00:00all i can preface is that i did hate the song i didn't show it to my manager i think the only
00:04song to date i never sent him and i pretended like we got nothing out of that session i actually lied
00:09to him i know bad mama we were all out for breakfast danny pablo me and chas my manager
00:16and they were like yeah but we really think colored concrete should be rediscovered and
00:21my manager like put his fork down and he looked at me and he goes what's colored concrete
00:36hi i'm nemesis and this is the breakdown so i was speed dating a lot in these sessions trying
00:41to find the right people to work with people didn't like the way that i wrote and the way
00:46that i sang because it wasn't pop sensible enough my manager was like you know what i think we
00:51should try the uk they spend a bit more time on songwriting they're more gentle and nurturing with
00:56it so i hopped on a plane to london and that's where i found danny and pablo in different sessions
01:04it was actually my manager who said you really liked those two guys from random sessions spaced
01:08out why don't you try putting them together and see what happens and the first time i put them
01:13he put them together in a session it was this song was created
01:24i had rented this airbnb on a whim usually i'm like i'll pick the same airbnb but for some reason
01:30something told me there was something special about this one so i go up these flight of stairs
01:34and i open the door and i just like my jaw dropped because i was like this looks like
01:38my middle school like the bedroom that i didn't have so i pulled out my notes app and i started
01:45writing what it felt like to experience that as an adult what had happened was we grew up very
01:52i guess we weren't really very comfortable financially like we had mold under the carpets
01:58we didn't have enough money to put new flooring in but my mom knew she had to get rid of the mold
02:04so to kind of distract us she told us we can paint the concrete floors whatever color we wanted
02:09and she promised that you know your dad's gonna come into some money he's he started his own
02:14business and when he comes into money you guys should start planning your rooms from now so i
02:19started planning out this bedroom and as the next summer rolled in no money came in and we still
02:24kept planning for this room and i never got it so i was just sitting there as an adult and i started
02:29writing woke up today in my middle school bedroom except it isn't mine but the one i'd always
02:36dreamed of and i didn't really know what i was going to do with that i just knew i should write
02:41down and document this moment as it felt i don't go into a session with an like emotion an idea i
02:49have to execute i don't like to put myself in a box like that i go into a session and i see what
02:54the room's feeling so with this one we actually wrote the chorus where it was like
03:01and then i was like wait a minute this feels like that
03:05it feels like a sigh of release and then i i went back to my note tap and i was like hold on i wrote
03:11something a couple weeks ago and then we went through it and i even have like i don't know
03:16if this is allowed i have a few voice notes of when it was made
03:33poppy was like instead of a pause just hold the dreamed so i was like dreamed of yeah i have voice
03:41notes of like the entire album most of it's like us fighting and going like like actually though
03:48for this chorus i just said i'm looking for a feeling and you know the you know that like song
04:00so i told them it'd be really cool if i could do that and i was just making that noise in a
04:04corner and they were like if you really want to explore that we can and eventually we just
04:08started probably like for 10 minutes straight doing variations of going from that to like
04:14different keys and then it goes oh i figured it out and i remember when i went uh-huh uh-huh
04:22they were like that's it and this is this is how it turned out
04:38i got concrete on my feet
04:46poppy writes some of the best pop music probably in the industry right now and he's just so
04:54reserved he doesn't say much in the session he just kind of sits there like this and then he'll
04:58be like i got concrete on my feet and i'm like perfect danny is very intelligent danny is very
05:08calculated with every layer all i have to do is in a moment like that say it's supposed to feel
05:13like a dream state that i'm slowly waking up and as i'm writing the rest of the song
05:19danny's just cooking and i do this thing where i don't focus on the production i just write
05:26and either i'll stop whatever i'm doing to tell him i really like that whatever direction he's
05:32going or i'll stop and say i hate that remove it right now so he waits for those two reactions for
05:37me and i don't even realize that i'm doing it and he just kind of cooks and goes where his mind would
05:42and honestly the drums and all that was with him that was the first song i ever didn't hate the
05:47drums if you notice like my previous stuff there's not a lot of drums on it i think it's the hardest
05:54thing to get right and that was the first time i realized it could it could really make a song
06:03have much more emotion than if it didn't so he did it like a heartbeat like in a dream or something
06:09like in between i guess in the in between it's not quite you're conscious yet but you're not
06:18fully disappearing and non-existent okay so here are the drums isolated danny this one's for you
06:25so
06:43there's a correlation between how quickly you drive how quickly you walk how quickly you act
06:47on things with how little you have in your bank account you're always like why is this person in
06:53a porsche driving so slow and you want to honk at them and you think they think they're better than
06:57you it's not there's just less urgency because they most likely are more comfortable financially
07:03so when i learned that i was like i need to slow down i need to start moving slower
