When he’s not producing hits in the studio, Rogét Chahayed is working out. Alongside music, the Los Angeles native has dedicated the last few years of his life to fitness, which has resulted in Chahayed dropping 60 pounds.
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The energy from a rigorous late March workout in his home gym alongside Australian production duo FnZ poured into the studio for a jam session that followed and quickly led to the birth of the beat behind Drake’s “Janice STFU.”
“Within a minute or two, we found that main synth riff you hear in the song. We looked at each other like, ‘That’s crazy,’” Chahayed tells Billboard. “We would hit each other the next day like, ‘He’s gotta do something to this. If he doesn’t make something to this, we shouldn’t be doing music anymore.’ This s–t sounds like a hit without anything on it.”
While Chahayed saw potential in the brooding production, which was sent north of the border to OVO headquarters after some finishing touches from British producer B4u, nothing was official until ICEMAN‘s arrival.
Chahayed, who turned 38 on Sunday (May 31), found out about “Janice STFU” with the rest of the world while anxiously watching and running back YouTube’s episode four ICEMAN livestream on May 14 that came a couple of hours before the album reached streaming services.
Built around an addicting chorus interpolating Lykke Li’s “I Follow Rivers,” “Janice STFU” was tabbed an early standout from ICEMAN.
Drake used The Sopranos‘ Janice Soprano to inspire the track’s title, which provided a “full-circle” moment for the producer, as Chahayed — who fancies himself a diehard fan of the HBO series — estimates he’s watched The Sopranos about “50 or 60” times through. He talks up having a signed James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) photo in his house and the water bottle sitting next to him during the interview is even slapped with a Sopranos sticker.
“Janice STFU” debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 with 40.7 million official streams for the tracking week ending May 21, giving Drake his record-breaking 14th No. 1 — the most among male soloists — and Chahayed’s third (“SICKO MODE,” “First Class”).
The hit will spend a second week at the Hot 100‘s summit, which marks Drake’s first multi-week No. 1 since 2018’s “In My Feelings.” “Janice” also leads the Streaming Songs chart for a second week.
Chahayed notched a second ICEMAN placement with the 21 Savage-assisted “B’s on the Table” and even as the accolades like a Grammy nomination for producer of the year, non classical, and credits with Rosé and Bruno Mars (“APT.”) continue to pile up, he’s got no plans of slowing down.
“At the end of the day, as much as I want to make music for myself or score movies, I’m never gonna stop producing and make slappers,” he promises.
Check out the rest of our interview with the producer, who breaks down how his ICEMAN placements came about, plus so much more.
Another No. 1 hit. What was your reaction to seeing “Janice STFU” top the charts?
It’s been pretty crazy to see the impact it’s had on culture in general. It’s crazy to see how an artist like Drake, who’s been around for like two decades now, still make an impact through the days of mixtapes, DatPiff, blog era and CDs to streaming and now we’re in TikTok. It’s one of the more viral songs he’s had on there. It’s crazy to go on there and every few things I’m scrolling, I hear the song. It’s full circle for me because I’m a diehard Sopranos fan. I know they’re referencing Tony’s sister, Janice. It’s all these culminations coming full-circle.
Take me back, how does this work? Are you sending over beats to Drake or does this fall in your lap while working with other producers like FnZ?
All of my collaborations with Drake have been remote. He’s not an easily accessible guy. He’s got a lot of people in his circle and on his team. I’ve always found the best way to get through to him is sending the right music ideas. In this situation, I was working with FnZ. We collaborate often and get together once a month to cook up as many ideas as we can. We’ll make eight or nine things in a night. We spend a lot of time going into detail and picking sounds we think are going to make a difference.
This was end of March of this year, we’re trying to get ideas for ICEMAN. I had a song on there already with “B’s on the Table” and they had a few joints, but we wanted to get one more. I built a gym in my crib and we were f–king around and wanted to get one more in, so we went down to the studio and started with a jam session. I was looking for sounds and Zac from FnZ was tweaking the synths while I was playing. I was playing with melodies and Michael from FnZ was pulling up this hi-hat loop with a snare and a vocal chop. I started coming up with this thing and added a bass to it. Within a minute or two, we found that main synth riff you hear in the song. We looked at each other like, “That’s crazy.” We send it over to b4u, who’s been working with Drake heavy on this album. He finished it up.
