Dotty is joined by New York R&B artist Justine Skye on today’s The Dotty Show on Apple Music 1 to talk about her new Timbaland-produced album, ‘Space and Time’. In the interview Justine discusses whether the pandemic helped her create a better album, working with super-producer Timbaland, her favourite Timbaland music, collaborating with Justin Timberlake, working with Rema and more.
On releasing her album ‘Space And Time’….
Oh my gosh, I am so relieved. I’ve been working on this project for almost a year and it’s been such a special process because this is a moment that I’ll never get back. In this experience that we went through as a World, this pandemic that we went through, and creating this project during the pandemic, we’ll never get that experience again. So I really got to focus in, and I had a lot of space and time to really think about this project and figure out what I wanted my sound to be and how we wanted to present this to the World.
On whether the pandemic helped her create a better album…
Absolutely. I feel like it told me a lot about myself, as a person and also as an artist. It also connected Timbaland and I. I don’t know if we would have connected in this way if not for what happened, because I don’t know if he would have had as much time. And honestly, if you see the documentary that we put out, he’s just saying this moment really sparked something in him and made him fall in love with the process of creating a whole body of work again.
On how she started working with Timbaland…
So my team they’ve worked with Tim in the past and so they’ve already brought up the conversation of us working together and then the pandemic hit and I was like: “Well, what do we do?”. I was supposed to go on tour, I was supposed to do a lot of things that got cancelled, and I just started doing covers on Instagram to pass the time. Because a lot of artists they didn’t know what they were going to do at this point in time, so I just started singing and he reached out to me. He was like: “Hey, I want to do an Instagram video with you.” And I’m like: “Really?” I thought he wanted to do a cover so I brought up one of his songs that I really liked, and he was like: “Nah, let’s do an original song.” and so that was ‘Intruded’. He sent me the beat for ‘Intruded’ and we went off.
On her favourite Timbaland-produced song growing up…
There’s too many to name, but honestly ‘Say It Right’ is one of my favourites with Nelly Furtado. So the fact that he used those drums on my album, when I came to the studio and I heard that beat, I was like: “No, you did not. No, you did not!”. And that’s on ‘In My Bag’. So I was like, oh my gosh, actually, I was just speaking to him. And he was like, “Yo, In My Bag, you got to go hard for that song. That song could change your life.”
On whether Timbaland’s body of work intimidated her…
1million%! I was so nervous the first time he reached out to me, the first time he sent me a beat, and then the first time we were in the studio together. And then after the 10th ‘Space And Time’ session that we did on Instagram, we were just like, all right, we got to turn this into a project, we can’t just keep doing these Instagram videos … This is such a milestone for me and such an accomplishment for me to have completed this project during this time. I’ve always wanted to work with Timbaland and the fact that I got to do so with such amazing features on the album, too, that I’ve looked up to, it’s really a moment that I’ll never get back and I’ll appreciate it for the rest of my life. He has all the plaques on his walls, too, so I felt like I was getting the energy from everyone in there as I was recording.
On working with Justin Timberlake…
He’s been giving advice along the way through this independent journey. When we finished the project, we sent it to him just to see what he would think and he was like: “Well, the only thing missing on this, is me.” And I’m like: “I’m sorry, what?” Never in a million years did I think that I was about to get a feature from Justin Timberlake. Someone who I actually grew up listening to, who actually helped form my taste in music as well. So it’s such a huge moment for me … Honestly, the fact that I have a Timbaland produced record with Justin Timberlake on it and then an Aaliyah sample on it…
On her collaboration with Rema…
I’m a big fan of Afrobeats, for the past few years of my life so I’ve always been a fan of Rema since he came out. And we’d been following each other and so when I did that song in the studio I knew that I wanted someone to complement the sound. So I reached out to him and I was like, yo, I got this song, Timbaland produced it, I think you would sound amazing on it. And I sent it to him, he sent it back, and I was like: “You smashed it”. I was so impressed, obviously, because he’s amazing. But I’m like, this really just completes the song.
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