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Over the past several years, songwriter-producer Rogét Chahayed has played an integral role in crafting memorable hits for some of music’s biggest names. Despite studying classical music, his work spans genres including pop, rap and R&B — and often blends all of them together, as has been the case with songs including Travis Scott and Drake’s “Sicko Mode,” Doja Cat and SZA’s “Kiss Me More” and DRAM and Lil Yachty’s “Broccoli.”
His ability to create sticky melodies has also led to working with Halsey, Calvin Harris and BTS, among countless others, and in 2021 he earned his first nomination for the Grammys’ producer of the year, non-classical. But in 2022, some of Chahayed’s greatest success came instead from sampling decades-old and recent hits alike, leading to another banner year for the Los Angeles native. He worked extensively with Jack Harlow, executive producing the rapper’s Come Home the Kids Miss You album, which yielded the Fergie-sampling “First Class” that spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Fergie’s “Glamorous” also reached the top of the chart in 2007). Soon after, he teamed back up with Doja Cat to co-produce “Vegas,” paying homage on the Elvis soundtrack to Presley’s “Hound Dog.”
“Coming from a guy who never really uses samples, it was a very interesting approach for me musically to be like, ‘Oh it’s not all about you. Let’s just make some this sound good and amplify that,” says Chahayed.
Below, the Grammy-nominated hit-maker tells Billboard about the creation of “First Class,” the moment he knew it was going to take off and why samples and interpolations have defined the charts for so much of 2022.
How did the idea to sample Fergie’s “Glamorous” come about?
Around April 2021, Jack presented us a list of songs and was like, “I want to find ways to chop these up and put them in [Come Home the Kids Miss You],” because they’re a big reflection of the stuff he grew up listening to. One day, Angel Lopez, who was also an executive producer on the album, pulled up Fergie’s “Glamorous” because Jack had sent it to him and chopped up the main hook where she spells it out. We basically just had the sample and some drums to start, and Jack came up with that hook. We added everything else after, which is sort rare — most of the time, people have the entire beat done and then write a hook. We dissected it piece by piece and took our time to find the right groove for it.
Do you remember the first time that you heard the original? What was your instant reaction to the idea of sampling it?
I remember being a senior in high school or a freshman in college, and at the time, I was studying classical music, so I wasn’t really in my “I love hip-hop” or “I love pop” phase yet. But I remember hearing the song at that time and then when they pulled it up again, it was a crazy flashback. That was a really cool thing to be able to bring something familiar back and not only get people who grew up listening to the song but also put the new generation onto the stuff that we listened to when we were younger.
You’ve said previously that you wanted to make “First Class” feel like it was “going somewhere.” What was the process translating that idea into a finished product?
When the sample was being chopped, it was pitched down, so it gives it this older kind of texture. Jack had such a specific mindset about structure — every single sound and drum and snare that you hear on the entire album, he approved. In the beginning, it was a struggle to find what we wanted. I tried a bunch of different synths and then, with the help of [co-producers] Jasper Harris and Charlie Handsome, we inspired each other. Jack loves organic instruments. You hear a lot of piano, strings and real bass lines on the album because we really wanted to bring the idea of having riffs in a song again. That’s just identifiable music. We didn’t want to make another album with a bunch of trap beats. We shot for something different.
When we started finding the groove of the song, we had the idea of making it feel like a rap song, but the structure is very pop: You have your verse, your pre-chorus where you put those beautiful strings in and give this little classical touch, and then it goes into the hook. So when the second verse happened, Jack was like, “I want to do something different here. I want it to switch up.” We made a new section where we took the kick out. It’s cool because it leaves the listener waiting for that hook to come back. It pulls you in.
Were there any other notable challenges throughout the process?
The sample clearance was actually smooth. Jack has such a good reputation, and between his team and everybody’s connections, it was pretty easy to get that part of it cleared. The worry was there for every song that had a little sample in it, even if it was an interpolation [or] a melody, but luckily, everyone involved in the original — Fergie, [co-producer] Polow da Don, [co-writer] will.i.am — was so cool and grateful to be a part of it. I think the biggest concern was in the beginning, before we found what the song was going to be. Every day something different was being added and things were changing. I was like, “I don’t know, this song just feels so smooth, almost laid-back in a way. Are people really going to party to this?” I had my doubts. Over time, the more we kept listening to the finished product and getting other people’s opinions on it, I was starting to see the big picture. And then, when Jack filmed the little snippet that he put on Instagram that went viral — so viral that people were ripping the audio off the post and making TikToks with it — that’s when all my worries went down the drain. We were so proud of what we did and that we were able to take that smooth groove to the top of the charts.
You’ve mentioned how hands-on Jack is in the studio. Tell me what it was like working with him.
