For our latest installment of our How I Wrote That Song series, we sat down and talked with Tyler Hubbard. With 20 No.1 singles on country radio, countless awards, and sold-out tours, Tyler Hubbard has already had an incredibly successful career as a songwriter and as one-half of the multi-platinum duo Florida Georgia Line. The group played their last show for the foreseeable future last year. But Hubbard has wasted no time in establishing himself as a solo star who is able to stand on his own.
His solo debut, Tyler Hubbard, is out now. His debut solo single “5 Foot 9,” was a number one radio hit. And it was certified Platinum by the RIAA, and has almost 385M global streams. Tyler Hubbard also features his current single, “Dancin’ In The Country,” which he discusses with us in this interview.
In the United States, someone has a heart attack every 40 seconds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, every year, about 805,000 people in the United States have a heart attack. Of these, 605,000 are a first heart attack. 200,000 happen to people who have already had a heart attack.
Not all of these are treated: the CDC says that about one in five heart attacks are silent. In other words, the heart has been damaged but the victim is unaware of what happened. But what is a heart attack? According to the Mayo Clinic, a heart attack occurs when the flow of blood to the heart is severely reduced or blocked. The blockage is usually due to a buildup of fat, cholesterol and other substances in the heart (coronary) arteries. The fatty, cholesterol-containing deposits are called plaques. The process of plaque buildup is called atherosclerosis.
How do you know if you, or someone around you, is having a heart attack? The symptoms can vary in severity, and some people have no symptoms. But some of the more common symptoms include chest pain that may feel like pressure, tightness, pain, squeezing or aching. There could be pain or discomfort that spreads to the shoulder, arm, back, neck, jaw, teeth or sometimes the upper belly. There might be cold sweating, fatigue, heartburn or indigestion, lightheadedness or sudden dizziness, nausea or shortness of breath. If any of these happen to you, or to anyone around you, call for emergency medical help as quickly as possible.
If you suspect that someone is having a heart attack, the Mayo Clinic advises that you first call 911 or your local emergency number. Then check if the person is breathing and has a pulse. If the person isn’t breathing or you don’t find a pulse, only then should you begin CPR. You can do CPR, according to the Clinic, even if you aren’t trained. They say, “If you’re untrained in CPR, do hands-only CPR. That means push hard and fast on the person’s chest — about 100 to 120 compressions a minute. If you’re trained in CPR and confident in your ability, start with 30 chest compressions before giving two rescue breaths.
In times of emergency, it’s the children who suffer the most. Right now, over seven million children in Ukraine and its bordering countries are in need of food and clean water, medical care, clothing and a safe place to sleep.
For the past 75 years, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has built an unprecedented global support system for the world’s children. UNICEF‘s mission is to deliver the essentials that give every child an equitable chance in life: health care and immunizations, safe water and sanitation, nutrition, education, emergency relief and more. UNICEF USA advances the global mission of UNICEF by rallying the American public to support the world’s most vulnerable children.
War in Ukraine has intensified, posing an imminent threat to more than seven million children. Heavy weapons fire along the contact line in eastern Ukraine has already damaged water infrastructure and schools. UNICEF is scaling up its emergency response inside the country while also racing to meet the urgent needs of vulnerable children and families on the move as they stream into neighboring countries.
Beasley Best Community of Caring is proud to support the humanitarian efforts of UNICEF for the children affected by the crisis in Ukraine.
Please consider donating to UNICEF’s efforts, and get more information from the frontlines, here.
The How I Wrote That Song limited series gives music fans a front-row seat for conversations with songwriters behind some of the biggest hits of yesterday and today. You’ll learn the stories behind the songs from the people who wrote them. New episodes will be released every other Monday through December 12. How I Wrote That Song is produced in partnership with Beasley Media Group, XPERI (HD Radio), and BMI.
Mooski is one of hip-hop and R&B’s most exciting new acts. After finishing serving four years in the Marines, he began focusing on his music career. And with “Track Star” — a song about a woman who won’t commit to a relationship — it looks like he’s on his way to stardom.
“Track Star” is a huge hit – talk about how you wrote it.
So I just got out of the Marine Corps and it had been like a few months. This was at the top top of 2020. I had just worked a 12-hour shift at my job, I was on my way back home. I was listening to instrumental (tracks) and stuff. My whole setup was: work Monday to Friday and then on Saturday and Sunday, I’m in the studio, so I’m just trying to catch a vibe. So, I found this instrumental and I just lock into it, man.
