Ep. 248: Rogét Chahayed | From Pianist to Sicko Mode, Kiss Me More & APT.

Today's guest is a prolific producer behind Sicko Mode, Broccoli, Bad at Love, Kiss Me More, Laugh Now Cry Later, First Class, and APT. — but whose real story isn't the catalog. It's how most of those songs happened by accident.

A classically trained concert pianist who spent his teens grinding through Liszt and Prokofiev knuckle-busters, Rogét quietly became one of the most important producers in modern pop and hip-hop — and almost none of it happened the way he planned.

This is one of the more honest conversations about what mastery is actually for — what happens when a decade of preparation collides with a 9pm pull-up, a stock preset, and a flute sound turned on by accident. When the world keeps rewarding your simplest moves, who do you become?

And The Writer Is... Rogét Chahayed!

In this episode of And The Writer Is, we go deep on:

Years of grinding Liszt and Prokofiev — and a first big check from four major triads on a flute
The three-week run in 2016 that produced Broccoli, Skywalker, Bad at Love, and the seed of Sicko Mode
The Mr. Miyagi era under Doctor Dre's right-hand man — and a pajama meeting at Dre's hidden studio
Sicko Mode — made on a stock preset in a closet-sized vocal booth — and the moment he heard it open Astroworld
Kiss Me More — a 2-5-1 with a walk-down — and what jazz school actually trained him to do
Co-executive producing Jack Harlow's album from 4pm to 4am for a year — and how First Class came together
APT. — the song he forgot about until Bruno Mars mentioned it at a friend's barbecue
And much more...

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Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
2:12 "How does a classical pianist come up with the chords for Broccoli? By turning the keyboard on."
4:24 The 9pm Yachty pull-up and the original Korg stock piano
6:35 Hearing his flute everywhere — Macklemore, Drake's Portland
7:50 The early break that taught him how the music business actually works
13:39 "I believe in the good of the business — we can be the generation that watches each other's backs"
15:59 Lebanese father, Argentine mother, and a meet-cute at a gas station
17:00 Why his dad named him Rogét
19:35 Discovering jazz at 15 and the chord that opened the world up
24:14 College, hip-hop, and reading liner notes for Scott Storch and Ryan Leslie
33:30 Telling Eastern parents he was leaving Juilliard-track for hip-hop
37:03 Getting kicked out, teaching 25 piano students a week to survive
41:45 The Mr. Miyagi era — Mel-Man, strip-club errands, and getting hazed
46:17 The pajama meeting at Doctor Dre's hidden studio
50:08 His Lebanese dad hearing Broccoli on the radio
52:17 NMPA
54:36 Bad at Love — the beat he made and forgot
57:50 What is a songwriter? Rogét's answer
1:01:28 Skywalker, Hit-Boy, and the arpeggios that became the splish
1:04:00 Sicko Mode: a stock preset, a closet-sized vocal booth, and Travis pulling up
1:07:08 "Drake comes in and says 'Astro' and I lost it"
1:14:23 Laugh Now, Cry Later: a Big Sean intro session to a Drake single in a month
1:18:15 Kiss Me More: "the perfect riff" — a 2-5-1 with a walk-down, sped up
1:23:15 "Genius comes out of editing" — Miles vs. Dizzy and what jazz actually trains
1:24:54 First Class and a year co-EPing Jack Harlow's album from 4pm to 4am
1:30:39 APT. — the song he forgot until Bruno mentioned it at a barbecue
1:36:04 What he'd tell a 16-year-old version of himself in the Valley right now

Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London and Jad Saad
Edit by Jad Saad
Post Production VFX by Pratik Karki
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.