I told him, “The way that you operate in the room reminds me of when I used to work for Dr. Dre.” He thinks and operates like a producer. I’ve worked with a lot of artists who are very passive; Jack is concerned about the outro or the intro and we’ll sit there and contemplate for months, like, “Is this right? I don’t think this is right. Okay, let’s switch it.” There are songs that we liked for 2-3 months, and then 6 months later, he’s like, “I can’t believe we had that in there.” It was an unbelievable thing to experience such a talented young artist like him. He was very accepting of everybody’s process and combining it with his own view.
You also co-produced Doja Cat’s “Vegas” from the Elvis soundtrack. How much can the process of making a sample work vary from song to song?
The situation has to be good. You gotta do justice to the [original] song. You don’t want it to be some kind of meaningless, whatever attempt at making a hit. It’s like having a weapon: You have to use it with the right intentions and only in the right circumstances. You don’t just want to go out there and show and tell everybody about it. With “Vegas,” we were luckily set up in that situation by Baz Luhrmann, who directed the Elvis movie. He had gotten in touch with Yeti [Beats], who is one of my close friends and production partners working with Doja, and he hit me up the day I found out that I got the producer of the year nomination last year.
Baz is such a cool dude. He was like, “I don’t want it to be an Elvis song. I want it to sound like a Doja Cat song.” Yeti had the sample chopped up and he put a beat to it. I put in the staccato piano and little cool twangy guitar things and little bells and stuff that make her feel like this is her world still, but we’re living in that universe of Elvis. When you’re in the situation of sampling a song, you’ve got to honor the content in the sample, somehow. Jack plays along so well with “First Class” and dances around the spelling of “glamorous,” and that’s what makes it so cool — he’s not trying to steal the show. And with Doja, it was playing with the [lyric] “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog,” but switching it up to her thing. Coming from a guy who never really uses samples, it was a very interesting approach for me musically to be like, “Oh it’s not all about you. Let’s just make some this sound good and amplify that.”
Why do you think that samples and interpolations have had such an impact on popular music and the charts this year?
It’s an interesting time because it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. We hear samples all the time, we hear interpolations, we hear melodies from the past come back to life in a new form. But I think something about this past year … so many songs are being brought back. I think it’s fun and refreshing to tap into that. We were locked away for a year, and I feel like during that time, music and life was kind of this stale, uncertain moment. Once everybody was back outside, it was very energetic. Everybody wants to be reminded of the good times, because when you hear a song that you grew up loving, you’re instantly taken to another place.
Do you think the trend will continue into 2023?
I think it’s going to continue on for even longer. I’m an avid listener of everything that comes out just to hear, “What are people thinking, what are they doing?” I feel like I’ve been hearing a [sample] every week. I think it’s going to keep going. And I think it’s going to be another great option [for creating] something that’s going to hit right away. Tap back into your past. Tap back into the things that you love — with your own twist.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
2022 was a breakout year for the producer, as she landed her first major credits — and made history. Now, the “Beat Barbie” is the first and only woman this century to debut at No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs as a producer with Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl.” The Olympia, Wash., native reveals how she created the hit with one of hiphop’s biggest stars.
How did the beat for “Super Freaky Girl” come together?
I was [working] with two of my favorite collaborators, and we were just having fun. When we landed on [Rick James’ “Super Freak”], we were like, “OK, this is a big sample.” We spent several hours fine-tuning the beat and it ended up in the hands of LunchMoney Lewis. It gets played for Nicki Minaj and within like 24 hours, she writes the whole song. I get a phone call of her rapping the whole song, like the original recording, and I was like, “Holy f–k, is that Nicki’s voice?” It all happened so fast. She’s such a phenomenal writer that she just saw the vision and took it all the way for us.
Why was “Super Freak” a prime song to sample?
It’s just so iconic, and I felt like the way that it had been produced in the past really lent itself to being reinvented. I felt like we could really get a big multigenerational audience. We just had a gut feeling that it would be a smash.
What’s your favorite memory of hearing “Super Freaky Girl” since its release?
Honestly, it probably was the night that it came out on Aug. 12. All of us work so hard, and it’s such a grind in the creative industry where it looks really glamorous. It was such a unifying night to see. Everyone was so excited and understood the gravity that it meant for us to have achieved that level of cut.
How did you celebrate it going No. 1?
When I found out the morning of, I think I went into a state of shock because it just felt so big. People are reaching out that I never had access to. As far as celebrating, I have a vacation scheduled at the end of the year. Since I found out, you wouldn’t believe how insane my schedule has been. I have just been in the studio 24/7.
Why do you think “Super Freaky Girl” was able to top the Hot 100?
I think it was a magic combination of the sample and Nicki’s writing over the sample. There was just an X factor in how she went with it. I do think we did a great job in production, but I think there was also the timing of that moment in her career that just all lined up. It was like the stars aligned.
