Kreviazuk becoming the invisible talent behind Top 40 hits
TORONTO — It’s getting late in the evening at a Scarborough recording studio, and Chantal Kreviazuk and Grammy-winning producer Boi-1da are duelling on their laptops with such cheery back-and-forth one-upmanship, they could be going head-to-head in a computer game.
But instead of games, they’re playing beats. And there’s no trashtalk, just elaborately adorned soundscapes beaming through a high-quality audio rig. In fact, as the pair dance to each other’s creations, they swap obviously genuine words of encouragement.
“That’s cray!” enthuses Kreviazuk after diving into one of 1da’s underwater bangers, an unclaimed beat that could end up with one of the many hip-hop heavyweights who have collaborated with the 26-year-old from Ajax, Ont. — a group that includes Drake, Eminem and Nicki Minaj.
When one of Kreviazuk’s diverse creations blares free — a sonically juicy kiss-off ready-made for the top of the pop charts — 1da, whose real name is Matthew Samuels, gathers his hands beside his head and mimes the sweet swing of a baseball slugger. A home run, he’s certain.
And it certainly wouldn’t be
“I’M HAPPY AND I’M CHALLENGED ON SO MANY LEVELS, IN AND OUTSIDE THE MUSIC
BUSINESS.” CHANTAL KREVIAZUK
Kreviazuk’s first time clearing the bases. The 39-year-old, a one-time Canadian pop superstar in her own right, has found a second act crafting soaring hits for others — a pan-genre melange of star pop artists who, assembled together, would form a truly schizophrenic mixtape: Drake, Avril Lavigne, Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Josh Groban, Hilary Duff and Mandy Moore, among them.
She has songs on hold with Eminem and Kanye West. She has two prominent female householdname pop stars jockeying for pole position in a race to secure one of her unheard tunes. She has a recent Top 10 hit to her name in the form of Pitbull and Christina Aguilera’s Feel This Moment, and as a result of that song’s feature placement among marketing for the NBA playoffs, she finally has a bit of cred with her three sons (whom she shares with rocker husband Raine Maida).
What she doesn’t have is widespread credit for her creations among the general public. And the two-time Juno winner, whose solo career included multiple multiplatinum albums, has had to gradually come to terms with channelling her creativity into the charts in semi-anonymity. It’s still not necessarily easy. “If I had too much time on my hands, and I thought about that all the time, then that might really bother me,” Kreviazuk said.“But you know what? I have a full, rich, complex life. And I’m happy and I’m challenged on so many levels, in and outside the music business and in and outside of my creative world.
“So you know, really, sure, do I want to scream from the mountaintops: ‘Aiiee — that’s my song?’ Well, my kids are in the house jumping and dancing to it when it comes on in the NBA, so I won. And that’s all that matters to me — is that I get to be a cool mom.”
Kreviazuk takes obvious joy in her blossoming career as well. Even if it’s not the career she imagined for herself.
Sometimes, Kreviazuk might spend a week in a session with another producer or songwriter, trying to cook up ideas that could then be served up to any variety of artists. Sometimes, she’ll write with a specific artist in mind, working on vague instructions on what they might be looking for — for instance, one artist with whom she’s involved was recently on the prowl for tunes with a “’90s hip-hop/R&B vibe” — or simply a hunch based on an artist’s past work. (She’s often collaborated with Maida, her partner and polar opposite in demeanour. Energetic, effervescent and rarely still for long, Kreviazuk is a roving hurricane with the Zen Maida her calm centre).
In the case of Feel This Moment, Kreviazuk wrote the hook. She played the chorus’s memorable chord progression on the piano and sometime-songwriting partner Nasri Atweh came up with the “whoaaa-OH-OH-OH” vocal melody. She then built on that with “one day when the light is glowing.” Next, someone in the room suggested nicking the keyboard riff from A-ha’s Take On Me, and the blueprint for a hit cohered into view.
Almost immediately, the song was on the radio and a smash for Pitbull and Aguilera.
“What’s so interesting about it — that one went to the radio and it’s a hit worldwide, but I have the same feeling about other pieces of mine right now. And they’re not flying off the shelves,” she said.
In fact, she has more than threedozen songs ready right now, in various styles, suitable for any number of artists. She says it’s not worth getting hung up on genre, because memorable melodies easily float over such boundaries.
And yet, it’s obvious that Kreviazuk has made significant inroads into the world of hip hop and R&B, given her burgeoning connection with a cluster of well-known hiphop artists.
It wouldn’t have necessarily seemed a perfect fit for a Winnipegreared mother of three to slide into sessions with some of the world’s most prominent rappers, and she says there are indeed considerable barriers to entry.
“In the urban world, people are really into their crew, and so it’s really hard to penetrate that and why should I penetrate that? It has to be by chance. It has to be organic. It’s very, very difficult to get heard.
“But there’s something that drives me about the backbeat or about the soulfulness.”
It’s not always a positive experience. She vents about a recent encounter with a well-known hiphop star who treated her with dismissive scorn, referring to her by a derogatory slur even when she was in the room.
But she’s tough, and she perseveres through such experiences. More often, she wins over such skeptics.
“The moment you put your talent out, everybody respects you — for the most part. There’s the exception to every rule, don’t get me wrong, but (usually) the second you show people the goods, it’s an even playing field. And that’s a really great feeling.”