Rihanna's longtime producer exposes her

[Higher 2,406]

Longtime Rihanna collaborator and Grammy-winning vocal producer Kuk Karrell spoke to Chicago Reader about Rihanna’s latest album ANTI recently.

Were there any specific differences working on Anti compared to Rihanna’s previous albums?

Just her being more involved creatively was the biggest difference. She’s always involved from her side, as an artist. But musically, creatively, she really wanted to drive the direction of the album. I think that’s why she called the album Anti—she wanted to do something completely different than everybody else. Because we’re in a cookie-­cutter time of music. Every record that everybody does is a record that somebody else could’ve done, if that makes sense. It’s so awesome that she just stepped out and was courageous enough to stick to that and be that and do that.

Longtime Rihanna collaborator and Grammy-winning vocal producer Kuk Karrell spoke to Chicago Reader about Rihanna’s latest album ANTI recently.

When you were giving vocal direction, how was Anti different?

We’re always working on it together, but this time she was really meticulous about every line that we sang. Before—not saying that she wasn’t involved, but before, we would cut the record, and then I would comp it and put everything together. Then she would come in and listen and change a few things and go, “I want it to be like this.”

But We’re always working on it together, but this time that she heard that she felt wasn’t perfection in her eyes, she wanted to change. It was a lot, and I respect that. It’s hard, because I want to work quick and get stuff done and make it excellent, but now she’s like, “Listen, let’s up the quality level.” Let’s make sure we have the emotion, and make sure it’s a masterpiece. That was the mind-set for this one. You know, the other albums, they were, “Yeah, let’s make a great album.” But this time it was like, “Let’s make a masterpiece—a great body of work.” That was a big switch-up for me, and a point of growth.

Out of all the studio projects you’ve done, which stand out to you as particularly memorable?

Number one, obviously, this Rihanna album [Anti], because it is such a body of work. The whole mind-set. The records that stick out for me the most are when we went into it thinking, “Let’s just do great work. Let’s not chase radio. We’re not trying to get radio hits. We’re not trying to make sure that we can have a song that anybody could sing.” So that’s what Anti is. Let’s just do good work, because we love doing what we do, and we get to make music to it.

Sources: http://rihannadaily.com/2016/02/19/vocal-producer-kuk-karrell-talks-anti/

http://m.chicagoreader.com/chicago/thaddis-kuk-harrell-rihanna-beyonce-anti-vocal-producer-interview/Content?oid=21173878

Queen of Artist growth, artistic maturity, co-writing all of the tracks on ha new album except for two songs, having lead writing credits on some songs on ha new album, being creative and musically involved in her new critically acclaimed album. Continue to do ya thang Bad Gal Riri  

 

[kizurl 1,801]

...and everyone complains that this album is boring and lacking of radio hits..

 

I think ANTI is the most unapologetically Rihanna album she's put out and this interview just reiterated my opinion.

[Bradley 59,228]

It's a wonderful album but the promotion needs to be executed properly. 

I'm a huge Rihanna fan but her recent moves are really not promising. How is she going to release more singles if she's touring? I mean Work can't be the only single from the album.

[RadioIsOurs 13,876]

Is that why so many songs on the album are barely 3 minutes? 

[PdogtheDaibutsu 717]

So being creativity involved in your own album and writing your own lyrics  is "completely different than everyone else"?

[Anderson123 38,683]

Her best album since Rated R. I still wanted something like Phresh Out The Runway but Anti is an awesome album.

[TerrenceV2 2,001]

It really is, I never stanned for Rihanna, I couldn't get into any of her albums until Anti, every song is SO good here.

[DemeLarell 931]

I love this! I font think this album is for single. It's a masterpiece in a whole. It's like Kendrick Lamar's album in the sense that it's supposed to be look at as a collective whole. Kendrick only released 2 singles and he still did really well. 

[AM98GJ 3,086]

The title made me think it was gonna be something bad 

[DiscoHeaven23 35,007]

They're saying (Billboard) "Work"might go #1 within the next few weeks, I'm honestly shocked

[Eddie 2,518]

You know what I love about ARTPOP? It's that the album was supposed to be an experiment...the new producers, the ARTPOP app, the videos, Gaga's involvement in the production and the marketing all was experimental...people just hated it and it turned out to be a huge mess. And know that Rihanna has release her own ARTPOP called ANTI, it's exactly the same thing and I can't help myself but to love this 2 experiments gone wrong because I'm the kind of G.U.Y that loves when artists go against what people are expecting from them.

Of course ANTI and ARTPOP are huge mess eras but they have songs that are gems but people can't see them or listen to them. I love ARTPOP and although I'm not as much of a fan of Rihanna as I am of Gaga's I really like the ANTI songs (specially kiss it better)

On the other hand, I'm really glad that the navy that teared us down when ARTPOP came out are being burned to ashes by the same monsters now that ANTI is out, karma exists and you really pay a lot.

I don't know if any of this makes sense because I was thinking really fast in spanish and trying not to lose my ideas when translating them to english. But yeah this is my opinion.

[Higher 2,406]

1 minute ago, AM98GJ said:

The title made me think it was gonna be something bad 

Gotta get the naysayers and the pressed people's attention  

10 minutes ago, Edward Hardy said:

It's a wonderful album but the promotion needs to be executed properly. 

I'm a huge Rihanna fan but her recent moves are really not promising. How is she going to release more singles if she's touring? I mean Work can't be the only single from the album.

I feel like with the right promotion ANTi could've had a decent amount of success.   This whole era has been messy, so I hope her team has learned from there mistakes.

 

[LePetitGAGABLover 21,234]

I'm sorry but Work is horrible. Like, one of the worst songs that I have ever heard by a major pop artist

At least I've heard worse though. Cough, cough **

[Yves 1,891]

21 minutes ago, kizurl said:

I think ANTI is the most unapologetically Rihanna album she's put out and this interview just reiterated my opinion.

Poor Unapologetic.

[DogFood 1,649]

13 minutes ago, Higher said:

 

I feel like with the right promotion ANTi could've had a decent amount of success.   This whole era has been messy, so I hope her team has learned from there mistakes.

 

Work is shooting towards #1 tho