January 15, 2024 • 18 mins
Brooklyn-based artist Madelline has got her hands in a LOT of projects, including being a singer, songwriter, actress, AND author! She joins us for the first time on AD30, and shares how her smash "i'm only here for the beat" was born!! Plus how she ended up in Montreal, Canada!
We also get to know Madelline better w #FinkysFirsts!
Find out about:
Follow: @AmericasDance30 on all socials!
Count down the biggest dance songs in the country every week with Brian Fink on America’s Dance 30; listen on stations around the world!
Follow: @AmericasDance30 on all socials!
Count down the biggest dance songs in the country every week with Brian Fink on America’s Dance 30; listen on stations around the world!
We also get to know Madelline better w #FinkysFirsts!
Find out about:
- what she first wanted to be growing up
- the first song she ever wrote
- the first thing she would do if she knew today was her last day
- the first dance song that made her fall in love w EDM
- the first thing she did when she got to Canada
- the first thing she sees when she closes her eyes
Follow: @AmericasDance30 on all socials!
Count down the biggest dance songs in the country every week with Brian Fink on America’s Dance 30; listen on stations around the world!
Follow: @AmericasDance30 on all socials!
Count down the biggest dance songs in the country every week with Brian Fink on America’s Dance 30; listen on stations around the world!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Oh, by the way, Madeline, just to let you know before we
even start, just three ec sounam, poor little I just want to get
that out. That's awesome. Now, I'm sure that was grammatically horrible and
all of my childhood friends from Montrealare going to kill me for that.
But oh my god, that isso fun. Singer, songwriter, artist,
(00:25):
author, and fellow cat lover questionMark, I love cats. Oh
my god. Yeah, perfect,Then we can move on, Madeline,
Welcome to America's Dance thirty. Thankyou for having me. I'm so happy
to be here counting down the biggestdance songs in the country. This is
(00:59):
a America's Dance thirty. It isso great finally meeting you and having you
on AD thirty for the first time. Now, before we even get into
everything, I'm a little confused,and so I don't like to chat with
artists when I'm confused. So let'sclear something up really quick. Okay,
Okay, let's do it. Sowhen I was doing prep, who just
(01:22):
liked that? That was weird?Did you just see that pop up?
Somebody liked our chat already? Ilove it. There's nobody else in here.
Okay, that's you know, what'scrazy is I I think I have
ghosts in my apartments and they were, so that could be a thing.
Well, I think they just likedour chat, which is great. I'm
(01:46):
a little they support it, soI'm a little confused. When I was
doing research, I read one blogthat said that you grew up in Connecticut,
but then another blog that said youwere Montreal bass and then I know,
you've got some songs that are allin French and I'm only here for
(02:06):
the beat as French at the endof it. But now you're in Brooklyn.
What's the story. Are you FrenchCanadian or no? Okay, my
mom was born in Fredericton, NewBrunswick, and I grew up I grew
up in Connecticut, and then Imoved. I moved to Montreal and I
spent my I spent like seven yearsthere. Wow. So I was born
(02:30):
in Montreal and I actually grew upin Dollard. I don't know what part
of Montreal you were. Yeah.Yeah, does that change way? Does
that change everything? No? I'mshocked. Oh my god. Wait,
that's crazy. I feel I spentlike all my formative years in Montreal.
So, yeah, I was bornin Connecticut. And I Yeah, I
got Canadian citizenship through my mother.That is so awesome. Yeah, I've
(02:54):
lost pretty much all my French Canadianlike they would laugh at me at this
point going back, because I mean, I've been in the States pretty much
my entire adult life. So weleft Canada when I was like eight.
So that's why I've got no accent. Every now and then I noticed my
sentences go up at the end ofit. Oh yeah, the upward inflection.
(03:17):
Yep, I do that too.Do you know where the bathroom me
is? I love the French Canadianaccent. But anyways, I'm glad we
cleared that all up. We canfinally move forward. I can't wait to
chat all about your smash. I'monly here for the beat and find out
how it was born. But beforethat, since this is your first time
(03:38):
on America's Dance thirty, let's getto know Madeline a little better with Finky's
first fabulous I'm ready. So Ilove finding out the origin story of artists.
