47Views
Meet the 5 female songwriters low key running the music game
Music is transient, never static. And the music industry is always changing because of this fact.
Even when you have made it as an artist and are leading the game, you always need to keep your sound fresh; repurposing, reinventing, sampling and mixing sounds and beats, to produce new content that keeps listeners wanting more and more.
Here are the names of the ghostwriters behind the lyrics to your favorite artists’ tracks but who now have started to make a name for themselves.
Nija Charles
At the age of 20, Nija Charles has collaborated with some of the biggest names in the music industry right now. I mean, two of her songs, “LoveHappy” and “Heard About Us,” feature on The Carters’ new album, Everything is Love. It took Charles to reach the age of only 13 to realize she wanted to pursue songwriting and producing seriously.
Growing up in a New Jersey household surrounded by music may have shaped Charles’s to see music as a career prospect, as she recounted in an interview with Fader, that her mother made it compulsory for her and her sister to learn a musical instrument.
Nonetheless, Charles remains constantly inspired by the music she listens to. Words, beats, and melodies simply exude out of her. In trying to get her stuff out there, Charles used SoundCloud as a distribution platform.
While she initially intended just to release the beats she had produced, she quickly learned that listeners wanted to hear songs, and as a result, she started toplining on her own beats. Though enrolled at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, Charles decided to take a leave of absence, and delve deeper into the music scene in NYC.
Her decision has certainly paid off as the songwriter has crafted songs that have been recorded by Jason Derulo, Flo Rida, and Chris Brown. But Charles really began to gain traction, through the release of “I Do” and “Ring” on Cardi B’s album Invasion of Privacy.
Charles is currently under the record label, Universal Music Publishing Group.
Gizzle
The songwriter/rapper’s interest in poetry during her younger years would become the starting point of translating feelings and ideas to pen and paper.
An artistic practice that evolved into Gizzle formulating a unique lyricism that has seen her work in the music industry for 10 years now and is well respected amongst her creative collaborators for her daringness and versatility as a writer.
At the same time, Gizzle has made sure not be swept away by the fame and accolades, since many artists careers have served as cautionary tales that come with the success as an artist.
Gizzle has dedicated her time to deciphering the ins and outs of the industry as a way to avoid being absorbed into a deal with a label that for fear of losing one’s artistic integrity. After all, record labels are businesses but the tension between art and profit has long been a characteristic of all artistic industries.
Nonetheless, when listening to her flow you would be surprised by her West Coast origins since her sound is so embedded in the East Coast rap scene.
Gizzle has collaborated with the likes of Ty Dolla $ign, Trey Song and Travis Scott. But she has worked closely with Diddy, who has become a formative mentor for Gizzle, giving her the opportunity to appear on the track, “You Could Be My Lover.”
Emily Warren
Warren has been writing and collaborating with artists for 12 years now, but she has just dropped her own music this week, this time with her name at the forefront, for the release of her debut album, Quiet Your Mind.
Warren has worked with pop artists, Shawn Mendes, Dua Lipa, Little Mix, and The Chainsmokers. In addition, she has written for David Guetta and wrote Daya’s Grammy award-winning song, “Don’t Let me Down.”
Hailing from New York City, Warren was another songwriter to come out of NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music and was also part of a group called Emily Warren & The Betters.
Speaking to AM New York, Warren shared that her new writing project has come with new artistic challenges as she has sought to formulate a writing process that isn’t significantly driven by a marketing agenda to create catchy pop hits.
Plus, since pop songs have not always been a musical genre that is particularly favorable to women, with lyrics that are often hypersexual and demeaning, Warren wants her music to vehemently break away from this tradition, stating in an interview with TIME,
“There are songs I hear on the radio that I’m shocked by. I try to make an effort to be on the right side of history.”
Indeed, her lyrical and melodic content draws from subject matter that is often painful and uncomfortable. In the same interview with TIME, she maintains how such topics ultimately allow artists to create resonant work for listeners to engage with,
“Those are the songs that really hit you when you need it; those are the songs I want to be a part of.”
Bibi Bourelly
Originally from Berlin, Germany, Bibi made the move to the United States and at the age of 22 already has the names Rihanna, Kanye West and Usher listed on her songwriting CV.
Known for being the mind behind the bad-ass hit song, “Bitch Better Have My Money,” and her impact on Rihanna’s sixth album, Anti is evident with the inclusion of her the tracks, “Yeah, I Said It,” “Higher,” and “Pose.”
Yet, the artist has conflicted feelings when it comes to being a songwriter when it comes to the process of handing over your work, or in her own words “a piece of yourself” to another person, even if it is someone like Rihanna.
Nonetheless, she maintained that sometimes the personal sacrifice is necessary for one’s career. But Bibi has now gone solo.
Her songs “Ballin’,” “Ego,” gained traction on the Spotify charts and her intimate studio session released last year that includes one-word titled tracks, “Sunshine,” “Poet,” “Flowers,” and “Untitled,” are definitely worth a peep.
What is clear is that Bibi is a true artist. Deeply passionate and oozes with an emotional intensity that makes listeners curious as to what she will create next.
Ali Tamposi
Tamposi’s career took off after Kelly Clarkson fell in love with the songwriter’s break-up anthem, “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You).” After spending some time in Los Angeles, Tamposi later landed the opportunity to collaborate with other fellow songwriters to craft the lyrics for DJ Snake’s & Justin Bieber’s hit, “Let Me Love You.”
Tamposi later went on to write Camila Cabello & Young Thug’s song “Havana,” and has recently worked with Selena Gomez and Kygo, proving herself to be a force in the pop music scene.
In an op-ed for online magazine Song Writing Magazine, Tamposi shared the challenges that come with writing for an artist and treading the line between catering specifically to an artist and making it not sound forced or fitting too neatly with that artists’ body of work. She says,
“If you try to make it specific to an artist it never really works out. I think authenticity is key and an artist can really feel when it sounds sincere, or when a song sounds forced.”
Tamposi is currently signed under the record label Reservoir and is a part of an effective songwriting trio, composed of the writers Andrew Watt and Brian Lee.