The New Music Business with Ari Herstand

Kevin Garrett on Writing for Beyonce and Recording as an Independent Artist

May 27, 2020

56:10

My guest today is singer-songwriter Kevin Garrett. He is an extremely talented R&B, Neo-soul, and soul songwriter. It was such a treat to speak with him. Famously, he's Grammy-nominated for writing Beyonce's track "Pray You Catch Me" from her 'Lemonade' album.

In this episode we discuss his music publishing deal with Roc Nation and his distribution strategies, his music creation process, and remaining independent.

Note: We recorded this call over Zoom, and the technical gods were not in our favor during this interview. If you're hearing glitches and sentences being cut off, that's what's going on. We edited it as best we could so you can understand him, and it's still an incredible conversation.

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Quick links:

3:14 - Staying busy during the quarantine

6:14 - Kevin playing UnCancelled Music Festival + keeping the local music community venues alive

8:21 - Growing up in Pittsburgh and going to New York University

10:54 - Kevin's first release, 'Mellow Drama,' and how it was made

12:09 - Is the home studio just for demos or do those recordings make the album?

13:22 - About the music creation process and using samples

16:14 - Kevin Garrett's unique sound

20:34 - Remaining independent and the behind the scenes to a growing career

27:54 - Kevin's publishing deal and how everything gets set into motion

33:44 - When Kevin found out he made the cut on Beyonce's 'Lemonade' album