"They'll have strobe lights, incense burning, doves flying around the studio," she says. The rider is whatever the artist needs to get them in the mood to get into the booth and sing. Not only that, the vocal producer has to deal with the artist's rider. Or maybe: "Sing with your lips a little more closed, a little more pursed together, so we can get that low, melancholy sound." When Riddick works with a singer, she'll say, "I need you to belt this out, I need you to scream this, as if you're on one end of the block and you're trying to talk to somebody three blocks away." Makeba Riddick didn't produce Rihanna's vocals on "Man Down," but she's one of the industry's top producers, and has worked with the singer on many songs, including the two number one hits in 2010: "Rude Boy" and "Love the Way You Lie." The vocal producer's job is to make sure Rihanna sings the song right. That's about $53,000.00 spent on the song so far- before Rihanna even steps into the studio with her vocal producer. Rock City got $15,000 for Man Down, and the producer got around $20,000, according to Daniels. The songwriter and the producer each got a fee for their services. So figure that the writing camp cost about $18,000 per song.
At the end, Rihanna shows up like the celebrity judge and picks her favorites. I was shocked at how much money they were spending! But, guess what? They got the whole album out of that one camp."Ī writing camp is like a reality show, where top chefs who have never met are forced to cook together. The writing camp for Rihanna's album "had to cost at least 200 grand," Daniels says. To get that twelve minutes of inspiration from a top songwriting team is expensive - even before you take into account the fee for the songwriters.Īt a typical writing camp, the label might rent out 10 studios, at a total cost of about $25,000 a day, Daniels says.
They wrote the lyrics to "Man Down" in about 12 minutes, Daniels says. The Thomas brothers knew producer Shama "Sham" Joseph, but they had never heard his Caribbean-flavored track that became "Man Down."Īccording to Daniels, the brothers listened to the track and said, "Let's give Rihanna a one-drop! Like, a response to 'I shot the sheriff!" Here's who shows up at a writing camp: songwriters with no music, and producers toting music tracks with no words.