Now, when you were growing upin Connecticut or even in Montree,
(04:00):
all, was being a singer thefirst thing you wanted to be when you
grew up? Or was there somethingelse? I Okay, when I was
really young, I wanted to bea drama teacher and a science teacher,
and then and then that morphed intowanting to become an actress in musical theater
because I grew up doing theatrical things. I grew up doing musicals plays,
(04:23):
and then I then I changed mymind. I'd always been like in band
and marching band choir, but thenthat morphed into me wanting to become a
singer. But honestly, up untila few years ago, I was very
much invested in the acting world.So I gave up acting temporarily and I
do acting on my own terms,but I gave up the auditioning grind.
(04:46):
But now I am one hundred percentin music. So teacher is completely gone
at this point, it is completelygone. So I wanted to be a
lawyer when I was growing up becauseI loved arguing. But then I saw
like, what you have to doto be a lawyer, and I'm like,
nah, I'm good, Yeah,tell a study, Yeah forget that.
(05:08):
Now, do you remember the firstsong you ever wrote? I remember,
Okay, so the first documentation ofa song that I ever wrote,
I'm sure before then, but thefirst song I ever remember that I have
documentation of that I wrote was asong, and I actually have a screenshot
of it on my Instagram, andI talk about how much I hate school.
(05:32):
I must have been I must havebeen like nine, ten years old.
I should read you the lyrics.It's so funny. That's amazing that
you still have it from nine orten. I found it. I was
going through my old notebooks, cleaningout my old room that I grew up
in and I found it and Itook a picture of it, and I
thought it was so funny. Itwas like, I hate school. Then
(05:54):
I wake up and it's science class. It's the same over and over again.
Then it's lunch. Lunch is thebest time, lunch rules. Oh
no, Then it's chemistry again,and then physics. Now I am not
a singer or a songwriter, butnone of that sounded like a rhyme to
me. And then no, andthere's like a there's a part of the
(06:15):
lyrics where I write historical music comeson. They're giving directing notes to yourself.
That's that. I love it.You know what's so crazy about you
finding it again is I remember whenI was going through a lot of my
stuff from my mom's house. Ifound a tape of mine. Oh my
god, a cassette where I hadrecorded myself singing to a song because back
(06:44):
in the day, the vinyl usedto have the lyrics on the back of
it, and so I found thistape of me I had to have been
like eight years old just singing tothis song and it legit made me cry
hearing it because it was so innocI'm like, where is that punk?
Now? He died? Wow?That escalated quickly. Well, we were
(07:12):
gonna talk about your book a littlelater on, but since you bring that
up, you've got your book Deathby Madeline. Now, if you knew
that today was your last day,what is the first thing you would do?
Oh that is such a good question. Oh. I would just want
to see all the family in mylife that's important to me and eat some
(07:38):
great food, not a bank.Part of me is like I want to
have some grand goodbye. Oh maybelike do a big performance with everyone.
I don't even know if everyone wouldfreaking show up, Like at that point
it so hard to get everyone cordingon, but I swear to god it I
would probably. I'm torn between continuingmy life as if it was just another
(08:01):
day or creating some big grand maybea big grand party or something with all
the people that I love, allmy friends family, have a bunch of
drinks and food. I think thatsounds right, and then I performed for
them. Maybe yeah, I feellike since it's twenty four hours, you
can kind of do both. LikeI would probably start by spending a lot
of time with my fir child,Tucker, and then get into the grandiose
(08:26):
like celebration and robbing a bank andskydiving and you know, all that kind
of stuff because you know it's yourlast day, so why not, I
guess. So see, I don'tnecessarily that's so funny. I don't necessarily
feel like I would do anything criminal. But what does that say about me?
I just love how the first timewe're meeting and you already know my
(08:48):
morals are absolute crap. Back toyour music. You've got, you know
in these songs R and B styletype songs of course, your dance music.
(09:11):
But what was the first dance songthat made you fall in love with
d? M Ooh? Can Isay the first dance album? Sure?
The Cross by Justice? Oh wow? D A Ncee is so good off
of that. Oh my god.Yeah, and there's a song that I'm
obsessed with off of it called it'slike kind of a B side track on
it. It's called the Party withUffi, and I saw Uffi in La.
