It only seems as though Beyonce has been a superstar forever. Since her days fronting the hit machine known as Destiny’s Child in the late ’90s, she has conquered the world with her four solo albums—selling 75 million records and picking up 16 Grammys along the way—triumphed on a succession of increasingly extravagant tours, been praised for her acting in several major feature films, launched successful fashion and fragrance lines, and become one of the highest-paid commercial spokespeople in the U.S. Her latest album, 4, was an instant smash when it was released in late June while she was on tour in France; two days after it came out, she headlined the Glastonbury Festival in England in front of 170,000 people. She’s beautiful, talented, independent—and driven.
One reason Beyonce has ascended to these lofty heights is that she is a perfectionist with a fierce work ethic. To quote a previous generation’s R&B giant, she works hard for the money. And that includes the many long days and nights she puts into recording her albums. This isn’t some diva who pops into the studio after everything has been tracked, lays down some lead vocals and then splits. Instead, she’s involved with co-writing most of the songs she sings, often has very specific arrangement ideas, and is always deeply invested in the album’s production.
Like so many contemporary R&B albums, 4 is loaded with songs by multiple writers and producers, many of them high-wattage hit-makers, including The-Dream, Babyface, Kanye West, Switch, Tricky Stewart, Jeff Bhasker, Shea Taylor, Symbolyc One (S1) and others.
“The majority of the album, we would bring writers in and B [Beyonce] and I would be in one room, and then we’d have one or two writers in one or two other rooms working on things,” says Jordan “DJ Swivel” Young, who was the principal engineer throughout the project, which stretched out over a year. “I think there was a period of about three months where we had three rooms going at MSR [Manhattan Sound Recording]. But at every studio, we’d usually have two rooms going. We’d bring different writers in for a week or whatever. Dream would come in, Jeff Bhasker came in, and they would write and they might already have some tracks together, or Shea Taylor would come up with tracks, and when they were done with the records they would play them for B and she would add ideas of her own, mold the lyrics to fit her and then we’d start cutting them.
Shea Taylor was sort of the day-to-day producer, so a lot came from him,” Swivel adds. “If B wanted to add a bridge section, she would give it to Shea and he would go and add the parts. He wasn’t one of the guys who came in for just a couple of weeks; he was there every day. But B ultimately produced the album. She’s very hands-on with everything, lyrically and musically. If there’s something she doesn’t like about a track, we’re pulling the track apart and fixing it. A lot of it is B getting her ideas out and then having a team around her to help execute those ideas. But everything was very collaborative and open. It was sort of like ‘the best idea wins.’”
Originally from Toronto, the 26-year-old Swivel had some DJ and production experience in his hometown before earning a Recording Arts degree at Full Sail University in Florida. Two days after graduation, he took the leap and moved to New York City, a place where he knew no one. After a brief internship with a jazz studio, Full Sail’s placement program found him an opportunity closer to his own musical interests—working as an assistant in the private studio of Desert Storm Records CEO and one of the hottest mixer/engineers in New York, Ken “Duro” Ifill, whose voluminous credits include Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, DMX, Diddy and scads of others. “Everything I learned there was from watching Duro do it and seeing how he interacts with clients, how he mixes a record,” Swivel says. “I assisted a hundred or more of his mixes. It was really beneficial having such a good mentor to learn from.”
It was one of Duro’s artists, Fabolous, who gave Swivel his first big shot at engineering: on the 2006 album From Nothin’ to Somethin’. “When I did that, I was still assisting Duro at the same time, but eventually the engineering took up so much of my time I stopped assisting. And then in 2010 I got the Beyonce call.
“The way the whole B thing happened,” he continues, “a friend of mine, Omar Grant, who had worked with Beyonce during the Destiny’s Child days, gave me a call, and said, ‘Listen, she needs a fill-in today, can you do it?’ So I showed up at Roc the Mic [Studios in Manhattan], and we recorded the song ‘Party’ [written primarily by Kanye West]. At the end of the session, she said, ‘You did a great job, you’re really fast.’ Several weeks later I got another call, came in and did a few more days. It was that week that she began discussing the beginning stages of the album with A&R [and Roc Nation exec] TyTy. We basically started the next week.”
