NEWS
EVENTS
We talk writing, recording and bringing the bass with Ameriie
RnB/Hip Hop | Thursday 20th August 2015 |
She’s described as having an aggressive vocal delivery, incorporating a soulful and emotive tone. This accomplished artist and Georgetown University graduate gave you hits like ‘Why Don’t We Fall In Love’, ‘Take Control’, ‘Gotta Work’, ‘Why R U’ and of course the international runaway hit ‘1 Thing’. She has received numerous awards and nominations for her work including a Soul Train music award, a VIBE music award and two Grammy nominations. She has collaborated or shared a stage with everyone from Usher and Nas to LL Cool J and Trey Songz. It’s the singer, songwriter, crazy, sexy, cool Ameriie.
So you’ve got new music, we’ve got ‘Mustang’ and ‘Out Loud’, which are out now. It’s been a little bit of a wait. We’ve also had ‘What I Want’, that was last year, so you’ve been warming us up.
Yeah because are always like “hey are you creating stuff?” and I’m like ‘I promise I’m in the studio making stuff” but you know it’s not all finished yet, and the thing is, I don’t know exactly which project goes on what. For instance I’m working on BILI, that’s an album, and I have Cymatika, no one’s heard anything from Cymatika yet, but ‘Mustang’ is going to be on BILI. And then I have ‘Out Loud’, which we’re gonna see, I don’t wanna just introduce yet another project but we’ve been talking about different things like EPs. I was gonna actually do a surprise EP and then kinda got caught into recording some other stuff, so we’ll see. Right now, I’m just recording and seeing where things fall, maybe two projects, maybe a third that might be a little mini one. It depends.
Wow, there’s so much music.
It sounds like it’s a lot more than what it actually is, like “woah I’m working on three different albums” but really it’s just recording and organising what you’ve got.
I mean the last time we had you was back in 2010, that was In Love & War, so give us a catch up, what’s been happening?
Since In Love & War, it’s been a lot of recording, I’ve been writing a lot, fiction. I also revamped my website, I say revamped, I had a domain that I wasn’t doing anything with so now actually there’s something there. Ameriie.com is website that I put together myself, I’m super picky, I know how I wanted it to look, and that’s like the hub, everybody can find out what’s going on, the latest with my music and the latest with my writing, and also my YouTube channel. I just started that and it’s been really a lot of fun, I love talking to people. That’s actually out of everything, all the social media, that’s probably the best place to find me. There and Instagram too, but we can’t really talk on Instagram. On YouTube I feel like I’m just talking to everyone and then when they leave comments I write back, I’m sure to reply back.
Ok excellent! I’d like to get into the whole songwriting thing. You’ve got a degree from Georgetown University in English and in Fine Arts as well, so obviously writing and creativity is very central to what you do. Give me a walk through your creative process when it comes to writing, what inspires you to write?
Music or books? They’re different. I wouldn’t say the English degree helped me in those things specifically because really what helps a lot with my writing fiction is just living life and paying attention to what’s going on and observing. And then also thinking critically about what you’re reading and what you wanna say. As far as music goes, I think that’s kinda listening to other music and figuring out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it and what sounds I wanted to create. What I can say is after writing so much over the last two or three years, writing fiction, I had to put lyrics to something because usually my lyrics and melody come at the same time, but for some reason, ‘What I Want’ I think it was, the melody was there, everything was there but I didn’t have the lyrics and it was a late session, and I was like “oh my goodness it’s 8 o clock and I still don’t have words”. Maybe it was a different song, but it was late. Then I was like, “what’s the story I’m trying to tell?”, boom, it came out so quickly, and I was like “you know what, it’s coming from writing stories”. That helped me, that did influence the musical side but usually what inspires me is just life I guess.
The first time I heard ‘Why Don’t We Fall In Love’ I was hooked, that’s one of my favourites, so what’s the creative history behind that track?
Was that one of the earlier songs we did? It’s been so long. We started recording for the first album, well actually before that, when started doing the demo, we were actually recording in a home studio and then we went to re-record the songs later on when we got the deal and everything, and we actually went back to the old vocals. Sometimes there’s just magic when you do it that first time, it might not be the best equipment but it’s just the best feel, so we just kept that. ‘Why Don’t We Fall In Love’ wasn’t really long, it was like 2:36, something like that, and they were gonna go with a different single, they meaning the label, but when I was listening to it I was like, “I don’t know all this stuff about singles and which should be a single and all that, all I know is that if it could be my way, the best song that represents me right now and the song that I would want everyone to hear first, is ‘Why Don’t We Fall In Love’. And I know it’s just the intro really to the album but that I feel like is the best way to say who I am”, so they kinda pressed something up, it was a B-side but that was the one that actually took off, so I was happy about that.