07:08and if if i do that i can kind of manifest it in my life being an independent artist and releasing
07:15this entirely independent the hardest thing you could do is like spend money on yourself
07:19and i was like backed into a corner where i had no other option so i had to free myself from this
07:27mind this mindset of like scarcity and having it control my life or else this album would have
07:34never come out so i literally just use my savings entirely and everything i've made over the last
07:40two years and i put it right back into this project and it was like really hard like i cry
07:46like every day because every dollar just means so much more because it's my own i'm getting so
07:52emotional i think younger me would be proud of this like this album and just betting on myself
07:58and even if like this is my last album or if i never make something again at least i did it like
08:03100 and i don't know that most artists could could say that they did that so i wish i could
08:09like be as cool as pharrell or someone for this part but you know what i mean you should be like
08:14this is the second verse
08:34so that's the metaphor i never looked in my high i'm not saying my high neighbor's swimming pool
08:40which it does sound like that i realized after but it's in my eye like i just added an extra
08:46syllable never looked in my high neighbor's swimming pool unless i was making sure it hadn't
08:54dried out can't let it dry out or go south my dad always told us this was a saying he used to say
09:01never look into your neighbor's bowl unless you're making sure they have enough if you're
09:05going to glance over it's to offer some of your food to make sure that they have enough
09:10so the swimming pool isn't actually that the pool's out of water it's just it was made out
09:16of concrete and i thought it went really well with the saying that my dad always said and i
09:20think you could tell i'm being a bit more playful at the second like i'm not taking it as seriously
09:24i just hate being heavy i think everything about my image and my sound is so serious
09:31and as much as i try to let go of that and forget it i like the world won't let me
09:36so i just hate being serious i just want to be goofy i want to just be a girl that can write
09:42songs about like love and but i just can't not because i i literally can't it's that
09:49like the world expects more of me i think and i don't want to be that person
09:53yeah so the second verse was the first time i ever said can you put
09:57like auto-tune or something on my voice i think we ended up removing it in the end but then the outro
10:23i was going for like emotion heap-esque you know but i don't know i just don't want to be
10:33myself for a second so i told him to slap that on and then it was just so much easier to write like
10:39i get why charlie xx and all these people just it's so you're it's like an out-of-body experience
10:44it's not you anymore it doesn't feel so personal concrete wall concrete floor
10:50but i was like metaphor i we can't ignore i can't ignore you had me running you had me running i got
10:59concrete on my feet so i'm not blaming myself for the fast pace and everything it's the situation
11:05entirely is what had me running um so i'm like not blaming myself in any way yeah 40 noah is mixing
11:14the entire album he mixed into co-production across the entire project so basically um when
11:21i was dropped when i was dropping my label in october he saw that and then reached out and
11:26was like if you ever need anything from me i'm extending my my studio my myself my craft my
11:34engineer whatever you need like i thought he was just being nice so i was like oh thanks thanks
11:38cool cool cool you know and i was also nervous like why would the best years in the industry
11:43be reaching out to me and then i went to like an event for the first time in a couple weeks
11:48and he walks through the door and he's like no man i'm like oh my god and we finally meet and
11:53then the next day i went into his studio and i showed him the album and by the second song he's
11:59like i'm mixing this shit he's like i'm mixing the shit and i was like okay and he was i was
12:03like why mixing though like do you want to add anything he's like i just know how good this
12:09could sound if i mix it and i was like say less and then he ended up adding a few layers to quite
12:15a bit of the songs and it's just subtle and it's like he gave an outro on the first song as well
12:21old body new mind he added like an outro and he just really synchronized the album so well with
12:26jod his engineers help us as well so yeah that was like the best thing that could have happened
12:31especially because money was tight and i didn't have an investor and he was the most generous
12:37person like by forever not only was i getting like the assistant of someone mixing my album so
12:46they didn't i didn't have to worry about that financially but i was getting like the best
12:49person in the industry to do it so it really it felt like i was winning just from that alone and
12:55it was all because of him i've always been the underdog and i've always um respected the underdog
13:00and i just didn't think i'd be the underdog for this long oh i'm just gonna take a moment
13:07i'm so sensitive i'm such a pisces a year ago was in a situation where i had an album that
13:14every label was like fighting over if i wanted a session with anyone i could most likely get it
13:21it was like the easiest thing because my talent my music spoke for more than what i look like and
13:27stuff i didn't want to do it alone but i realized that it's what was meant to happen i think with
13:33this album it no longer was mine but it was more of a stance rather a political stance that i was
13:41making by releasing it and persevering i hope it does well i hope it's perceived well and i hope
13:50people really like it not for my own ego but just to show i wasn't somebody to really be messed with
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