Rico Love is the Grammy nominated R&B visionary responsible for more than his fair share of hits in a career that harkens back to the reign of Jagged Edge, Usher, and So So Def Records. He’s been the flavor behind your favorite records for a long, long time now. And he’s been acknowledged for it. Grammy nom’s aside, the thing that’s really nothing to sneeze at is his becoming a household name. Even without a smash hit of his own the elusive superstar singer-songwriter has managed to find his way into the dusty corner of your musical mind. Maybe that has something to do with penning hits for Beyonce´, Usher, Kerri Hilson and so many others while being involved in several top notch products, most notably last year on Big K.R.I.T’s Cadillactica.
Or maybe it has to do with the idea that his brand of soulful, heart-tinged R&B will never go out of style. Now, he’s got his sights set on exposing his talents as an extraordinary crooner, and he’s made his presence felt, especially with his new runaway soul-out “Somebody Else.” We got to talking with the 5 star R&B general about a great many things, but none greater than the very soul of R&B itself.
Rico Love Describes The Concept Behind Song & Video For “Somebody Else.”
HipHopDX: Let’s jump right in. “Somebody Else” is a great video and concept. Can you talk about how that came together?
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Rico Love: Well, I wrote the song a few years ago. It’s actually one of my favorite records. And I wrote in a writing session for another artist along with Benny Blanco and Jake One. And as the years went by I realized that, “You know what? This is fitting for my story that I’m trying to tell with this album.” So I decided to keep it and I felt like Paris, who had done previous work with me, had an amazing eye so I gave him the opportunity to come up with the concept for the video. Usually I write my own treatments and come up with my own setup for the videos and everything, but I wanted to borrow from his genius. And I just took the backseat. He really came up with a dope visual because it was so transparent. It was two people [and] you don’t really know if I’m in the room when she is or if we’re figments of each others imaginations or whether we are even there or not. Living together or really speaking or understanding each other and I thought that was a really dope way of saying that without being so direct.
DX: I couldn’t help but notice the stark difference between the song and today’s R&B…
Rico Love: I wouldn’t even consider what I do R&B. I try to borrow from R&B. I try to borrow from Hip Hop. I borrow from Folk, I borrow from Soul, I borrow from Rock. And if you listen to that record you can see where I borrow from all of those things. I don’t want to limit myself. Because, right now, the name R&B is associated with something aged, dated. And I hate that it’s that way, but it is. So what I try to do is make music and consciously make the effort to create records that are timeless and that have no genre. That can be performed in front of all types of crowds. So what I want to do with my music is to borrow from all those elements so that you can get caught up in a song so much that you can’t even generalize.
DX: You’re absolutely right about R&B, man. How do you think it’s become that way?
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Rico Love: Man, you know what, kids are into this turn-up movement. I think the guys that are singing R&B, if you will, are turning-up on the songs. Every record is a certain BPM and every song is about ‘Oh girl, pop that, bend it over.’ Or ‘twerk that, gimme that.’ So I think that what happened is when you started singing a love song it felt older. It felt mature. Especially for black artists, because I think an artist like Sam Smith can sing a song like that and if Tank sang the same song it’d be something else. And I can’t fault a Sam Smith. I can’t fault an Iggy Azalea or Adele for what they’re doing because all they’re doing is making good music. I get upset when people blame them. You can’t blame somebody. They’re just doing their thing and making the music that they love and grew up with. It just so happens that they’re white. They have a larger demographic or a larger audience that can accept his music. So what we gotta do as artists is break down those walls by making great songs that don’t have a race. Don’t have a color or a genre. And don’t be so typical. And not blame anybody else, but play songs that are forced onto the radio. They have to play that song. They have to buy his project. You look at J. Cole, you look at Kendrick, you look at Drake… Look at Jay, look at Kanye. They’re consistently making songs that are pushing boundaries and they’re selling records because they have a story. We have to have a story. That’s why it was important for me not to rush my album. And I wanted to take my time because I wanted people to get to know me. And I think this record… I wanted to introduce myself to the world with “They Don’t Know,” but this record is the one where I feel people will actually get to know me, and see me as a true artist.
DX: Older artists have been leading the way in terms of innovation. You can look at D’Angelo’s album as a sound you haven’t heard in a while..
