Introducing Keri Hilson
Friday, January 4th, 2008
The music industry is going ape shit over Keri Hilson, the young songwriter who absolutely set off Timbaland’s electro-urban “The Way I Are” hit. This month, she’s featured on the cover of the Fader. (She’s the woman on the left; the lady on the right is the equally awesome Brooklyn artist Santogold.) And although no one has heard her upcoming album, In a Perfect World, many expect it to be as fabulous as “The Way I Are.”
The 25-year-old Hilson got her start as a member of Atlanta songwriting crew the Clutch (more on the Clutch very soon). Here’s what MTV.com wrote about her in a news story July 2, 2007:
While on deck for her solo turn, Hilson has been writing prolifically. Either on her own or as part of the five-person songwriting/production team the Clutch, Hilson has penned tunes for Britney Spears, the Pussycat Dolls, Diddy, Ciara, Usher, Chris Brown, Mary J. Blige, Ruben Studdard, Ludacris (”Runaway Love”) and Omarion (”Ice Box”).
“The Clutch is a new thing, it’s still a baby,” she said. “We are responsible for some major hits: ‘Ice Box,’ ‘Take Me as I Am,’ ‘The Way I Are,’ so many. ‘Anonymous’ by Bobby Valentino, a whole bunch of new artists. Beyoncé … the Clutch is everywhere. Co-writing makes it a lot faster, and you’re more open to other ideas. It opens you up creatively. Everyone brings more color to a certain situation, to a certain song, [which] makes it a lot easier. Sometimes we take it section by section or line by line — it’s fun either way. Work is play for us.”
Meanwhile, the Fader story calls Hilson part of Timbaland’s “Black Pop 2.0″ movement — with 1.0 being the Missy Elliott/Aaliyah/Ginuwine explosion of the late ’90s.
Hilson is a black princess from the upwardly mobile mindstate of Atlanta, and her dad is a real estate mogul who happens to own the subdivision where Akon lives. By her own description, a straight R&B chick more likely to be listening to Groove Theory or Babyface than anything current, her soul nevertheless has a futurist musical and emotional timbre; that computer love thing that connects her with Danja and makes her sound like a logical progression of Timbaland’s urban new wave.
You can download a free PDF copy of the Fader at TheFader.com.