When do you hear back that it’s done and hear about The Sopranos inspiration or the Lykke Li interpolation?
We had no idea what it was called. B4u was our point of contact for this situation. We sent him the sample and a few days later, FnZ sent me a text, “B4u said Drake started writing to this one.” I think we called the idea “Wired” originally. I’ve seen that text before that The Boy’s writing to it. He’s probably writing to so many beats. I don’t treat it as anything out of the ordinary.
Three weeks later, I got a text from b4u, “There’s one you did with FnZ, it sounds crazy and it might make the album.” That’s the only information I had. I didn’t know it’s called “Janice STFU” or what he’s rapping about, so we were eager to find out.
You heard the final version on the ICEMAN livestream with everyone?
I heard it on the stream before the actual release. FnZ hit me, “Yo, I think it’s called ‘Janice’ something.” I listened to it in the car and thought it sounded crazy. I had to keep going back on my YouTube to run it back. When it came out, I listened to the rest of the album and thought, “Holy s–t.” That one song, everyone kept hitting me that this was the one that was gonna push through.
People are really loving the Lykke Li “I Follow Rivers” interpolation on the chorus.
I didn’t really notice it at first, but when I was on Reddit and YouTube seeing people react, they were like, “It’s Lykke Li.” I get that the melody is similar, but I feel like the way Drake spun it was so creative and he puts this swing on it. I think it’s more genius to interpolate something from a different world of sound and put it into this. How did he think of putting this into the thing me and FnZ sent?
I’ve been a part of a lot of songs that have really good interpolations. I feel like you almost can’t make a hit nowadays without having some kind of homage or tribute to great melodies and great songs. “First Class,” Jack [Harlow] interpolates Fergie, “Kiss Me More” Doja interpolates Olivia Newton-John, and it’s cool to see Drake put his spin on it — it’s too fire.
It’s crazy that you sent over this one idea and it stuck with Drake. I figured you were sending over packs and packs of beats for him.
I probably sent like 100 ideas, loops and beats to people. Maybe a few hundred between loops for the drum guys and beats I made with people. It got to a point I didn’t think we were gonna make ICEMAN. I thought he had a million people sending him s–t and he had 100 songs done. FnZ and I have been working for five years now and they push me to find me the craziest sounds.
We did a song called “Dua Lipa” for Jack Harlow and “Kat Food ” for Lil Wayne. We’ll hang out together and be like, “We’re gonna get one of the craziest songs ever made.” We kind of manifested it. There was something about this day in particular…The energy was good, like I had just finished a crazy workout, because I got really into working out and training in the last year. This idea came as a result of like, fitness and taking care of ourselves and lifting weights and it kind of has that energy in it too. I feel like that’s not the lifestyle for a lot of producers. This has been my main thing lately, I lost 60 pounds in the last few years. I really attribute a lot of this success and better ideas to personal training. We would hit each other like, “He’s gotta do something to this. If he doesn’t make something to this, we shouldn’t be doing music anymore.” This s–t sounds like a hit without anything on it.
How did “B’s on the Table” come about? It sounds like that was already done before “Janice.”
That’s actually a beat that I made with London Cyr. We had a session a year ago with a beat that had these cool synth horns on it. I heard Drake really liked the beat and was doing something to it. I thought maybe it didn’t make the cut until London hit me, “Drake wants that same exact horn sound we did on a newer beat he’s doing.” He wanted the exact same sound and I forgot the sound. My engineer and I were sitting here for days going through every brass synth patch we had. I started to get tendonitis. I had a sound design dude make an identical sound and it still wasn’t cutting through.
