HHNLive.com writer SoulStice sits down with "Flashing Lights" producer Eric Hudson to talk about his hit song with Kanye and how it came about, bringing soulful creativity back to music, how producers get paid, Whitney Houston and more.

Eric on "Flashing Lights": "Yo, I had originally did that beat for Beanie Sigel. To me it could have been an R&B joint or a rap joint, but I had intended for it to be a rap joint."

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SoulStice: You’ve worked with everybody from Kanye West to Whitney Houston to Stevie Wonder and the list goes on…and you’re only 21, which I found really impressive. A lot of people spend their teenage years figuring out what they’re trying to do. Tell me about how you found your path so early in life.

Eric Hudson: My father was a producer and a songwriter so I kinda grew up around it. My mother also was a singer, a background singer for Dionne Warwick [and others], so I kinda just grew up around singers and musicians all my life. So I started off as a musician playing in church and when I was 11 or 12 I started getting into producing and making tracks, from there man it kinda took off.

S: So what did it sound like when you were 11 or 12? Do you ever pop that stuff back in and kinda have a laugh?

EH: I did like a year ago. It’s, you know, amateur stuff, my Dad thinks it’s good, but of course cuz he’s my father. It was me just learning and playing around and experimenting with different things. When I was growing up everything that I wanted to do was church-orientated so it was kind of over-musical, you know what I mean? But I kinda took that stuff and dumbed it down, so…

S: Had to dumb it down, huh?

EH: Yeah man, gotta dumb it down man, for the radio.

S: You’ve got a large volume of work. Are there any particular songs or collaborations that you’re especially proud of, things that stand out in your catalog to you?

EH: Definitely I would have to say Kanye West man. I’m very happy about that collaboration, I’m proud of that one. That was a person who’d I’d always wanted to work with. I love Kanye and respect his music and I actually got a chance to produce a song for him, it was crazy. I would say Whitney Houston is another one. Cuz I grew up around her…and my Mom sang background for her for years. Being able to go back in the studio after she’s coming from everything she’s coming from and just do a song with her was a good experience man. It’s a recent brand new song with her…it’s definitely supposed to be a single, so I’m real proud of that.

S: You mentioned the Kanye West joint, “Flashing Lights.” I was happy to hear you produced that one, cuz I love that joint. I want to get into the creative process on that one, especially since Kanye is himself a producer. Walk me through that, how did you approach Kanye with the joint and how did it unfold?

EH: Honestly man, I’d say it was God and it was luck. I was in one studio and he was in another one [close by], and we had an initial respect for each other and a good relationship from some of the other joints that I had produced. I heard he was in the other studio so I just went by to say what’s up. You hear Kanye’s in the studio and you’re going to go say something! So we was in the room and he was like, “yo, you got a joint? My album’s closed, but if you can give me that one banger I’ll put it on there if it’s crazy.” So I start wonder, do I got CDs on me? And by the grace of God I had that beat man. He came into the other room and I played it for him. He listened to the beat for about ten seconds man…the beat didn’t even drop totally. He took it, put it in Pro Tools and did the song right then and there.

S: Seriously, he wrote the whole joint right there?

EH: He wrote it right there. He freestyled it and then next I’m hearing he went and put the “flashin’…lights, lights,” he put that on there, he did that in Chicago. That’s probably the quickest record that I’ve ever seen come about. It didn’t take him long to get it. Some artists I work with, they have to hear the track a couple times…with him, he was like, yo that’s it right there, stop the music.

S: I’m an artist myself and it does seem like sometimes the best stuff happens real fast like that. It depends on the joint though, sometimes you hear it right away and sometimes you’ve gotta build on it. I’m sure you’ve had experiences to both of those extremes.

EH: Naw, you right though man, it seems like the stuff that comes about the quickest is usually the best. Like I did a song with John Legend called “P.D.A.” it was like that song just came about fast. It was just like me playing around on the piano and he heard it and then I did the track right there and he wrote the song as I was playing the piano. That was like a pretty big placement for me on his last album.

S: With “Flashing Lights,” I really thought it stood out on the album…the sound is different from a lot of commercial hip hop right now. Had you intended that to be a hip hop joint?

EH: Yo, I had originally did that beat for Beanie Sigel. To me it could have been an R&B joint or a rap joint, but I had intended for it to be a rap joint.

S: A lot of writers work as part of team where someone does the production and someone does the songwriting, do you work as part of a writing team?

EH: I like collaborating with other writers. I’ve collaborated with Ne-yo, I’ve collaborated with Shaunte Austin, Rico Love, different writers in the game. But as far as production, it’s just me man.

S: Looking at your early history, it seems like you started out as a performer. Now that you’ve settled into the role of producer/songwriter, how do you feel when something that you’ve produced hits the radio? It’s gotta be a good feeling, but do you ever wish you were the front man?