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
In an increasingly diffuse, streaming-dominated pop landscape, it’s harder than ever to cut through with a smash single that captures everyone’s attention. But one method proved a fairly effective shortcut to success in 2022: lifting an instantly recognizable chorus, hook or beat — and sometimes all three — from a proven older hit. “Familiarity always is a bonus,” WBBM-FM Chicago music director/assistant program director Erik Bradley told Billboard in August of the glut of second-hand hits. Here are five songs that went big with their samples and interpolations this year and were rewarded with big results.
Harlow scored his first-ever solo No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — and the year’s biggest first-week streaming total, until Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” passed it a half-year later — with his extensively TikTok-teased “First Class.” The celebratory jam’s title comes from its sampled hook, a repurposing of Fergie’s pop-rap smash “Glamorous,” also a Hot 100 chart-topper back in 2007. The former Black Eyed Pea gave Harlow’s update her seal of approval in August at the MTV Video Music Awards, making a surprise appearance during his performance to belt out her original chorus.
Though Rick Astley’s signature song originally topped the Hot 100 back in 1988 — eight years before viral MC Yung Gravy was even born — the song still packs a sentimental punch for listeners of Gravy’s generation due to its mid-’00s “memeification.” The rising rapper took advantage of that with “Betty (Get Money),” whose beat is built around the sweeping synth strings of Astley’s ’80s classic and whose hook swipes its infectious chorus melody. Despite being a virtual soundalike, though, it wasn’t a direct sample: “We basically remade the whole song [with] a different singer and instruments,” Yung Gravy told Billboard in August, “because it makes it easier [to clear] legally.”
DJ Khaled made no secret of the disco-era inspiration for his star-studded “Staying Alive” single; not only does Drake sing a modified version of the refrain from the Bee Gees’ 1977 classic, but Khaled appears in a Saturday Night Fever-ready white jacket on the single cover. That’s where the similarities between the versions mostly end, though, as Khaled’s version eschews the Bee Gees’ dancefloor strut for a darker, grittier trap beat. Regardless, the interpolation helped the revived “Alive” nearly match the original’s Hot 100-topping success, debuting and peaking at No. 5 on the chart.
It’s a formula that has worked before for Nicki Minaj, with her No. 2-peaking 2014 Hot 100 smash “Anaconda”: Take the widely recognizable hook from a still-beloved pop classic praising a particularly eye-popping female (in that case, Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”) and reframe it to own the narrative. This time, it worked even better: “Super Freaky Girl” prominently sampled the beat and post-chorus of Rick James’ 1981 funk standard “Super Freak” and soared past that song’s No. 16 chart peak to become Minaj’s first Hot 100 No. 1 as an unaccompanied lead artist.
The timing of this smash must have confused the two veteran hitmakers as much as anyone: After being recorded (and spun by Guetta during live sets) in the mid-2010s, Guetta and Rexha’s EDM banger, borrowing the synth and chorus melody to Eiffel 65’s turn-of-the-century surprise hit, had gone unreleased for a half-decade. But after the collaboration was teased on TikTok to fan-tantalizing effect, it was finally released in August, later becoming both artists’ first top 40 hit of the 2020s, climbing into the top 10 on the Hot 100.
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
For months, two remarkably similar singles from rival labels have been battling for attention on charts and playlists.
In one corner: Southstar’s “Miss You,” released through Sony’s B1 Recordings, a fast, piano-heavy electronic dance track that pulls lyrics from Oliver Tree‘s “Jerk.” In the other: Robin Schulz and Oliver Tree’s “Miss You,” released through Atlantic, a fast, piano-heavy electronic dance track that also pulls from “Jerk.” Both songs are exactly three minutes and 26 seconds long; both have been all over Spotify’s Global Viral 50; both are currently on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart.
This has worked out well for Tree — whose vocals are front and center in a pair of viral hits — and less well for the other artists involved. Southstar’s breakthrough single was initially unauthorized, and it has now been eclipsed by an official version from an internationally-known artist. And while Robin Schulz’s remix, which came second, was sanctioned, the producer has become a target for internet ire (“you should be better than this,” one user tweeted at him), because it looks as if an established DJ and producer is pushing a newcomer out of the spotlight.
As a result, a potentially triumphant moment has devolved into a debate over who stole from whom. While Southstar initially sampled Oliver Tree without permission, he has also publicly accused Schulz of theft. “He said to me [via Instagram message], ‘I’m sorry. I thought we’d do the song together. I never wanted to steal your song,’” Southstar tells Billboard. “I think it was a lie from him.”
In a short statement, a representative for Schulz said only that “Southstar listened to the wrong counselors. His team decided to go a confrontational way instead of a conciliatory [one].”
