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Ester Dean, center, has written smash

hooks for Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.

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Home

The New YorkerReporting & Essays

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS

The hitmakers behind Rihanna.

by John Seabrook

MARCH 26, 2012

n a mild Monday afternoon in mid-January, Ester Dean, a songwriter and vocalist,

arrived at Roc the Mic Studios, on West Twenty-seventh Street in Manhattan, for the

first of five days of songwriting sessions. Her engineer, Aubry Delaine, whom she calls Big

Juice, accompanied her. Dean picked up an iced coffee at a Starbucks on Seventh Avenue,

took the elevator up to Roc the Mic, and passed through a lounge that had a pool table

covered in taupe-colored felt. Two sets of soundproofed doors led to the control room, a

windowless cockpit that might have been the flight deck of a spaceship.

Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen, the team of Norwegian writer-producers

professionally known as Stargate, were waiting there for Dean. Both are tall and skinny

ectomorphs with pale shaved heads who would not look out of place in a Matrix movie.

Dean, who is black, is neither skinny nor tall; she reached up to give them big hugs, which is

how she greets almost everyone. They chatted for a while. Dean has a comical, BettyBoop-ish speaking voice, which will be featured in the upcoming animated film Ice Age:

Continental Drift. (Sid, the giant ground sloth voiced by John Leguizamo, is finally getting a

girlfriend, Deans Sloth Siren.) After ten minutes or so, she pronounced herself ready to

work.

Most of the songs played on Top Forty radio are collaborations between producers like

Stargate and top line writers like Ester Dean. The producers compose the chordprogressions, program the beats, and arrange the synths, or computer-made instrumental

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up, and a lot of writers and artists would be in town. Stargate was nominated for record of the year (Katy Perrys Firework) and rap

song of the year (Wiz Khalifas Black and Yellow).

Dean had never been to the Grammys, although she has received multiple songwriter nominations and has been invited each time

shes been nominated. This year, she was nominated for her contributions to Rihannas Loud, which was up for album of the year,

but she still wasnt planning to go. I dont have anything to wear, she said. Anyway, Adeles going to win everything.

You never know! Blacksmith declared, trying to be positive. But with the mention of Adele the air pressure in the control room

seemed to change. Stargate knew well from their experience in London how quickly fads come and go in the pop business; a massive

smash such as Adeles Someone Like You, with its heartfelt lyrics, accompanied by simple piano arpeggiosno arpeggiator required

could be the beginning of the end of urban pop.

Finally, the Norwegians left, saying they hoped theyd see Dean in Los Angeles. Dean decided shed go get something to eat, andthen shed come back to Roc the Mic and knock the bottom out of these songs.

ILLUSTRATION: MICHAEL GILLETTE

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