody at least half way or
making sure what you are doing
was impacting the person
that you're beside.
It’s a connection beyond
the x’s and o’s. It’s the
things that you can’t
put on paper that allow us
to really create.
The-Dream is so creative
that he’s writing all the time.
One of the more harder jobs
is the one that Tricky has
and the one that the engineers
have and that’s capturing the
ideas, you know, as they come
because once you get the tool
and the muscle working in
music it never really stops,
like, there’s no way for me
to shut it off.
Even while he was saying
just then about me writing records
I was in my head writing a record
because I can’t hear the word
writing a record without writing
a record.
In my mind, while these songs
are going on
it’s a blessing to have somebody
to be able to capture it and
capture the moment of it and be
able to then in the future
turn it into something.
And I’m a part of that process, too,
but I’m completely free in
my process initially, and I
think that’s the most important
part of all of us.
As much chemistry as we have
we don’t have a whole lot of
music that we both grew up on.
I’m from Chicago, he’s from the south.
A lot of times it’s like pull
and tug because what I may wanna
play or what he might have played
underneath his melody may be
been two different genres
but at the same time
through that chemistry
we get this look at each other
we kinda go
that’s working, that’s not,
but when you sing this note
against that note like that
feels like it could be a
good bridge.
I don’t think no one is
bigger than the song itself
regardless of who you start
out writing it for
the song is its song.
It lands where it needs to land
and it sounds great on
that person that's singing it
those are things that I’m
not responsible for
I think that’s just how
the universe works
And sometimes you get lucky
and lightning strikes and
it stays in that bottle.
I feel like we’re just getting
started.
We’re literally just scratching
the surface of what we’re
actually capable of.
We just got a high
commitment to music
for the future of music,
a respect for the past
of music.
What I want us to be
remembered as is connoisseurs
of what we do
That we believed what we were
doing helped everybody
get from one day to the next.
Song is God, like where
we’re from.