(09:35):
She's such an icon and she givesus like super blase vocal fry performance
over the dance track that just keepsbuilding and building. It's so cool.
But Justice honestly has the great theperfect amount of funkiness, lots of different
eclectic influences, different sounds within thealbum. It's just it's so cool.
(09:56):
It's a great album and like thatbrilliant inspired me. Now, as we
mentioned, you grew up in Montrealor you spent some time in Montreal.
What was the first thing that youdid when you got to Canada. Ooh,
the first thing that I did inMontreal I got a job at a
call center. Actually because I didn'tspeak a lit. Wow, that's crazy.
(10:18):
Yeah, And I was calling peopleabout their credit card processing systems.
I was called cold calling businesses.I would just sit in front of this
computer and with my head set on, and everyone was in their little cubicle
and it would auto dial all thenumbers and like as soon as someone didn't
pick up, it would just dialanother one. So it's like we had
(10:39):
no choice but to keep calling andcalling and calling. And yeah, and
I had to pitch changing people's creditcard processing systems. And sometimes people would
do the wildest things when they didn'twant to when they didn't want to talk
to me, they'd be like,oh yeah, and then jeez, that's
(11:00):
aggressive. Ye. People when theythink it's like a telemarketer, they will
do anything. They will unleash theiranger for from the last ten years on
you Now, you said you didn'tspeak French, and in Montreal, you
know, working you had to bebilingual. So how did you deal with
that? Ooh? I had afew moments where I embarrassed the shit myself.
(11:24):
I just threw myself into it.Like first I started working at this
restaurant and I would go up totables and they would ask me for things
in French. And this was likecasual service, like people would order at
the counter. But I would sometimesdeliver things and they would ask for certain
things and I wouldn't know, andI would just kind of guess. Sometimes
I would just put something to Iwould use like deductive reason, and sometimes
(11:48):
I was completely wrong. But honestly, one thing I learned is that a
lot of the tactic that I useda lot, if I didn't understand what
people were saying, I would justlike smile and laugh and walk away.
Why wouldn't you just learn because thenokay, then they answer and I don't
(12:09):
know, they say very true,very true, but honestly no. So
I threw myself into it and Ijust started to study like all the French
that I would need, and Ijust I got better and better. I
eventually I worked like multiple waitressing jobsin Montreal while I was doing my music,
and eventually I was working fully inFrench. And of course I would
have little mistakes here and there,and my French accent is not perfect at
(12:33):
all. But I really, Ireally enjoyed that. It was very scary
too, to throw myself into anew language, and it was so vulnerable
to to just talk to different people, and especially as a server, because
everyone wants good service and all that. And I really did have to finesse
my way into that, I bet. And French is such a hard language.
(12:54):
I mean, it's an absolutely gorgeouslanguage and I miss it because I
obviously growing up in Montrea. Iwas fluent in it, and man,
do I miss it. It's sucha beautiful language, and it's yeah,
it's it's definitely challenging to to learnbecause I grew up learning Spanish and the
ends of the words in French areoften not pronounced, so it's like if
(13:15):
you have an es, it's silent. Finally, in Finky's First, in
honor of your smash, I'm onlyhere for the beat with the lyrics feeling
weightless, faceless. Right now,when I close my eyes, I want
you to do me a favor andclose your eyes and tell me the first
thing you see blackness. I probablyshould have knew not to ask that question.
(13:43):
Let's talk about this smash. Howwas this song born? So?
I have a songwriting collaborator and wewrite so well together. His name's Jeff,
and we came up with this idea, or I think Jeff kind of
had the idea I'm only here forthe vibe, and then we kind of
massaged it together and I was like, oh, I really like I'm only
here for the beat. And wewere working with this other writer we also
(14:05):
really loved, named Benjamin rus Thing. So yeah, the song was born
through the three of us brainstorming andcoming up with ideas, and we actually
wrote it over zoom on. Iwrote it over zoom on my iPhone with
them while I was in La andJeff was actually in La too, but
(14:26):
Benjamin lives in Sweden, so Ioften do most of my sessions online.
