As Whitney Houston‘s comeback album “I Look To You” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Billboard caught up with producer Danja to talk about his work on two of the album’s songs: “For The Lovers” and “Nothin’ But Love.”
Danja says he first heard “Nothin’ but Love” before executive producers Larry Jackson and Clive Davis gave it to him to produce. “I always liked it,” Danja says. “It made me feel like the ‘Africa’ song [by Toto].”
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Plans for a project between Houston and Danja had been in the works for some time, but specifics hadn’t been hammered out and the right song hadn’t come along. At some point during production, it became clear “Nothin’ But Love” was meant for Houston. “When we finally got in the zone we started to design it for her,” Danja says.
“‘For The Lovers’ was a spur-of-the-moment type of thing that Claude Kelly and I came up with. Clive had this record that everybody loved, but it needed to be taken to another level. It just needed something in the chorus, something to build,” says Danja. That’s when he stepped in.
After the release of “I Look To You,” Danja is looking into current and upcoming projects for Usher, The Game, Robin Thicke, Lil Jon and Jennifer Lopez, as well as working on songs for Christina Aguilera‘s upcoming movie “Burlesque.”
Danja is also gearing up for the debut Spring/Summer 2010 release of Kevin Cossom, the first artists on his “New Age Rock Stars’ (N.A.R.S.) imprint through Jive. In addition, Danja is developing his own publishing venture, stating he is in the early stages of “trying to build the brand and bring in new artists, new writers, new producers, and a fresh new movement — a new age.”