Five things you didn’t know about the making of No More

IT’S the first English song to win Best Song in Anugerah Industri Muzik’s 21-year history, but getting there wasn’t easy ...

1 Four years in the making SonaOne had the beat back in 2009 but forgot about it until a year later. He then sat down for nine hours and wrote the chorus. Still, the song was without its verse until over another year. “I spent so much time on it just to make it right. I knew something about that song was special,” he says.

2 Go for a drive No More’s verse was finally written when he heard the song play on his thumb drive while he was driving. He shares: “I was trying so hard but the words wouldn’t come to me. Then one day, as I drove, the first verse came out of my head. I grabbed my phone and quickly recorded it. I went back to the studio and finished it in 10 minutes. I thought, ‘Why did it take me a year for 10 minutes?’” You know what they say, you can’t rush creativity. 3 Losing it “I recorded a lot of songs by 2010 but something horrible happened. My hard drive crashed and I could only recover a good 20% of my work. No More was one of the lucky few that made it,” he reveals.

4 Finding inspiration No More’s second verse touches on being cheated by a lover. “Everything that happens in my life inspires me. That second verse was inspired not just by my personal girl situation but a situation that almost all my boys have gone through. So I kind of gathered all those stories and put it out,” he shares. 5 Not ready Did you know that SonaOne may not have been present for No More’s win? “My only focus was to go there and perform. I honestly didn’t want to go to AIM to begin with. A lot of the industry’s top dogs were going to be there and I didn’t feel I was ready to be rubbing shoulders with them,” he says.