And how long ago did you guyswork on it? That one I released
shortly after we finished writing it?Was it in? Yeah? It was
in like March. Something I loveto find out about songs, And I
don't know if you were in theentire process, but I love finding out
(14:50):
how many versions there are, fromwhen you start working on it, all
the tweaking that goes on to whenyou finally put it out. Do you
know what the final was of it? Oh? I'm a total control freak
about the production because production inspires meso much. But HM, usually for
my songs there are many versions,I will say, but for this particular
(15:15):
song, there were two different basssounds were Jeff and I were kind of
going back and forth debating over whichone was the best, and I actually
just dropped the other bass version ofthe one that I was going to drop.
It's called I'm Only here for thebeat evil version, and I really
like that one. I think itsounds it just sounds more evil and it's
(15:37):
cool. Probably shouldn't tell you thatI was happy that you went with the
first baseline. Oh wait, that'sso funny. Really, oh my god,
totally. But have you heard thefull mix of the evil version,
because that one kind of it remindsme of like a Berlin dance song.
It's really cool. But I'd saymaybe I had around like three or four
(15:58):
versions of here for the beat,there was like the first demo, then
there was another one I made withGustain Dolquist. He produced a secondary version
of it, and then we wentback and forth, and then I added
some production on my own and thenwe just added those parts in and then
I finished it with Jeff Gotcha.Yeah. I saw the TikTok that you
(16:19):
posted where you played both bass lines, and I was like, oh,
I'm so glad she went with thefirst one. So interesting. Okay,
what is next for Madeline. I'mgoing on tour with this huge artist.
It's going to be my first evertour. So that's what's next for me
in February and March. I'm soexcited and the person I'm going on tour
(16:41):
with is an absolute legend and soinspiring to me. And I actually wrote
it down on a piece of papera year ago. The person I wanted
to go on tour with you manifestedthis tour coming up. It's it's kind
of crazy. I mean like Itook appropriate steps towards it, but I
got super specific about it in writingit down, and yeah, I'm the
(17:03):
exact person that is amazing. Well, congratulations on that, and congratulations on
your book. Congratulations on I'm onlyhere for the beat, Madeline. It
is so awesome finally meeting you.Thank you so much for your time with
us on America's Dance thirty. Thankyou. Oh wait, one thing I
(17:25):
forgot to add. Okay, theother thing is the tour situation. Then
the other thing is that I'm droppinganother version of my song Dope Mean with
this huge Latin Grammy nominee Bruises andshe's she's featuring on my track Dope Mean.
And then I'm dropping my other songmake More Money next month as well.
(17:45):
Man, you have got a lotcoming up in twenty twenty four.
I like it that way. Yeah, we all do. Thank you so
much for your time with us onAmerica's Dance thirty. I'm so excited that
my song's playing on the radio forthe first time. This is a first
for so thank you so much forbeing a part of this and my journey,
and I'm so grateful. America's DanceErnie counting down the biggest dance songs
(18:08):
in the country AM America's Dance thirty
Oh, by the way, Madeline, just to let you know before we
even start, just three ec sounam, poor little I just want to get
that out. That's awesome. Now, I'm sure that was grammatically horrible and
all of my childhood friends from Montrealare going to kill me for that.
But oh my god, that isso fun. Singer, songwriter, artist,
(00:25):
author, and fellow cat lover questionMark, I love cats. Oh
my god. Yeah, perfect,Then we can move on, Madeline,
Welcome to America's Dance thirty. Thankyou for having me. I'm so happy
to be here counting down the biggestdance songs in the country. This is
(00:59):
a America's Dance thirty. It isso great finally meeting you and having you
on AD thirty for the first time. Now, before we even get into
everything, I'm a little confused,and so I don't like to chat with
artists when I'm confused. So let'sclear something up really quick. Okay,
Okay, let's do it. Sowhen I was doing prep, who just
(01:22):
liked that? That was weird?Did you just see that pop up?
Somebody liked our chat already? Ilove it. There's nobody else in here.
Okay, that's you know, what'scrazy is I I think I have
ghosts in my apartments and they were, so that could be a thing.
Well, I think they just likedour chat, which is great. I'm
(01:46):
a little they support it, soI'm a little confused. When I was
doing research, I read one blogthat said that you grew up in Connecticut,
but then another blog that said youwere Montreal bass and then I know,
you've got some songs that are allin French and I'm only here for
(02:06):
the beat as French at the endof it. But now you're in Brooklyn.