So, I’m driving and the vibe is just coming to me, I don’t even want to write anything down. I was just vibing and recording it on my Snapchat, trying to write the song.
So what were you going through? I’m guessing that you were going through it with somebody at that time to be inspired to write these lyrics of somebody who just can’t commit. You make the metaphor. She’s like a track star. She just takes off.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know what I’m saying? It’s just something is definitely pulled from a real place. You know, it is something that I’ve been through before or something I’ve seen before. You know what I mean? So I just really wanted to really want it to be transparent, completely transparent and swallow all pride and just put everything out there so people can really connect to it. I want this song to be like one of those things that clicked because it is things that you say in your head that you never really let come out of your mouth. And so it really connected with everyone.
The How I Wrote That Song limited series gives music fans a front-row seat for conversations with songwriters behind some of the biggest hits of yesterday and today. You’ll learn the stories behind the songs from the people who wrote them. New episodes will be released every other Monday through December 12. How I Wrote That Song is produced in partnership with Beasley Media Group, XPERI (HD Radio), and BMI.
Warren “Oak” Felder is one of the most successful writer/producers that you’ve never heard of. He keeps a low profile, and doesn’t have a sonic imprint that identifies songs as his productions. But his discography includes songs by Chris Brown, Nicki Minaj, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Britney Spears and Demi Lovato, among others. In this excerpt from our conversation, he discussed the journey in taking Alessia Cara’s first single, “Here,” to number one.
He worked on the song with his occasional songwriting/partner Andrew “Pop” Wansel. They both had different ideas for a sample that they wanted to use in the song: Pop wanted to use Issac Hayes’ “Ike Rap II” from his 1971 album Black Moses, Oak, meanwhile, wanted to use Portishead’s song “Glory Box”… which samples “Ike’s Rap II.” Oak told us the whole story. Check it out below, and beneath that watch or listen to our podcast episode with Oak.
“You know, sometimes they are projects that you come across, that people have tried, people have made an attempt to do things… and just nothing gets off the ground. And that doesn’t say anything about the artists themselves and whether or not they’re viable.
But most of the executives involved, the production companies and the other label people and management people, and there’s all these other people that are kind of involved and they’re telling me, ‘We want her to sound like Lorde meets Taylor Swift.’ And so in my mind, I’m rolling my eyes a little bit because I’m like,'”OK, you want her to sound like the two largest artists out here.’
I understand shooting for the Moon, though, because a lot of people can only see things in those terms. But my response to them was, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you said that. You know what? I was striving for mediocrity today, but since you said that, now I’m going to try to give you a big hit!’
And so the whole week we’re in and she’s playing us, these different songs that she’s partially written and we’re kind of picking the ones we like the most. ‘Here’ was the first one we picked. And they immediately shut us down and they said, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no. This one’s a little too weird. We have this other one that is a smash: ‘Seventeen.”
So, I sat down and did the production and finished writing it with them, and when you listen to that production, it very much does sound like a Taylor Swift meets Lorde production. It’s a great song. I love the record. And so during the week, that’s pretty much how it progressed.
Saturday rolls around all the executives take the day off. So now it’s me. Sebastian Kole, Alessia Cara, and Pop was with me that day. I’m like, ‘Let’s work on ‘Here.’ Let’s just do what we want. I got the perfect sample for this. It’s a Portishead song.’ Pop is like, ‘No man, that ain’t it! I got this other sample, it’s an Isaac Hayes record [‘Ike’s Rap II’ from Black Moses].’
Now, mind you were saying this to each other without actually playing the samples. So we go back and forth about it for about 20, 30 minutes until Pop plays the Isaac Hayes sample, I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, this is Portishead!’ I had never heard Isaac’s version up until that point, I’m ashamed to say. And Pop had never heard Portishead. So he’s like, ‘Oh my God: we came up with the same sample at the same time for this production!’
Then we did the track. We cut that record and we almost kind of hid it after we did it. It was like, ‘Let’s put it away, because we might get in trouble!’ That’s almost what it felt like. Did another week [in the studio] with Alessia, recording another songs, including ‘Scars to Your Beautiful’ and everything else that was on the first album. And then when when it came time to pick the single from what I understand, I think the label really wanted to go with ‘Seventeen,’ because they were very focused on that record and Alessia kind of put her foot down, and said, ”Here’ needs to be the first record.’ The label pretty much said, ‘OK, we’re going to go with your recommendation.’ And that song had a nice, beautiful, slow climb to number one over the course of almost a year. It eventually got to number one, I was so proud of that fact.”
