Naughty Boy had something to say about the treatment of songwriters for popular artists on BBC Radio’s Heat Map show. His words were a response to the Rolling Stones‘ Keith Richards, who previously criticised singers who collaborate with writers in the songwriting process.
“Well, they can’t rely on themselves, can they?” Richards said in his interview with Time Out London. “We’re in the midst of a heavy-duty “showbiz” period, even stronger than when we killed it last time. The X Factor and all this competition shit. It’s just for people who want to be famous. Well, if it’s fame you wants, good luck. You’d better learn to live with it.”
Naughty Boy, who has written songs for Rihanna, Leona Lewis and Emeli Sande, revealed some information about issues behind recognition when it comes to bigger artists. “There are performers and songwriters. Songwriters suffer for the song. It’s their story. There’s nothing wrong with that, but credit needs to be given where it’s due.”
Early on in his career while working with Sande, he saw that she was an active contributor. He says this gave him false impressions of what actually goes on in the writing room.
“Artists become fans of the writers and keep using them,” he said. “But they don’t really acknowledge them when they become big. It’s about giving recognition to the others involved. We live in the social media age, all it would take is a tweet.”
According to NME, he also said the honesty within certain songs is often comes from the writer’s life, rather than the artist’s.
Watch the video of Naughty Boy’s latest track with Beyonce below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJSik6ejkr0
Image: Digital Spy
Words by Susie Garrard
It’s been nearly a year since we heard any new music from Queen Bey, but now UK producer Naughty Boy has dropped new track Runnin’ (Lose It All) featuring dual vocals from Beyoncé and Arrow Benjamin. Teased earlier this week, the full track has now been released – along with a beautiful video directed by Charlie Robins and after a tense twitter countdown.
Racking up an impressive roster of collaborations, Beyoncé is the latest big name to feature on Naughty Boy’s work. Tangled up in Zayn Malik’s recent contentious departure from 1D, Bey and Benjamin bring a different interest to this latest Naught Boy track. While Beyoncé’s appearance alone is no doubt a coup for Naughty Boy, getting her to duet with new face Arrow Benjamin is another score for Runnin’ (Lose It All). Particularly since historically, Queen Bey only deigns to lend her voice to pretty select projects.
The track itself is anthemic and minimal at the same time; a big ballad with a big chorus, but stripped back to the bare essentials. With some familiar Beyoncé-style breakdowns, Benjamin’s vocal is an excellent counterpoint and the beat will have you nodding, if not dancing.
The clip shows two lovers racing across ocean beds to find each other. Beautifully shot and mesmerising with some impressive underwater choreography, watch the video for Runnin’ (Lose It All) below.
Universal Music Production Music has announced that it is launching an ‘urban music focused label’ called BLOCK in conjunction with hip-hop music management firm London Boy Entertainment.
According to the company, the London-based label will “draw on influences from the unique urban scenes of the UK and the US”, including, “sounds and overtones crafted especially to suit the needs of TV, film, radio and advertising producers.”
The company will work with artists and producers from LBE’s roster, including ADP, Alan Sampson, Levi Lennox and Tiago who between them have helped to craft the music of Rihanna, Alesha Dixon, Naughty Boy and Emeli Sandé.
The aim is to create a number of albums for commercial use, while drawing on hip hop and urban trends from the US and UK. Some of the categories included in the first releases will be “Attitude, “R’n’B” and “Urban Rhythms”, allowing TV execs and film editors to choose the “appropriate” sound for their commercial intent.
Kris Piling, UK senior producer at BLOCK, says that production music clients love using urban and hip hop for commercial purposes.
“Production music clients love authentic urban music,” says Piling. “It’s still quite an untouched landscape, so we’re thrilled to have BLOCK in our arsenal as it means we can offer content producers a quality of urban music that has only ever been available on the commercial side.”
Using music for commercial placement, known better as the “synch” market or “synching”, is becoming a more and more prevalent within the music scene. Once reviled and seen as a sell-out, even indie and alternative artists are now using synching to make a living.
The managing director of London Boy Entertainment, Sef Naqui, says that, “The beauty of BLOCK is that we’re putting out music from the same pool of tracks that are being pitched to contemporary recording artists and labels across the world. UPPM works with us to select their favourites and then we act real quick to ensure they’re not signed up elsewhere first.
“We’ve got such a strong set of producers now that we’ve got enough material to cover all channels. We’re really excited about the UPPM partnership because it puts our incredible artists in front of content creators world-wide, giving them potentially great media exposure, and us an additional income stream. And for UPPM clients it means they could be using music from the next big urban artists before they’ve even broken.”
Is the burgeoning synch market a good or bad thing for the music industry and up-and-coming musicians alike? For now it looks like one of the only viable ways to get exposure and a decent pay check.