Rico Love: Not from my people. It’s crazy because you hear those… Adele has been putting out those types of records. Funny how she put out those types of records with the genius Saalam Remi behind it. And, it’s not that people don’t want it. You have to understand that we’re facing… All these black artists are chasing Pop music and all these white artists are chasing soul. The key is to keep nailing it. And a lot of times people are saying, “Oh, I’m making these records and they’re not being accepted.” But a lot of times they’re making the same record they would have made 1999. If your music is dated it can’t go as far. You have to learn how to make that music that stays right in the middle. A more Pop audience is gonna receive certain sounds more than they would receive others. So you have to understand how to mix your production. You have to understand the actual mix of the song, putting your vocals ahead or putting the vocals behind a little and having the instrumentation up louder. But that’s geek talk that we can get into as far as… There’s so many things that come into play and me being a person that produces records and writes records and sonically fuses them in a way that doesn’t limit you to a particular genre.
DX: What’s the story that you’re going to try to tell with the album?
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Rico Love: What Turn The Lights On represents is, the lights represent fame, money and success. Now that the lights are on. Now that you got rich, you made it big time, you drive a nice car. You wear a diamond watch. You’re at the club popping bottles. How did that change you? How did that affect you? At the end of the story the guy lost the girl. He got so overwhelmed with the success, with the women, with the glitz and the glamour that those lights, when they turned on, they affected him in a different way. So it’s the story of how he lost the girl, and will he get the girl back at the end of the story, who knows? But this is the story of how it affected me.
Rico Love Talks J. Cole’s Story And How It Compares To His Own
DX: J. Cole told a similar story on 2014 Forest Hills Drive, and can you speak to what it’s really like to have achieved so much and having to double back.
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Rico Love: On his project he was reminiscing or he was showing you the error of his ways, right? On my project I’m showing you the actual act. I’m showing you as it goes on. Like, I’m speaking from that position of the fame is here, this is what I see, not what I saw. So I think that’s genius of him because I think that as long as you’re living, and as long as you’re writing about what you’re living you can never get old and your music can never get wack because you’re living every day. He’s a genius as a writer because he can create consistently great songs and he paints such a vivid picture. And I’d like to think that I paint as vivid a picture with my project. I paint such a vivid picture of what’s going on that even a person who can not remotely relate to having any type of success can see it and sit in that drivers seat for those 69 minutes of this album and relate to it on another label and have a different respect for me as a person. When I listen to the Beatles Magic Mystery Tour, I’m like, “Wow, I can really relate to this trip they’re going on and I’ve never done any drugs.” I related to it. Nina Simone’s “Blackbird.” When I listen to different records and different songs I can put myself in those shoes, and that’s what the music should do and that’s what I want my album to do. And that’s what sets you apart from just some guy putting out an R&B song about, ‘Ah baby, I miss you. Girl, I love you. You so fine. You so sexy. Pop some bottles. Met this girl in the club. She was twerkin’ it.’ It’s like aight, cool. How much of that can you take? [Laughs] Why would I expect to be nominated for a Grammy for making shit like that? Why would I want people to recognize me when I haven’t done or said anything worth being recognized? When I’ve done and said the same thing a million times over?
Rico Love Tunes Into The Greatness Of The Beatles & N.W.A
DX: Jerry Heller called The Beatles and N.W.A are the two greatest musical acts in history. Would you agree with that?
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Rico Love: The Beatles are my favorite musical act of all time second to Queen. And what made The Beatles amazing was the fact that you had Paul, you had John, you had George and they were all amazing songwriters. Different types of songwriters and different types of arrangements on one project. So when you have all of that greatness… Like imagine that you had me, Neo and Dream all writing songs for the same project. Three total different styles of writing. Three totally different styles of singing, and it was all on one project and we take things from each other to perform with an amazing cohesiveness. And they brought it together and it was just like a blend of the geniuses, and I thought that was amazing. That’s what made The Beatles so amazing. And what made it so extreme was this was the first time that kind of energy was in America with a band. When they invaded America that band took over. Took the world by storm.