The second album Touch, you received two Grammy nominations for the title track, which featured T.I, it did very well. ‘1 Thing’ propelled you to stardom, the single reached number five in the UK singles chart, peaked at number eight in the Billboard Top 100 singles chart, and you obtained two MTV Video Music Award nominations for the engaging video. Obviously we can’t not talk about that single, so tell me the creative history behind that one.
Well that one was Rich and I, and it was funny because people really didn’t know what it was, they didn’t really get it, the label. And even, I remember, we were like “oh we should put it out” and they were like “some of the feedback from the DJs, they don’t really know where it goes”. Even at that time for a mix show it was like “where is it gonna come in and where is it gonna come out?” And I was like “I don’t know, they just need to play it because it’s hot!” but I really believed in that record. I remember the session eating Doritos, that’s what I remember the most about that session, and the song was so high, it’s such an intense song, and I was like “woah I don’t know if I can get up there” but it was good. It just reminds me a lot of what was happening in that time and just still being new in the industry, feeling like “ok what do I wanna say because people don’t really totally know who I am as an artist yet”. They do because of the first album but this is kinda different, the harmonies and the vocal approach. Those people who listened to the first album and heard ‘Got To Be There’, ‘Need You Tonight’, they could see the progression, but then for some people who only heard ‘Why Don’t We Fall In Love’ they were like “wait, what?” because they hadn’t heard the whole album. But it was good, I was really happy and that album also had one of my favourite songs ever, ‘Talkin’ About’.
The third album Because I Love It, released ‘Take Control’, ‘Gotta Work’ absolutely fantastic, and also the fourth album In Love & War and the single, ‘Why R U’. I like the remix featuring Nas, Rick Ross, Jadakiss, and Kain as well, it got 2.3 million views on YouTube, what’s the story behind making that song and the remix?
Well with ‘Why R U’ I worked with The Buchanans who are really great, we’ve worked together on every single project almost, and that was just a very New York feeling record. I didn’t know what I was going to write to so I just drove around in the rain in New York for a while until I could figure out what I wanted to say, and then it just came to me. And the remix was actually Mr Nicholson’s idea, I loved the whole concept, and of course working with the other artists too, that was really cool. I love that remix.
The single that announced your return now is ‘What I Want’, that samples the Sugarhill Gang, the classic ‘Apache’. Tell me the creative history behind that track?
Well actually Mr Nicholson produced that, he just knows what I like, he gets me as an artist. I was definitely into the idea, he told me about it and then I got the track and was like “I love it” but then there was all this pressure because the track is very well known, people love it, the instrumental, but what am I gonna put on it? That song took me like eight months to get. I didn’t sit down every day and try to write it but I thought about it all the time, it needed to come to me and I had a couple false starts, but it ended up happening, finally.
Again that’s a signature track, you got that thumping bass, the high energy.
You know I love the high energy and the percussion.
Ok the song ‘Mustang’ seems to be describing a lady that is carefree and wild at heart, is any of that to do with you?
It wasn’t actually about me. The song celebrates the untameable woman, that’s what it is, many try, many fail but no one can tame her. I think when it comes to women everyone’s always saying what women should be, and sometimes we fall into that ourselves, but I think it’s great to see different examples of different kinds of women so we can remember that we can be different things, we don’t have to just go one way.
We gotta get into ‘Out Loud’, that’s produced by Rich Harrison, same person who produced ‘1 Thing’. You haven’t collaborated with Rich for a while so how did that happen?
The thing is Rich and I haven’t worked together in a long time, I think it’s been about ten years, and I always knew we would work together again eventually. For a few years he actually left the music industry so he stepped away, and now he’s back at it, and we’re gonna see what happens with doing more music. I definitely want to, he definitely wants to, we just have to see where the creative energy goes. What I love is ‘Out Loud’ is very signature us, at the same time I don’t think it’s a repeat of the past, it feels like something that we’re doing now. And it has the heavy 808, and I’ve lived all over the world but I’ve also lived a lot of years in Texas, so I like the bass [laughs].
Follow Ameriie on Twitter.