What's the story. Are you FrenchCanadian or no? Okay, my
mom was born in Fredericton, NewBrunswick, and I grew up I grew
up in Connecticut, and then Imoved. I moved to Montreal and I
spent my I spent like seven yearsthere. Wow. So I was born
(02:30):
in Montreal and I actually grew upin Dollard. I don't know what part
of Montreal you were. Yeah.Yeah, does that change way? Does
that change everything? No? I'mshocked. Oh my god. Wait,
that's crazy. I feel I spentlike all my formative years in Montreal.
So, yeah, I was bornin Connecticut. And I Yeah, I
got Canadian citizenship through my mother.That is so awesome. Yeah, I've
(02:54):
lost pretty much all my French Canadianlike they would laugh at me at this
point going back, because I mean, I've been in the States pretty much
my entire adult life. So weleft Canada when I was like eight.
So that's why I've got no accent. Every now and then I noticed my
sentences go up at the end ofit. Oh yeah, the upward inflection.
(03:17):
Yep, I do that too.Do you know where the bathroom me
is? I love the French Canadianaccent. But anyways, I'm glad we
cleared that all up. We canfinally move forward. I can't wait to
chat all about your smash. I'monly here for the beat and find out
how it was born. But beforethat, since this is your first time
(03:38):
on America's Dance thirty, let's getto know Madeline a little better with Finky's
first fabulous I'm ready. So Ilove finding out the origin story of artists.
Now, when you were growing upin Connecticut or even in Montree,
(04:00):
all, was being a singer thefirst thing you wanted to be when you
grew up? Or was there somethingelse? I Okay, when I was
really young, I wanted to bea drama teacher and a science teacher,
and then and then that morphed intowanting to become an actress in musical theater
because I grew up doing theatrical things. I grew up doing musicals plays,
(04:23):
and then I then I changed mymind. I'd always been like in band
and marching band choir, but thenthat morphed into me wanting to become a
singer. But honestly, up untila few years ago, I was very
much invested in the acting world.So I gave up acting temporarily and I
do acting on my own terms,but I gave up the auditioning grind.
(04:46):
But now I am one hundred percentin music. So teacher is completely gone
at this point, it is completelygone. So I wanted to be a
lawyer when I was growing up becauseI loved arguing. But then I saw
like, what you have to doto be a lawyer, and I'm like,
nah, I'm good, Yeah,tell a study, Yeah forget that.
(05:08):
Now, do you remember the firstsong you ever wrote? I remember,
Okay, so the first documentation ofa song that I ever wrote,
I'm sure before then, but thefirst song I ever remember that I have
documentation of that I wrote was asong, and I actually have a screenshot
of it on my Instagram, andI talk about how much I hate school.
(05:32):
I must have been I must havebeen like nine, ten years old.
I should read you the lyrics.It's so funny. That's amazing that
you still have it from nine orten. I found it. I was
going through my old notebooks, cleaningout my old room that I grew up
in and I found it and Itook a picture of it, and I
thought it was so funny. Itwas like, I hate school. Then
(05:54):
I wake up and it's science class. It's the same over and over again.
Then it's lunch. Lunch is thebest time, lunch rules. Oh
no, Then it's chemistry again,and then physics. Now I am not
a singer or a songwriter, butnone of that sounded like a rhyme to
me. And then no, andthere's like a there's a part of the
(06:15):
lyrics where I write historical music comeson. They're giving directing notes to yourself.
That's that. I love it.You know what's so crazy about you
finding it again is I remember whenI was going through a lot of my
stuff from my mom's house. Ifound a tape of mine. Oh my
god, a cassette where I hadrecorded myself singing to a song because back
(06:44):
in the day, the vinyl usedto have the lyrics on the back of
it, and so I found thistape of me I had to have been
like eight years old just singing tothis song and it legit made me cry
hearing it because it was so innocI'm like, where is that punk?
Now? He died? Wow?That escalated quickly. Well, we were
(07:12):
gonna talk about your book a littlelater on, but since you bring that
up, you've got your book Deathby Madeline. Now, if you knew
that today was your last day,what is the first thing you would do?
Oh that is such a good question. Oh. I would just want
to see all the family in mylife that's important to me and eat some
(07:38):
great food, not a bank.Part of me is like I want to
have some grand goodbye. Oh maybelike do a big performance with everyone.