This duel serves as a cautionary tale for rising artists: Taking a “wait and see” approach to clearing a sample can have dire consequences. And it’s a reminder of how sharp-elbowed the music industry can be, especially when hits are involved. Although tens of millions of listeners have played Southstar’s “Miss You,” a representative for Atlantic Records — which owns rights to the Oliver Tree original, “Jerk” — said in a statement that “the Oliver Tree and Robin Schulz version… which we commissioned, is the definitive version.”
“Southstar remixed ‘Jerk’ without permission,” the statement continued, “and then released a version with re-recorded vocals to avoid fully compensating Oliver Tree and his label.”
Southstar does not deny that his initial remix was unauthorized, but he “loved it so much” that he felt compelled to put it out anyway. He says he had already finished the “Miss You” instrumental when he encountered Tree’s vocals on TikTok. “Jerk” is a somber, pouting rock song, but the clip Southstar encountered on the app was sped-up, so Tree’s voice sounded chirpy and helium-addled, at odds with his misanthropic lyrics. Southstar found the a capella version of the track on YouTube, took what he wanted from it, and wove it into “Miss You.”
Excited, the producer proceeded to upload “Miss You,” uncleared sample and all, to streaming services in May. He notes that he reached out to Tree “out of respect” on Instagram before uploading the song, but did not hear back. “It was always in my head that the song was not cleared,” Southstar adds.
It’s not uncommon for unknown artists to upload songs with uncleared samples in them. The vast majority of these tracks never become popular, so they continue to float around the internet, flying beneath the music industry’s commercial radar. Challenges arise, however, when songs featuring uncleared samples go viral. Now the piece of music is worth money, and sample owners come knocking, looking for their rightful cut. The artist who didn’t clear the sample has little to no leverage in the ensuing negotiations, because those rightsholders can issue a takedown for copyright infringement, stopping a hit in its tracks.
Few people listened to “Miss You,” according to Southstar, until the German rapper Yung Hurn posted the track on his Instagram story. The single then started to carom around social media, and soon Southstar was fielding offers from all the major labels. “Sony and Universal came to me and said, ‘We really love the song, and we can get it cleared for you,’” the producer recalls.
Atlantic, Oliver Tree’s label, was also in the hunt, pursuing a viral dance track based on a record in its catalog. “Atlantic U.S. came to me and they said — really unfriendly — ‘Look, we know you have the song, and we want to buy the song from you,’” Southstar says. He says they offered him less than 10,000 euros, and it was “not a nice offer.” A representative for Atlantic disputed this: “Any claim that we didn’t try to negotiate with Southstar in good faith to license his infringing version of the track is not true.”
Southstar had initially sampled “Jerk,” meaning that he needed to obtain rights to sample both the recording (what’s known as “the master”) and the composition (“the publishing”). To escape the first obligation, he had a studio singer re-record Tree’s vocals. Since Southstar was no longer sampling the “Jerk” recording, he then only had to get clearance from the three songwriters responsible for the melody and the lyrics of the track — Tree, Marshmello, and David Pramik. Southstar obtained that clearance; in exchange, he gave up 100% of his publishing.
What happened next was bizarre, like watching a man try to shake his shadow.
Southstar signed with Sony’s B1 Recordings and released his new, officially cleared version of “Miss You” on July 30. Atlantic released their own remixed version on Aug. 5.
Months later, on Oct. 12, Southstar released a sped-up version of his track. Just five days passed before Atlantic released a sped-up version of Schulz’s song.
Southstar was working at his job in a Berlin supermarket the day he heard Schulz’s “Miss You.” “I was so shocked I really couldn’t believe it,” he says. “Schulz had played my music before. And I had already written to him — ‘You are so nice, thank you so much for playing my songs in your set.’ I thought, ‘No way he could have actually done that.’”
Southstar’s “Miss You” has more than 65 millions streams on Spotify, an enviable total for a new act. But Schulz’s “Miss You” has more than 107 million. It’s getting roughly twice as much support from streaming services — last week, Schulz’s version appeared in 203 of Spotify’s editorial playlists, according to the analytics company Chartmetric, while Southstar’s popped up in 107. The gap between the two versions is even more pronounced on the airwaves: Schulz’s “Miss You” is growing at pop radio, while Southstar’s rendition is relegated to a few dance-focused stations.
“Wolfgang Boss [who runs B1] called me and said, ‘I’m really sorry, I have never ever in all my years in the music business seen something like this happen,’” Southstar says.
In case there wasn’t enough drama and complication, the producer Twisted put out a third remix of Tree’s track called “Worth Nothing” in September. That one was also initially uncleared before earning an official release via Black 17 Media and Artist Partner Group. (APG was in a JV with Warner and Atlantic before going independent.) “Worth Nothing” is actually performing better than the other two remixes of “Jerk” on Spotify’s Global Viral 50 chart.
As the versions continue to pile up, Southstar is trying to move on — to think about the next hit. “I think I can do that again,” he says. “And I’m really motivated now.”