EH: No, and I’ll tell you why. Cuz I never wanted to be a singer or a rapper, that’s never what I wanted to do. It’s kinda exciting hearing people responding to the music aspect of it, but as far as a person like Kanye, he’s the best at what he does. I could never fill that void. There’s no part of me that wants to sing or rap or perform. But I’m a musician in the sense…say that somebody like Kanye or John was doing a gig and they wanted me to sit on a set? Now that’s me all day. Only performance I want to do is man one day…I want to do a jazz album. But I want do a jazz album kinda like how Quincy Jones did Juke Joint. I want to have different people like Mos Def, Common, even artists like Talib Kweli, or if I could go back and grab Lauryn Hill, have it very hip hop orientated but still have the jazz and different elements in the music. And I want to have the crazy artists on there. That’s kinda like a dream, you know what I mean?

S: As a producer, you obviously have a very impressive list of artists that you’ve worked with. Do you always go for established artists or do you ever try to break new artists? Do you ever become interested in an artist that you feel could be more popular and try to work with them?

EH: It’s funny you say that cuz me and my manager, we’ve been talking about that. Cuz sometimes I’ll be like ‘I wanna work this person’ and she’s like ‘yo, that’s cool but if you break a new artist then that’s going to blow you up as a producer bigger than doing a record for somebody that’s already established.’ So that’s something that I’m working on right now. Sometimes I’ll make a record and be like ‘yo, that’s for Beyonce.’ But it might be for a girl that’s signed to…I don’t know…Universal that’s just as hot or that’s up and coming.

S: That’s gotta be a tough decision sometimes. Because obviously from a monetary standpoint, if you’ve got a beat that works for Beyonce, you’ll probably get more benefit from giving it to Beyonce then from giving it to an up and coming artist…

EH: Unless you find like an Alicia Keys. You know, somebody broke Alicia Keys.

S: But it’s more like a gamble though?

EH: It’s a gamble yeah, but if you break an artist man, you become on the level of Babyface or L.A. Reid or Jermaine Dupri, people like that. They broke artists, that’s why they’re at the level they are.

S: Let’s venture a little further into the business aspect. Just so everybody knows, how does a producer/songwriter get paid?

EH: Say if you’ve got a beat and the label wants that beat, they’ve gotta pay your set salary. People like Timbaland and them they get $150,000, $200,000 a beat. So if you’ve got some type of name, that’s definitely something you can benefit from. And for anybody though, you get your upfront and then you gotta fight sometimes to get your back-end. They don’t just give it to you man, no matter who you are.

S: You mentioned you were in the studio with Whitney Houston. Any other exciting projects in the works for you right now?

EH: I’m down here right now, I’m shooting for Beyonce’s project so I’m working with this writer, Rico Love, who’s doing a lot on Beyonce’s project. Definitely Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3, Fabolous, I did a record for John Legend’s album that’s pretty crazy, Jennifer Hudson…this is all potential, nothing’s definite. And I’ve got three records on Jesse McCartney’s new release. Those are some projects I’m definitely excited about.

S: To quote you, you’re trying to “bring back the soulful creativity that made American music what it is today.” Can you elaborate on that?

EH: When you go back and listen to people like Stevie Wonder, their music lasts forever. It’s not going away. You can walk into any restaurant, any club, any bar, any party and a Stevie Wonder song could come on. And that’s kinda like how I want my music to be, where you could play it anywhere. Where you can play the instrumental or you can play the song. People have remade artists like Marvin Gaye and they’ve remade those songs like so many times, it’s lasting forever. Music came from their souls. Now, to me, people put a hold on music. They don’t just let music come from people’s hearts. They tell people, you need to do this, you need to do that….A&R’s and people like that. I want to get back to where, if you sat at the piano and you wrote a song, and that song just consists of that piano and that person’s voice, that they will still play that song on radio. And it won’t matter. It doesn’t have to have an 808 or a snap in it, to make it like, “oh this is a hit.”

S: You mentioned Alicia Keys and John Legend, I think those are two good examples of going back to the basics, talking about soul music.

EH: And they don’t care. Alicia you don’t care, you could tell. She’s does what she wants to do. If it don’t work on radio, oh well. And that’s why she’s selling all the records she’s selling because she does what she wants to do. And that’s the same about Kanye West. He doesn’t care either, he does what he wants to do. And even going back to Lauryn Hill. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is one of the best albums ever to me. She did what she wanted to do. And there’s so many different genres of music out there, but as far as R&B and hip hop, that’s what I’m trying do man. And it’s real hard cuz people want their music to sound dumb. But I try to give as much as I can as far as elements…strings, guitars, piano, a bridge. I try to do as much as I can and sometimes people be like ‘that’s too much,’ and I have to dumb it down. But, that’s what I’m trying to do.