I don't even know if everyone wouldfreaking show up, Like at that point
it so hard to get everyone cordingon, but I swear to god it I
would probably. I'm torn between continuingmy life as if it was just another
(08:01):
day or creating some big grand maybea big grand party or something with all
the people that I love, allmy friends family, have a bunch of
drinks and food. I think thatsounds right, and then I performed for
them. Maybe yeah, I feellike since it's twenty four hours, you
can kind of do both. LikeI would probably start by spending a lot
of time with my fir child,Tucker, and then get into the grandiose
(08:26):
like celebration and robbing a bank andskydiving and you know, all that kind
of stuff because you know it's yourlast day, so why not, I
guess. So see, I don'tnecessarily that's so funny. I don't necessarily
feel like I would do anything criminal. But what does that say about me?
I just love how the first timewe're meeting and you already know my
(08:48):
morals are absolute crap. Back toyour music. You've got, you know
in these songs R and B styletype songs of course, your dance music.
(09:11):
But what was the first dance songthat made you fall in love with
d? M Ooh? Can Isay the first dance album? Sure?
The Cross by Justice? Oh wow? D A Ncee is so good off
of that. Oh my god.Yeah, and there's a song that I'm
obsessed with off of it called it'slike kind of a B side track on
it. It's called the Party withUffi, and I saw Uffi in La.
(09:35):
She's such an icon and she givesus like super blase vocal fry performance
over the dance track that just keepsbuilding and building. It's so cool.
But Justice honestly has the great theperfect amount of funkiness, lots of different
eclectic influences, different sounds within thealbum. It's just it's so cool.
(09:56):
It's a great album and like thatbrilliant inspired me. Now, as we
mentioned, you grew up in Montrealor you spent some time in Montreal.
What was the first thing that youdid when you got to Canada. Ooh,
the first thing that I did inMontreal I got a job at a
call center. Actually because I didn'tspeak a lit. Wow, that's crazy.
(10:18):
Yeah, And I was calling peopleabout their credit card processing systems.
I was called cold calling businesses.I would just sit in front of this
computer and with my head set on, and everyone was in their little cubicle
and it would auto dial all thenumbers and like as soon as someone didn't
pick up, it would just dialanother one. So it's like we had
(10:39):
no choice but to keep calling andcalling and calling. And yeah, and
I had to pitch changing people's creditcard processing systems. And sometimes people would
do the wildest things when they didn'twant to when they didn't want to talk
to me, they'd be like,oh yeah, and then jeez, that's
(11:00):
aggressive. Ye. People when theythink it's like a telemarketer, they will
do anything. They will unleash theiranger for from the last ten years on
you Now, you said you didn'tspeak French, and in Montreal, you
know, working you had to bebilingual. So how did you deal with
that? Ooh? I had afew moments where I embarrassed the shit myself.
(11:24):
I just threw myself into it.Like first I started working at this
restaurant and I would go up totables and they would ask me for things
in French. And this was likecasual service, like people would order at
the counter. But I would sometimesdeliver things and they would ask for certain
things and I wouldn't know, andI would just kind of guess. Sometimes
I would just put something to Iwould use like deductive reason, and sometimes
(11:48):
I was completely wrong. But honestly, one thing I learned is that a
lot of the tactic that I useda lot, if I didn't understand what
people were saying, I would justlike smile and laugh and walk away.
Why wouldn't you just learn because thenokay, then they answer and I don't
(12:09):
know, they say very true,very true, but honestly no. So
I threw myself into it and Ijust started to study like all the French
that I would need, and Ijust I got better and better. I
eventually I worked like multiple waitressing jobsin Montreal while I was doing my music,
and eventually I was working fully inFrench. And of course I would
have little mistakes here and there,and my French accent is not perfect at
(12:33):
all. But I really, Ireally enjoyed that. It was very scary
too, to throw myself into anew language, and it was so vulnerable
to to just talk to different people, and especially as a server, because
everyone wants good service and all that. And I really did have to finesse
my way into that, I bet. And French is such a hard language.
