The-Dream Talks About "Renaissance" & Visuals
“Renaissance” is a different kind of accomplishment: a piece of music gargantuan in its carefully crafted density. It already feels timeless. “Most of the writing took place not in a fancy place” — he waves a dismissive hand at the multicolored petit-fours and the bottle of Brut on the table in front of him. While the recording HQ was a house in the Hamptons, The-Dream posted up in a trailer out front. He wanted to be forced to feel hungry. “I need to write like I’m trying to get out of here,” he says. It was that feeling that led to lines like “Now, I just fell in love / And I just quit my job,” on “Break My Soul.” “Now everyone’s saying, ‘Oh, my God, this is crazy, where did this come from?’ It came from us in the dark in a f— trailer.”
During the creative process, The-Dream says, “I don’t have any fear at all. I welcome whatever — I want all the smoke. Bey is unafraid too. That’s my Virgo sister.” Together, they put their heads down and push through songwriting blocks. “I can try it a thousand times,” he says. “I have no ego. The only thing she can do is make me write a part better, make me play a part better.”
While The-Dream was one of her primary co-writers, “Renaissance” was made by a swirling pool of talent, orchestrated by Beyoncé. Everyone from Skrillex to Grace Jones has credits. “We could have easily made it about a money grab and spent the whole time just me and her writing the whole thing,” The-Dream says. But Beyoncé wanted a collective effort. “We haven’t even spoken about it that much, but in our minds — the world was in a space. What better place to gather than here on Beyoncé's album?”
The critically acclaimed ballad “1+1,” from Beyoncé’s 2011 album “4,” was “a hundred percent” written by The-Dream “in Vegas, by myself, chilling. I’m not trying to be funny, but that’s actually not that hard. To make something cohesive with as many moving parts” as there were in the “Renaissance” sessions — “that’s not easy! Watching her put these things together, that’s the part that nobody knows about Bey and producing. She’s saying, ‘No, drop the key on that,’ ‘No, slow it down.’ These magical things she does that nobody sees. It’s not like she tours and she’s gonna show you this s— on stage. It’s two different people.”
Over his decades writing for hire, The-Dream says, “I’ve seen them all. I know all the artists and the s— that they do. There’s certain artists that hear a song and won’t even start to sing it. The greatest thing about Bey — she gon’ try it. If it don’t work, it just means you got the biggest star in the world not afraid to try a thing. That is a thing you rarely see. It’s only the greatest that do it! Which is the craziest thing to me.”
Looking at the end product now, The-Dream says, “It might sound blasphemous, and I hate to say it because there’s so many people that have written for her and beside her on other albums that I’ve been on, but” — he takes a long pause — “this is probably her best record. There’s no way around it for me. This is one of those ones. And how graceful she is about it, to let it live without videos. You know she got ‘em. They’re beautiful. They’re gonna come. But it’s telling, and it should be to everybody — in our clique, the consensus is, let it breathe. Let it smoke for a second. Let that wine breathe. Fear? Evidently not. Listen. Listen and weep!”
During the creative process, The-Dream says, “I don’t have any fear at all. I welcome whatever — I want all the smoke. Bey is unafraid too. That’s my Virgo sister.” Together, they put their heads down and push through songwriting blocks. “I can try it a thousand times,” he says. “I have no ego. The only thing she can do is make me write a part better, make me play a part better.”
While The-Dream was one of her primary co-writers, “Renaissance” was made by a swirling pool of talent, orchestrated by Beyoncé. Everyone from Skrillex to Grace Jones has credits. “We could have easily made it about a money grab and spent the whole time just me and her writing the whole thing,” The-Dream says. But Beyoncé wanted a collective effort. “We haven’t even spoken about it that much, but in our minds — the world was in a space. What better place to gather than here on Beyoncé's album?”
The critically acclaimed ballad “1+1,” from Beyoncé’s 2011 album “4,” was “a hundred percent” written by The-Dream “in Vegas, by myself, chilling. I’m not trying to be funny, but that’s actually not that hard. To make something cohesive with as many moving parts” as there were in the “Renaissance” sessions — “that’s not easy! Watching her put these things together, that’s the part that nobody knows about Bey and producing. She’s saying, ‘No, drop the key on that,’ ‘No, slow it down.’ These magical things she does that nobody sees. It’s not like she tours and she’s gonna show you this s— on stage. It’s two different people.”
Over his decades writing for hire, The-Dream says, “I’ve seen them all. I know all the artists and the s— that they do. There’s certain artists that hear a song and won’t even start to sing it. The greatest thing about Bey — she gon’ try it. If it don’t work, it just means you got the biggest star in the world not afraid to try a thing. That is a thing you rarely see. It’s only the greatest that do it! Which is the craziest thing to me.”
Looking at the end product now, The-Dream says, “It might sound blasphemous, and I hate to say it because there’s so many people that have written for her and beside her on other albums that I’ve been on, but” — he takes a long pause — “this is probably her best record. There’s no way around it for me. This is one of those ones. And how graceful she is about it, to let it live without videos. You know she got ‘em. They’re beautiful. They’re gonna come. But it’s telling, and it should be to everybody — in our clique, the consensus is, let it breathe. Let it smoke for a second. Let that wine breathe. Fear? Evidently not. Listen. Listen and weep!”