When John Lenon made that statement about “We’re bigger than Jesus,” it felt like that. I could imagine it. Now the same was being said with N.W.A. This was a time when you never heard artists talking about robbing liquor stores and shooting old ladies in the face. And people loved it. But this is back in the time where people were a bit more reasonable in middle America. Where they could understand this is a great song and i get this song but I don’t want to go and rob a liquor store. But they were basically saying what they saw, and it was unreal how people gravitated towards it. And the more and more radio N.W.A got the bigger and bigger they got. So, I could see how he would feel that way. They affected Pop culture in two totally separate ways, but they definitely effected Pop culture in the way we dress and the way we look. After N.W.A everybody had jerri curls and scull caps. Like, it was different. The Raiders owe them. The Raiders should give Ice Cube stock.
Rico Love Explains How Melody Became The Soul Of Atlanta Trap
DX: How do you think the R&B sound you helped create along with Jagged Edge, So So Def, and Usher shaped the Atlanta Hip Hop sound?
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Rico Love: I think more and more melodic undertones are being used. I think Kanye was one of the guys that spearheaded that. Even when I started off as a Rap artist. When I was signed to Usher that was how I got my start as a writer was that Usher saw that I was melodic in my writing. So I think that melody is really what did it. And in order for any artist to see his way into an arena or stadium I think he has to have something that’s melodic and chanty. People have to be able to sing along. There’s only so much I can rap to for two hours in an arena. LL was one of the first guys, as well, to incorporate the R&B in the hooks and have people sing hooks for him and things like that. I don’t want to sit myself in the same seat as Bryan Cox and those guys because I was a student back then watching those guys. So what they did to contribute — with that Usher album, that Confessions album — and I was apart of that album writing “Throwback” on there.
But what they did was they introduced the Bone Thugs Flow to records like “Burn,” and on “Confessions” and those types of songs. What happened was Rappers were like, ‘ I can rhyme like that and add this melody, too…’ And I could do my hook. I could do this. And I like at Rich Homie, man, when I see him on tour and I see him in the videos is that he’s really singing, man. He’s really feeling it. When he’s singing, I’m looking at the facial expressions. He’s not just trying to do some gimmicky thing. I’m watching him and it looks genuine, it looks serious. It looks real. And what Usher taught me years ago was that a thief steals and a genius borrows. And he’s able to borrow from the things around them to make them great. So those guys and the Atlanta movement, I take my hat off to them because they are keeping it going. What I would like would be a little more diversity in the subjects. And not just on the album cuts. I would love for them to kind of challenge themselves and to say something a little bit different. And that’s no shade and no jab at anyone. But there’s so much more going on in the world than what we’re talkin about. Even in our world. More is going on in the hood than people are willing to admit.
Rico Love Reveals How J. Cole & Kendrick Lamar Continue To Sell In These Times
DX: You know, man. People aren’t really buying albums right now. Where do you think the music business is going in that regard?
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Rico Love: I’d say people are buying the albums that matter. When was Kendrick’s album? The end of 2012? Kendrick made an amazing record that was about more than just money, bitches, and weed, right? Drake makes amazing, incredible records. And everytime he comes out he does amazing numbers, and he’s more into the urban landscape than Kendrick is in his subject. But he knows how to allow himself to be vulnerable in his records and I think that is what people are buying. People will buy when it’s emotional. When you invoke a certain level of emotion in your records people are going to buy your album. Now, it’s not about people not wanting to buy black music, why should I buy your record if all I’m getting is turn-up in the club. When the club is over what am I going to listen to? The music has to make you feel something, and you consistently have to create that dialogue or what are you doing? I listen to a lot of guys and they got these certain BPM’s and they go Gold and their single does okay.
Maybe it’ll even be a number one. But after that song goes off there’s no conversation. That’s what I made a conscious effort to do is to make it so that they don’t know. When they don’t know, they’re going to have a conversation. When the song goes off people are going to be upset like ‘Oh was he talking about a side chick?’ But they were going to talk about. The same thing with “Bitches Be Like.” What we have to do with our music is that we have to be able to make discussions. We have to be able to make songs. You have to be able to feel it and be able to talk about it when the song goes off. I’m not worried about declining sales. I’m worried about record companies putting money into these artists that they know can’t see past that record. And that’s what the problem is. We can sell. I promise you. Look what J. Cole did without any radio success. Look what Kanye did without any radio success. There has to be talking about things that can really affect us.
