By Allison Stewart, Special to the Chicago Tribune
December 11, 2009
For newly successful R&B singer Keri Hilson, getting famous took forever. Or at least, it felt like it. The Georgia-born singer, 27, spent years as a backing vocalist, sometime girl group member and songwriter, co-writing tracks for artists like Britney Spears (“Gimme More”) and Usher (“Love in This Club, Part II”) and generally hovering around the margins of the record industry.
“It does feel like a long time,” Hilson says now. “I’m reminded of it every day, when I see one of my peers who knows me from eight or nine years ago. It’s a reminder that if you are diligent, you will be rewarded. It may not come easy, it may not come overnight.”
A collaboration with Timbaland on his ’07 smash “The Way I Are” jump-started Hilson’s career. She became the go-to girl for an increasingly stellar series of male hip-hop and R&B stars, teaming with artists like Nas, Chris Brown and, eventually, Kanye West and R. Kelly. The collaborations raised her profile and helped keep her afloat during the near-interminable delays in the release of her debut disc, the gold-selling, double-Grammy-nominated “In a Perfect World. …”
“I’m thankful for that time,” Hilson says. “A lot of people look at it like a bad thing, but I got to own my craft. I got to be introduced to some great friends. I also got to know the business a lot more than the average new artist. I understand a lot more about how things work.”
Below, Hilson discusses some of her most famous collaborations and the one that got away:
On the Lil Wayne collaboration “Turnin Me On,” which appears on “Perfect World” :
“He’s a good friend of (producer Polow da Don). Polow called him after we finished the song and was giving him the spiel on who I am and what I do. Wayne stopped him and said, ‘I know who she is. I never met her, but I’m a fan of hers.’ So Polow sends the song, and usually the wait is 2-3 weeks for a feature (vocal contribution), but Wayne did it in an hour … and he murdered it. He killed his verse. I’m glad he went in on it the way he did. Sometimes you get those lucky moments.”
On the Grammy-nominated Kanye West/Ne-Yo collaboration “Knock You Down,” also from “Perfect World”:
“It was very unorthodox, very out of protocol. (West and I) were just doing a shoot together. We had a tongue-in-cheek moment. He said, ‘How’s your album going?’ And I said, ‘Good, but the only thing missing is you.’ I said it tongue in cheek, and my fist is completely in my mouth at this point, and he said, ‘Well, why can’t I be on it?’ And I said, ‘Well, we’re mastering the album.’ And he said, ‘If I do something tonight, can it make it in time?’ And I said, ‘Hell, yeah!’ We set up a session before he could change his mind. (I was saying to myself) ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ All the way to the studio, I was just elated.”
On the R. Kelly hit “Number One,” from his release “Untitled”:
“He wanted me on the song. There was a version of that same song that was not me, but there was so much talk, people saying that it sounded like me, that he said, ‘I might as well get the real thing.’ He sent me the song, I made my verse and he loved it. He changed his verse completely. He said, ‘You made me change my verse! You (sang) the (heck) out of that song.’ That was a huge compliment.”
On the collaborations she won’t do:
“I’ve got to be a lot more choosy. When you’re the new kid in school, everyone wants to be your friend, and that’s kind of what’s happening now. The trend now is, everyone wants you on a song with them. It’s a cool thing, but you do have to be very careful.”
On her dream collaborations:
“Lauryn Hill. I always said I wanted to write the comeback songs for Lauryn Hill and Michael Jackson. Obviously, one can’t happen. I’m still holding on to my dream to work with Lauryn Hill. I love her so much. … I’ve been putting it out there in the universe for a few years now, so I think it’ll come back.”