(12:54):
I mean, it's an absolutely gorgeouslanguage and I miss it because I
obviously growing up in Montrea. Iwas fluent in it, and man,
do I miss it. It's sucha beautiful language, and it's yeah,
it's it's definitely challenging to to learnbecause I grew up learning Spanish and the
ends of the words in French areoften not pronounced, so it's like if
(13:15):
you have an es, it's silent. Finally, in Finky's First, in
honor of your smash, I'm onlyhere for the beat with the lyrics feeling
weightless, faceless. Right now,when I close my eyes, I want
you to do me a favor andclose your eyes and tell me the first
thing you see blackness. I probablyshould have knew not to ask that question.
(13:43):
Let's talk about this smash. Howwas this song born? So?
I have a songwriting collaborator and wewrite so well together. His name's Jeff,
and we came up with this idea, or I think Jeff kind of
had the idea I'm only here forthe vibe, and then we kind of
massaged it together and I was like, oh, I really like I'm only
here for the beat. And wewere working with this other writer we also
(14:05):
really loved, named Benjamin rus Thing. So yeah, the song was born
through the three of us brainstorming andcoming up with ideas, and we actually
wrote it over zoom on. Iwrote it over zoom on my iPhone with
them while I was in La andJeff was actually in La too, but
(14:26):
Benjamin lives in Sweden, so Ioften do most of my sessions online.
And how long ago did you guyswork on it? That one I released
shortly after we finished writing it?Was it in? Yeah? It was
in like March. Something I loveto find out about songs, And I
don't know if you were in theentire process, but I love finding out
(14:50):
how many versions there are, fromwhen you start working on it, all
the tweaking that goes on to whenyou finally put it out. Do you
know what the final was of it? Oh? I'm a total control freak
about the production because production inspires meso much. But HM, usually for
my songs there are many versions,I will say, but for this particular
(15:15):
song, there were two different basssounds were Jeff and I were kind of
going back and forth debating over whichone was the best, and I actually
just dropped the other bass version ofthe one that I was going to drop.
It's called I'm Only here for thebeat evil version, and I really
like that one. I think itsounds it just sounds more evil and it's
(15:37):
cool. Probably shouldn't tell you thatI was happy that you went with the
first baseline. Oh wait, that'sso funny. Really, oh my god,
totally. But have you heard thefull mix of the evil version,
because that one kind of it remindsme of like a Berlin dance song.
It's really cool. But I'd saymaybe I had around like three or four
(15:58):
versions of here for the beat,there was like the first demo, then
there was another one I made withGustain Dolquist. He produced a secondary version
of it, and then we wentback and forth, and then I added
some production on my own and thenwe just added those parts in and then
I finished it with Jeff Gotcha.Yeah. I saw the TikTok that you
(16:19):
posted where you played both bass lines, and I was like, oh,
I'm so glad she went with thefirst one. So interesting. Okay,
what is next for Madeline. I'mgoing on tour with this huge artist.
It's going to be my first evertour. So that's what's next for me
in February and March. I'm soexcited and the person I'm going on tour
(16:41):
with is an absolute legend and soinspiring to me. And I actually wrote
it down on a piece of papera year ago. The person I wanted
to go on tour with you manifestedthis tour coming up. It's it's kind
of crazy. I mean like Itook appropriate steps towards it, but I
got super specific about it in writingit down, and yeah, I'm the
(17:03):
exact person that is amazing. Well, congratulations on that, and congratulations on
your book. Congratulations on I'm onlyhere for the beat, Madeline. It
is so awesome finally meeting you.Thank you so much for your time with
us on America's Dance thirty. Thankyou. Oh wait, one thing I
(17:25):
forgot to add. Okay, theother thing is the tour situation. Then
the other thing is that I'm droppinganother version of my song Dope Mean with
this huge Latin Grammy nominee Bruises andshe's she's featuring on my track Dope Mean.
And then I'm dropping my other songmake More Money next month as well.
(17:45):
Man, you have got a lotcoming up in twenty twenty four.
I like it that way. Yeah, we all do. Thank you so
much for your time with us onAmerica's Dance thirty. I'm so excited that
my song's playing on the radio forthe first time. This is a first
for so thank you so much forbeing a part of this and my journey,
and I'm so grateful. America's DanceErnie counting down the biggest dance songs
(18:08):
in the country AM America's Dance thirty
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