Emerging from Atlanta, London Jae is a 32-year-old Grammy Award-winning songwriter. He has been pivotal in the making of some of the most popular songs in music but got his start songwriting rather randomly. While in one of his own sessions, he got a knock on the door from established producer Cheeze Beatz asking him to come next door to his session and write a song for an artist. The song performed well on the charts and from there, his songwriting career began.
Having mastered this balancing act, he currently has upcoming projects with the biggest names in music. He’s currently working with quite a few artists such as Lil Wayne, Meek Mill, and Kevin Gates to name a few. In our recent chat, London breaks down hits for Tinashe, Hitmaka, as well as Bhad Bhabie and Lil Yachty's viral hit "Gucci Flip Flops."
Bhad Babie - "Gucci Flip Flops"
It was me Cheeze Beatz and 30 Roc in a session and I knew dealing with Bhad Babie she was new to music and I knew people knew her from Dr. Phil so I'm like she gotta come out hard so I hit her phone to get a vibe from her so I get back in the session and I go in the booth and the melody came to me first and then the words were instant and I probably did the whole song in 10-20 minutes. The cool part is she co-writes with you and has a lot of input. So I take when she does and run with it. She's young but she's dope.
Hitmaka - "Thot Box"
I was in the studio working with Nonstop Da Hitman. When Nonstop played the beat I was like oh no with this beat we gotta have the first line be a head turner. Then we came up with "Thot Box." Hitmaka pulled up shortly and he's like this is hard. It started off as just being YBN Nahmir's single then we wanted to make an even bigger play so we all started calling everyone that's on the song from Meek, 2 Chainz, A Boogie etc. Everyone sent their verses in and we kept Nahmir on the hook because the hook was nasty. From there the rest was history.
Tinashe - "Like I Used To"
I was in Atlanta and Hitmaka called me and told me to fly out to LA and he was like I want to get you on this Tinashe album so I'm like bet. Me and Hitmaka have so many records together that I can't even count so Tinsahe pulls up and we're in their vibin' as they're playing beats. My process is so different because I don't listen to beats long. I just take off because whatever the first idea that comes up is the base of the song for me. I don't second guess myself so when they pull the beat up I take off in the booth and play with melodies and I end up with Like I Used To. I'm going back and forth with lines and Hitmaka chimes in with a line and we walk it all the way down. I come out the booth and I'm like this is hard and Tinashe works differently. I can rap in the booth and she'll sing it. She's super hard. That's how "Like I Used To" came about.
LightSkinKeisha - "Believe Dat"
This happened crazy because at the time I didn't know anyone in the room. I only knew Chubby and Antonio Reid. Tonio had hit me like we have this artist LightSkinKeisha and I'm like I see her on Instagram and she's hard. They pulled up the beat and I took the vibe from one of the Juvenille records and I just remembered being excited about the record while I was doing it. I knew it was going to be hard and a hit record once I did it quick and it started flowing. We probably completed the song in like 20 minutes. Keisha is so hard and she doesn't even need a writer but I was able to show her some different things and it was born from there. She's hard.
(Photo courtesy of Don Jaun)