Interviewed by Shiyana Bellamy
B. Howard
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HowsMyRolling: Can you explain to everyone who B. Howard is as an artist?
B. Howard: As an artist I’m musical, innovative, simple, great and exciting. Happiness I guess,
but in one word excellence.
HMR: You come from a musical background. Your grandmother Josephine Howard was in the
gospel group the “caravans”, your mother Miki Howard known singer. I noticed that your mom
was protective of you being in this music industry, so what made her feel at ease once you
adapted to the entertainment life?
BH: I told her, “its ok, I’m not worried about anything and I’ll just keep going.” She still till this
day checks on me to make sure I’m ok, she tells me to be careful. She just had some press
people waiting outside her house and says to be careful.
HMR: Wow, paparazzi are everywhere. As far as being a producer/songwriter has there been a
time when you worked with an artist and said, “Wow this person is going to be an unbelievable
artist for years to come?”
BH: Oh yeah, I felt that way about Lupe Fiasco when I worked with him. It was a lot of fun
working with him, he’s brilliant. He gives a lot of the great lyrics, he’s not too much on the
cussing side and has a message like I have messages in my songs. He’s just a great overall guy
and a humanitarian too. We come from the same place.
HMR: Speaking on messages in songs, how does the transition or rather ease of being a
songwriter/producer to artist work for you?
BH: It’s not so much of a transition, I’ve always been an artist. I just wanted to learn every
aspect of my craft so that I could be able to continue to have my own sound. A lot of sounds
are, I don’t know if people are contrived. They give you something and you just record it, but
with me I know what my sound is so I keep it consistent. Trials and tribulations not so much,
one time on stage which was my first performance I had a lot of sound difficulties with the
keyboard. It was tough, but pushing through it was fine. There hasn’t been too many trials like
that.
HMR: Is there anyone that you would like to work with in the future or collaborate with?
BH: Actually there is Kanye who I really like. My friend Ryan Leslie, we’ve never done anything
together and maybe we can do a collaboration.
HMR: What defines your sound, what separates you from the pack of other r&b/pop singers?
BH: I guess the whole package, you know my music, my voice the vivation that you feel when
I’m singing. From what I heard anyways, most people like to feel me when they hear my music
they actually know me. They know different parts of my songs, they can tell by the feel of it
that it’s me. I put most of my energy and spirit inside of the music so that everybody can feel
that way. As far as my sound, it has classic elements and a lot of new elements what people say
is new. It’s a good mixture with “Dancefloor” which is the single that’s out now, I put together
the mpc drums and all the synth strings and mixed it with live music. I mixed it all together to
make a big sound that’s current and a different audience can listen to.
HMR: Glad you brought up “Dancefloor”, what was the creative process?
BH: With “Dancefloor” I wanted to reach everyone and I wanted to inspire people, make people
move, feel the energy. To feel happy, uplifting their spirit and the creative process I recorded
the track in Miami with the different guys. We put it together and going with Katy Davis making
the mix, making certain parts to rise up on different things. It was an intricate process and just
making it as beautiful for everyone.
HMR: To wrap things up what can we expect from you with the album?
BH: A lot of surprises, it’s going to be very big and magical. I am going to be pushing this
song “Dancefloor” as well and there also is another follow up album I’m going to be putting out
as well.
