E-mail a friendThe-Dream
airdate March 24, 2009
After a decade of making hits for others, Terius "The-Dream" Nash is winning critical praise for his own sophomore effort, "Love vs. Money." The Grammy winner has written for some of music's top artists, including Britney Spears, B2K and Mary J. Blige. But, his success was propelled into the stratosphere with Rihanna's 'Umbrella' and Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)." He's also an accomplished painter-sculptor, whose work has been shown at various galleries. Radio Killa Records is his joint venture with Def Jam.
Grammy winner talks about the influence of his mother's death on his music. (3:09)
Full interview. (11:41)
The-Dream
Tavis: Terius Nash, better known as The-Dream, has quickly become one of music's most sought-after songwriters, producers and performers, with hit songs to his credit by artists like Beyoncé, Madonna and Rihanna. He's out now with a solo project called "Love vs. Money," which made its debut at the top of the Billboard R&B charts last week. From the CD, here is some of the video for "My Love" featuring one Mariah Carey.
[Clip]
Tavis: Nice video - The-Dream, Mariah Carey, directed by some guy named Nick Cannon - how did that happen? (Laughter)
The-Dream: Hm, let me see. No, I like making everybody real comfortable and I like the appreciation of love and family most of all. So that kept it real easy, and those two -
Tavis: You were happy, Mariah's happy, Nick is happy - everybody happy.
The-Dream: Because I'm pretty simple, like, when it comes to that stuff. (Laughter) So I just wanted to make Mariah, like, okay, MC, what makes this work?
Tavis: Yeah - "Just let my husband direct it."
The-Dream: Well, she didn't have to do that. It was a lot of people that was up for the job, and he actually did -
Tavis: But Nick's - yeah.
The-Dream: He actually did - yeah, he's -
Tavis: He's a great (unintelligible).
The-Dream: He's actually pretty good at what he does, so I was like, "Man, go do your thing. You mess this up, though, I'm - (laughter).
Tavis: How involved do you get - I'll come back to the music in a second, but how involved do you get in all of that other stuff?
The-Dream: Oh, wow.
Tavis: Beyond the actual lyrics.
The-Dream: Wow, yeah, I have a very intense job of just even running my own label and knowing that I'm signed to myself already, and just even from the staff and going to the label, working the guys over, trying to get them to see my vision with what I am, which we're on the second album now so everybody at Def Jam, they've done an incredible job with me from the beginning.
But in the beginning it was just this young guy that used to write records, and it's like all right, let's see how far this thing is going to go. And now I'm a viable product in the building, so I got a lot of hats.
Tavis: Yeah, but you put your hands deliberately into everything?
The-Dream: Everything, in everything.
Tavis: The video, the roll-out, the marketing.
The-Dream: There's nothing I don't touch, and if it's something I don't touch, I'm mad about it instantly unless somebody think of a great idea and they do it, and I'm like, "Well, I should have came up with that and you should have ran that by me, but I'm going to let that slide this time." (Laughter)
Tavis: Because it was a good idea.
The-Dream: Yeah, it was a good idea.
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughter) What is up with - I love it, but you first had "Love Hate," and now you got "Love vs. Money." What's next, love -
The-Dream: "Love King."
Tavis: Ooh, I like it - I like it.
The-Dream: Yeah.
Tavis: That's great, but we (unintelligible) so fast, though. Not so fast past "Love vs. Money."
The-Dream: Okay, let's back up.
Tavis: Tell me about this one, the new one.
The-Dream: "Love vs. Money" is - "Love Hate" was where I was and where I graduated from. "Love vs. Money" is the two things that I feel like in my position that most people deal with, is whether you're waking up doing it out of love, or are you doing it trying to chase this money thing or this invisible dream, I call it, when the dream to me is just love overall because I feel like through love you can - you can do something that you love to a certain point and make a lot of money by not even paying it any attention.
But through money, if you chase money, it's really short-term because you can't get the greater love out of trying to chase it for money. So I named this album that to kind of pose the question to everybody else - like you wake up and you go to your job, what are you doing it for?
And that'll end up when you're 40, 50 years old, like, trying to figure out what are you happy about.
Tavis: I read somewhere in my research for our conversation that - and I'm always curious about - whenever anybody's a hit maker I'm always curious about the process. I love the back story to the process. And what I'm told, at least what I've read, is that when you write - at least when you wrote for this record - it wasn't about writing a record.
