Black Saint Could You Love Me?
Warner Bros. Records, 2017
London-based production trio Black Saint have figuratively blown up with their debut single
Could You Love Me?, an enthralling concoction of deep house and classic noughties R&B vibes. Future Music caught up with Justin, Jermaine and DJ James in their North West London studio so they could show us the secrets behind their slick, genre-blending sounds.
How did this song come about?
Jermaine Davis: “A friend of ours [Pretty Ricky’s Marcus ‘Pleasure P’ Cooper] came over from America at the beginning of 2016 and wanted to get in the studio to make house track. We got some drinks and got on a good vibe, knocked up a beat and started writing some songs.”
What was the idea behind the lyrics?
JD: “We try to have more of a conscious direction with our songs. We want to try and put out stuff to uplift and make people think, because there’s a lot of negative music out there. So P’s normal approach to an RnB song is to talk about girls or sex or whatever. Now we’re not trying to change anybody, but when we have conversations with him he’s like, ‘I’m done with that now; I’m ready to move on’. So we wanted to get that across, without being preachy or trying to change his character.”
How did you go about combining that R&B feel with deep house?
JD: “I don’t think there was much thought about it. There was a moment where we had the groove of the main part of the track, and while we were in there dancing and singing and talking to each other Justin had gone back to the project and started doing what would become the verses.”
Justin Osuji: “It wasn’t calculated, it was more about making something we’d want to hear. We have that approach with everything: making music, DJing our sets...”
David James: “…Food…” JO: “…Yeah! What would make us think, ‘That’s sick, that’s different’? The verses just lent themselves to that kind of groove. For us, keeping the sub elements – like proper down-south subs like that Miami bass sound – is integral to what we do. I think that’s what changes our sound into something that’s maybe a bit more accessible. Especially in America.”
How did you fit all the low-end elements into the mix?
JO: “Listening to a lot of R&B music that was coming from the UK I used to get frustrated – it didn’t sound like the Americans, in particular the drums. The kick wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do, the snare was really thin and really far back in the mix. For us, the kick is really part of the groove; it’s all about the groove and you’ll hear those sub elements. Now it’s funny because you need to be able to hear it when you’re on a laptop as well. It’s interesting how you have to kind of get around that. We really want the bass to be tight in a club so it’s not woolly – it’s got to be real tight. So we have the kick kind of prominent and the bass with a little bit of the low end taken out. Then you get the punch from the kick and the tightness of the sub.”
“P’s normal approach to an RnB song is to talk about girls or sex or whatever. Now we’re not trying to change anybody, but when we have conversations with him he’s like, ‘I’m done with that now; I’m ready to move on’. So we wanted to get that across, without being preachy or trying to change his character.”
How do you make bass music work on a laptop?
JO: “When I finish mixing down I turn everything down really, really,
really quiet so that you can almost not hear it. I found that if any element starts to disappear – like the kick or the snare or the bass or whatever – then you boost it a little bit. I think it’s just mixing at really low levels for me; it tends to translate pretty well. But we didn’t go to school for this. It’s just like a vibe and a feel for us.
“We’ve also got the added advantage as DJs to go and test it. We can see what works and then come back in and adjust it accordingly. It’s funny because when we signed to Warner Bros, they said our mixes are always really good. When you don’t come from that world, you don’t really think of yourself like that. You think, ‘We’ll get someone else to mix it'!
“It’s good getting that validation, but we still got a guy called James J. Reynolds to mix it to make sure that everything sounded as good as it could. He could make the bottom end a little bit tighter. I don’t know how he did that, but you know it’s something to do with compression! But for us it’s just trial and error.”
How do you feel about the track now?
DJ: “The feedback has been great. It grew legs by itself, it put our name on the map and brought us some fans.”