The writing and recording process on 4 encompassed numerous studios along the way, including MSR (used the most), Roc the Mic, KMA, Germano Studios and Jungle City (Swivel’s current favorite haunt) in New York; Conway in L.A.; various producers’ rooms; and even a few overseas. When Beyonce’s husband, Jay-Z, toured Australia and New Zealand opening for U2’s 360 Tour this past December, she and Swivel showed up for a nearly two-week stretch in Sydney, during which Jay-Z had planned to do some recording with West on their forthcoming Watch the Throne disc. Two makeshift studios were built inside a Sydney mansion, with Jay-Z and West working in the living room, and Beyonce and Swivel ensconced in the top-floor’s home theater space working on her album. “We had a basic [Pro Tools] HD rig, all the plug-ins I needed and a [Lexicon] 960. There was no booth. I recorded her on headphones and strategically placed the mic and had a reflection filter to take care of some of those issues. There was actually no problem.” Swivel’s chain for Beyonce’s vocals throughout the album was a vintage AKG C24 stereo mic (using only one capsule) through an Avalon 737 mic pre and a UA 1176 compressor.
Shea Taylor was sort of the day-to-day producer, so a lot came from him,” Swivel adds. “If B wanted to add a bridge section, she would give it to Shea and he would go and add the parts. He wasn’t one of the guys who came in for just a couple of weeks; he was there every day. But B ultimately produced the album. She’s very hands-on with everything, lyrically and musically. If there’s something she doesn’t like about a track, we’re pulling the track apart and fixing it. A lot of it is B getting her ideas out and then having a team around her to help execute those ideas. But everything was very collaborative and open. It was sort of like ‘the best idea wins.’”
Originally from Toronto, the 26-year-old Swivel had some DJ and production experience in his hometown before earning a Recording Arts degree at Full Sail University in Florida. Two days after graduation, he took the leap and moved to New York City, a place where he knew no one. After a brief internship with a jazz studio, Full Sail’s placement program found him an opportunity closer to his own musical interests—working as an assistant in the private studio of Desert Storm Records CEO and one of the hottest mixer/engineers in New York, Ken “Duro” Ifill, whose voluminous credits include Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, DMX, Diddy and scads of others. “Everything I learned there was from watching Duro do it and seeing how he interacts with clients, how he mixes a record,” Swivel says. “I assisted a hundred or more of his mixes. It was really beneficial having such a good mentor to learn from.”
It was one of Duro’s artists, Fabolous, who gave Swivel his first big shot at engineering: on the 2006 album From Nothin’ to Somethin’. “When I did that, I was still assisting Duro at the same time, but eventually the engineering took up so much of my time I stopped assisting. And then in 2010 I got the Beyonce call.
“The way the whole B thing happened,” he continues, “a friend of mine, Omar Grant, who had worked with Beyonce during the Destiny’s Child days, gave me a call, and said, ‘Listen, she needs a fill-in today, can you do it?’ So I showed up at Roc the Mic [Studios in Manhattan], and we recorded the song ‘Party’ [written primarily by Kanye West]. At the end of the session, she said, ‘You did a great job, you’re really fast.’ Several weeks later I got another call, came in and did a few more days. It was that week that she began discussing the beginning stages of the album with A&R [and Roc Nation exec] TyTy. We basically started the next week.”
The writing and recording process on 4 encompassed numerous studios along the way, including MSR (used the most), Roc the Mic, KMA, Germano Studios and Jungle City (Swivel’s current favorite haunt) in New York; Conway in L.A.; various producers’ rooms; and even a few overseas. When Beyonce’s husband, Jay-Z, toured Australia and New Zealand opening for U2’s 360 Tour this past December, she and Swivel showed up for a nearly two-week stretch in Sydney, during which Jay-Z had planned to do some recording with West on their forthcoming Watch the Throne disc. Two makeshift studios were built inside a Sydney mansion, with Jay-Z and West working in the living room, and Beyonce and Swivel ensconced in the top-floor’s home theater space working on her album. “We had a basic [Pro Tools] HD rig, all the plug-ins I needed and a [Lexicon] 960. There was no booth. I recorded her on headphones and strategically placed the mic and had a reflection filter to take care of some of those issues. There was actually no problem.” Swivel’s chain for Beyonce’s vocals throughout the album was a vintage AKG C24 stereo mic (using only one capsule) through an Avalon 737 mic pre and a UA 1176 compressor.
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