You approach every song as if it is a single, so you don't have this theme, so to speak. You write every song that you want to be a single, you want each track to be a hit, and you put a bunch of them on a thing and call it a record. So tell me how - I'm just curious about your process, why that is the process.
The-Dream: Well, the process is to indulge - create this spectacle around each record and having them stand on their own. I guess versus the old way of doing it is getting your first single and the second and possibly a third, and then the album sucks, versus looking at it like you don't know what the single is, so let's do every record and make it a 10 each time.
And then no matter what happens, if the label slips up and they put out this record, it's still a hit record. They put out - if they're not filling in the mood of "Rocking That Thing," which is the first record on my album, then we move to another single and it would be fine.
So I just actually like to beat it, like, really just beat it real good out of myself to just create those viable records that in time, 10 years from now, you look back and say, "Okay, this guy did this."
Tavis: What is it about your ear - I don't know if it's your ear or maybe it's your heart connected to your ear - but there's something that you have that allows you to write these major hits for women. What is that? Whether it's "Umbrella," "Single Ladies" - you got me singing "Single Ladies," and I ain't got nobody to sing the lyrics to that song at all - none whatsoever.
The-Dream: I'm definitely not out of touch when it comes to women. Me and my mother had a great relationship. She passed in '92 from cancer, when I was 13. So we had a very - I understood her, and I think when she passed, like, I immediately felt a certain way about the woman and what they mean to me in my life. And I didn't have that particular person around, so after you bottle those type of thoughts and feelings for a certain type of individual up for so long, it becomes a part of you.
Tavis: How did you - I don't want to move past this so quickly, although I'm glad you shared it - you're 13 years old, your mother passed of ovarian cancer. What happens to you? How does Terius - tell me about life at 13. What happens at 13?
The-Dream: Oh, wow.
Tavis: Where'd you go -
The-Dream: I fell into, I think, a depression for years. I wasn't the greatest student in the world, but where I fell to made - I was really disattached to everything and kind of just going through the motions, and I could tell after only when I got, like, 23. I looked back and I'm like, wow, a lot of moments I just missed.
And people would walk up to me and say, "Hey, you remember me? I'm from 10th grade." And I'm like, "Really? No, I don't remember you." And they're like, "Yeah, we went up to McDonald's." And (unintelligible) man, I have no idea. So a lot of my life, it just put me in a space and I'm actually lucky to make it out of that particular space.
Tavis: How did you - I can see being 13 and the closest person in your life passes away, I can see being stuck in a space. How'd you come out of that?
The-Dream: Oh, man. I would just have to say it's God. Like, I can't - there was no magical thing that happened. My grandfather was there - he had been there from the beginning, though, and he was the tough cookie. He wasn't the hug you and pull you up, he was the beat you down.
So he kind of gave me my space and allowed me to grow past it, but there would only be, I think, God and just the word "miracle" associated with what happened, because I didn't go to the drug lane, I didn't deal drugs. I didn't have to do none of these things, and somehow I just made it and I woke up one day out of it. And it still feels like yesterday, of course - like no other day makes it feel further away. But somehow, it's unexplainable.
Tavis: You go into a slumber and years later you wake up writing hits.
The-Dream: Right. Basically. (Laughter) You wake up paying bills.
Tavis: Not a bad way to come out, writing hits for Madonna and Beyoncé and Rihanna, and for yourself. What do you - let me offer this as a quick exit question, because mothers just are so special to me; mine is, and I know yours was to you.
You ever think about what you'd most want your mother to know, to see - I'm trying to find the right word - to know, to see, to experience about what you have been able to do now that you are awake and on the move?
The-Dream: Wow. The man that I wish to become I think is what I would want her to know. Like, these things that are single events in my life that are happening, whether it's a Grammy here or an album selling 150,000 copies the first week, or just small increments to where I want to be. So I think at this particular point I could share to her, like, at the age of 40, 11 years from now, this is who I want to be, this is what I want to say to people, this is where I want my platform to take me to. And I think she would be most proud about that.
Tavis: For your mama smiling on you - and for that matter, you make the rest of us smile, too, with a lot of what you do - the new record from The-Dream is called "Love vs. Money," and if it's like everything else he does, it's full of hits. So go on and get it if you ain't already got it. Good to see you, man.
The-Dream: Thank you, (unintelligible).
Tavis: Glad to have you on.
The-Dream: No, no problem, thank you.
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