Danja Q&A

Keri Hilson was saying because Britney wouldn’t open up about her own personal experiences, it made it tougher to write for her. Did you find that it made it harder for you as well?

It wasn’t hard for me in the creative process with Britney because I was totally left to do pretty much whatever I wanted to. If she felt it, she was gonna ride with it. If she didn’t, you’d see it in her face. I don’t think she needed to open up. She did have one record where she’s mentioning certain things, but it’s in a clever kind of way, not necessarily pouring her heart out. We’ve known Britney for entertaining, dancing and giving you a sexy record, getting you moving. And that’s what we did. Unfortunately, she’s in the state that she’s in, but the music speaks for itself. In the studio she was dancing, laughing in the booth. She gave the right type of energy. That’s all that matters.

Did it disappoint you that the public didn’t respond as well to her VMA performance as they did to the actual “Gimme More” song?

It didn’t bother me until nine months down the line. I was like, "I wish she could’ve really nailed that performance ‘cause that really would have set it off." It was still top five [on the Billboard] Hot 100. I didn’t think the performance was really that big of a deal. She looked a little spaced-out. To me it looked like she was completely nervous. She hadn’t been on stage in I don’t know how long. During the performance, I was watching like, "Just give me that one pop to let me know you back." And it never happened. I was rooting for her regardless.

At the end of “Gimme More,” you were talking on the record. What prompted that?

[Laughs.] I just felt like I needed to say something. People haven’t really seen me or heard my voice, and that was one of my first solo productions. So I definitely had to stake my claim. There's a lot riding on my future, because people think I’m around because of Tim and they don’t really know what I’m capable of. After we mixed that record, I just knew that record was crazy. Period. We got all these hit records and I haven’t got any on my own. Well, here’s one.

Has all the drama overshadowing Britney’s project and Duran Duran's lackluster sales had any affect on you?

It definitely weighed on me. At one particular point last year, I felt like, "Man, I did all this work, and it ain’t pop like it’s supposed to pop." I was down for a little bit. It wasn’t that I wasn’t proud of my work. It’s just things with the business that sometimes happen that affect your music. You could put your all into the music, and it’s some executive decision that ruined it. I don’t count it as a failure. It’s just a lesson learned. In the Britney case, every producer, songwriter or arranger on that record did their thing. The record label did their thing. That was just something uncontrollable on her part. Duran Duran [is] an old group, [and] a lot of people are not familiar with them. Not saying that it’s over for them. It’s just a matter of reintroducing them.

Source: Rhapsody