Alaine Says She Resisted Pressure From A Producer To Write ‘Raunchy’ Music
Reggae songbird Alaine says she resisted pressure from a very popular music producer to write ‘raunchy’ lyrics early in her career.
The singer, whose breakthrough single was No Ordinary Love (2005), recounted that the producer had insisted that her music would only attract attention if it was sexually explicit. According to her, he had dismissed her hit song Deeper (2007), saying, “You sound alright, but nobody is going to care unless you go underneath your skirt.”
“That’s what I was faced with you know,” she told The Fix podcast.
Alaine said she chose to stay true to herself, rejecting suggestions to adopt a raunchier persona, fearing it would lead to her being labeled as inauthentic. “I was like if I get raunchy people gonna bottle me because that’s not who I am so they are going to say ‘fake’ and so I didn’t believe him,” she continued.
“I literally just ignored him and he is a very successful producer and I was like yeah I don’t receive that and I got lots of ohh you need to be sexier and I was like no that’s a lie . In other words if I try that people are gonna say why, what are you doing?”
“Be yourself and that’s what I did,” she reiterated. “There’s enough of that, it exists and the people who do it do it very well, big up to them.”
Alaine, who was born in New Jersey, moved back to Jamaica in 2004 to focus on music after working in investment banking at JP Morgan Chase. Her commitment to maintaining her artistic integrity paid off, and she gained traction in the reggae scene within a year of returning.
“Maybe a year because all the time in New York I was working on my song writing while I was at the bank, I cared zero about the bank, big up the bank,” she exclaimed.
“I was friends with Serani’s ( Daseca Productions) older brother and he said you know I have a brother that’s just starting off in the music industry with two of his friends, David Harisingh and Craig Harisingh and that is when they were working on the anger management riddim as brand new producers and I came home and met them and we worked on music and everything just kinda avalanched from there where they introduced me to everybody in the industry and I met Don [Corleon] as well and the rest is history,” she revealed.
Corleon produced Alaine’s debut album Sacrifice (2007), which included No Ordinary Love, and her second album, Luv-A-Dub (2009), which was released in Japan, before they parted ways.
Her latest song is Pile Up, produced by Usain Bolt on the Sweet 7 Riddim.
“I loved the rhythm the moment I heard it,” she told The Star. “I’m always excited to write new songs that make people feel good feelings. So I set that intention, and the melody and lyrics flowed.”
“Pile Up is about counting your blessings and learning from your past, seeing the good and the bad, but focusing on the good while expecting better to come. It’s really full of lessons that I have learnt over the years. It’s about forgiveness, trusting God and expecting brighter days,” she explained.
“The response to the song so far has been overwhelming. I’ve seen people commenting that it’s their new favourite song. It’s such a blessing to be able to create songs that can put people in a grateful mood.”