B4u said he wanted more organic horn sounds and had me sending like 30 different versions of the horns you hear on the second half. That’s my part on the song. I’d get hit up at 1 a.m., 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. and I’d run home and try to finesse it. It was a lot of work. This whole album was a team effort. Communication is important. I knew 21 Savage was on it, but I didn’t know what it sounded like. They had just sent me the instrumental and a placeholder in the second half where the horns go. That’s the real rap motto, you got to be on call.
Do you have a special place for your plaques at your house?
All the plaques I have really are like gifts. My manager or publisher will have them for me. I’m definitely going to custom request a “Janice STFU” plaque. This is my third Hot 100 No. 1 in my career. I’m super grateful. My second one with Drake because he’s on “SICKO MODE.”
You said you were a massive Sopranos fan too, so that had to be cool.
Diehard Sopranos fan. I have all kinds of memorabilia. I have a signed James Gandolfini picture. I have a giant poster of the show. I’ve seen the show, probably as a whole, like 50 or 60 times through. I know everything that happens in every episode. If we’re watching it, I can basically go bar-for-bar. There’s a lot of meanings behind the song like, “Who’s Janice?” The song is so fire I don’t try to find out who he’s really talking about. I’m not a political guy like that. Janice in the show did get on everyone’s nerves. Drake was posting hints about The Sopranos on his other Instagram account. It’s the greatest show of all-time and Drake’s one of the greatest artists of all-time, so it’s a crazy full-circle thing. I guess watching the show 100 times and making beats every day paid off.
What’s the difference when producing for a rapper versus a pop artist?
When you’re working with pop artists, I feel like musically that they need a little bit less as far as sounds go. I always try to focus on what the song needs first. Later on, we can finish the production on it. When I work with a rapper, I feel like we got to find the most cutthroat crazy sound that pushes them. I feel like rappers are impatient. When you’re working with a pop artist, they’re willing to take time to craft the content of the song. When you’re playing rappers beats that are done and the song isn’t hitting, they’re like, “Nah, I need some s–t like this!” I learned that from the school of Dr. Dre. The pressure was always on. He was always hovering over you like, “What you got? You have anything crazy?” And if you didn’t, you felt inferior. They’re trying to make a hit and you got to give them a sound that pierces through the speaker so they almost want to fight with the beat. They want to spar with the beat.
Whereas when you’re writing for a pop artist, all you need is four good chords. All they really need is a piano or a guitar to make the song. Once they have the song, they’re sitting there with the songwriter for three or four hours and the producers are sitting there waiting for them to finish. That’s why I love rap more. Rap is more competitive. Rap is more like that blank canvas of what you can put on there musically. There’s more you could do with it.
Talk about your experience working with Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey.
I spent a lot of time in the studio with with Jennifer, and she is just like probably the hardest working person I’ve ever met in my life. It’s crazy, like you think of someone that has everything, all the success, wealth and fame, and she works like it’s her last day. She’s an incredible businesswoman, she’s very creative, always working on movies, always has ideas, always making music and she’s very detailed.
She was in the studio for every session for every song on that album. It wasn’t like a J Lo camp, where she would come in for an hour, like “I’m gonna go back to being a movie star.” No, she was in there in workout clothes. She’s just like a normal person in the studio. I was like, “Oh, she’s one of us.” She’s a nerd for this s–t.
She was always very positive and easy to reach. She always picked up my calls and told me from the beginning, “Don’t sugarcoat nothing. Tell me if this s–t doesn’t sound good. Tell me if this song doesn’t sound good. I need you to be direct with me.”
Mariah, I was brought into that session by my boy Anderson .Paak. So Mariah was also in the studio with us and she started really late, I think we started the sessions at 10 p.m. and we would be in there ’till like, six in the morning. It was so organic working with Mariah.
We did the “In Your Feelings” song and we’re sitting on the piano at Electric Lady Studios. Mariah is right there, just coming up with melodies. I’m just sitting there on the piano, like, “Holy s–t.” My mom used to play Mariah Carey in the car when I was a kid and like now I’m sitting on the piano writing a song with her. I still get those weird feelings of like, “I can’t believe this is happening.” They’re just normal people, like you and me, trying to write music, which is so cool to experience.
