Exclusive: Def Jam's New Signee, The Dream, On Track To Become The Next Ne-Yo
Move over Ne-Yo, there's another golden boy writing his own history at Def Jam. The Dream, Def Jam's latest singer/songwriter was personally signed by CEO L.A. Reid after playing him his song, "Shawty Is A Ten."
In this SOHH Exclusive, The Dream talks about penning Rihanna's chartbusting single, the making of his new album LOVEHATE, and married life with R&B singer Nivea.
Born in North Carolina and raised in Atlanta, The Dream (real name Terius Youngdell Nash) made his name writing for acts including B2K, 3LW and Mya, before sending Rihanna "Umbrella," which he wrote in a matter of minutes.
"That's right, 12 of them nice lil' minutes," The Dream told SOHH. "I've gotten to the point where songwriting is like freestyling -- you enter the booth and let it come out. I'll use certain things for metaphors, like 'Umbrella'.... Once I get the thing I'm attaching the song with, then I'm running all the other tricks through the song to create that element."
While "Umbrella" has become a proven marker of The Dream's talent, the song was shopped to several artists before being picked up. In fact, The Dream's decision to become an artist was influenced by the uncertain fate of compositions like "Umbrella" and J. Holiday's new single "Bed," currently burning up the airwaves.
"When I wrote 'Bed' I thought, This is a great song, and the worst thing I could do was not, not be in control of when songs like these come out," The Dream said. "To stop all that I said, 'Okay I'm going to do the artist thing because it puts me in more control of what's going on in my situation.' I called L.A., we flew up for two days and I played him [my new] record. We did the deal in two days, I had my money in four days and a week later my song was on the radio."
The Dream hasn't wasted any time since his signing. He's already completed his first album LOVEHATE, and says the twelve-track album was completely written and recorded in nine days.
"It's short for love me all summer, hate me all winter, because they love you when you hot and when you're cold they don't," The Dream explained. "I'm hot right now and they love me, but I was cold and they wasn't @#*$in' with me."
The Dream, who describes his album as "very 80's, very Prince, sensual, sexy stuff," had plenty of at-home inspiration for the album, thanks to his wife of three years, R&B star Nivea.
"Niv has brought the element of just being even more sincere than I have before, just helping me to open up that other side of it that connects with the everyday woman. She has helped me a lot with that area," The Dream said.
Despite The Dream's new status as an artist, he will continue to write songs for others. He recently wrote the hook for Yung Joc's latest single "Coffee Shop" as well as new material for Usher, Mary J. Blige, Sting, Keyshia Cole, Britney Spears, will.i.am, and Nicole Scherzinger (@#*$%cat Dolls).
The Dream's album LOVEHATE will be released via Def Jam recordings. A release date has not yet been announced.
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