A musician from Croydon has told of his delight after getting a surprise call up to work on Kanye West’s latest album.
Zayn Raja, a British singer known by his stage name ZLYAH, travelled overseas last November to participate in writing sessions for the hip hop superstar’s new project, “Vultures”.
Impressed by Zayn's unreleased song ‘Crushing’, Kanye decided to invite the 22-year-old musician to Dubai to work on his album.
Zayn, who grew up in Thornton Heath, said he was on the phone to his sister when he received a Facetime about the rare opportunity from his managers Nicholas Laws and Richard Santoro.
He told the Standard: “I was actually on the phone to my sister just before the call. Nick called me and broke the news over FaceTime. It was insane. Kanye is an artist who has inspired me in such a great way and I was being told not only that my song had been played to him and that he enjoyed it, but also that I’d be flying overseas to help them work on the album. It was a real full circle moment in a way.”
Zayn recalled a memorable moment when he entered the studio and was surprised to see music superstars Kanye, will.i.am and Ty Dolla Sign nodding their heads to one of his songs.
“There was one crazy day in the studio in Dubai. I must have popped out of frame and then I come back and I can hear my song playing from outside the room. And I walked in and I see Kanye, Ty Dolla Sign and will.i.am bopping their heads to my song.”
He added: “Kanye also gave me a bit of advice on how to improve the song. There’s a bit in the chorus and he said he wished I had maybe extended my vocals out a little bit more and held the note. So he was like, that’s a pointer for that. But he actually went ahead and said, ‘can we get the files to this song? I really want to work on it.’”
Zayn often spent his time in writing sessions with around seven to nine other writers. He received a credit for contributing to the chorus of the track ‘Carnival’ on the Vultures 1 album, which was released on February 9.
He said it was a steep learning curve as it was the first time he’d written for an artist besides himself.
Zayn added: “We were given a bunch of beat packs and instrumentals. And then we’d just write down ideas and pitch stuff.
“Ye would have his references sent to all the writers and then we’d try to catch a flow or a melody on a beat. Kanye was obviously really involved in the writing process himself but for some of the unfinished verses it’d be up to the writers to kind of fill in the blanks.
“I was actually really struggling with that at first because this was my first experience writing for someone else. A producer and writer called Anthony Killhoffer was there and he saw that I was kind of going through this struggle, so he pulled me aside and basically told me that I needed to mingle with the other writers a bit more. I think I was just a little bit shy.
“Anthony told me that a lot of the other writers are from Chicago (the birthplace of Kanye) and what you’re lacking is maybe that lens.
“The next day I bumped into Cyhi The Prynce and Bump J, two phenomenal writers who are very well respected in the industry. They were also working on the project. They asked if they could chill in our room for the day and I said, you can have the room but is it cool if I write with you guys? And they were like sure, why not, let’s do it.
“We all started writing together and had great chemistry, we hit it off straight away. We were constantly bouncing ideas off each other and I think we did like five songs in one day.”
Zayn, who describes his music as mainly R&B with pop and soul influences, is travelling to Italy later this month to record music for his upcoming EP.
"Vultures 1," a hip hop album by Kanye and rapper Ty Dolla Sign, has attracted huge buzz following its release this month.
The project includes guest appearances by North West (Kanye’s daughter), Quavo, Playboi Carti and Travis Scott.
Zayn’s Instagram page can be found here: https://www.instagram.com/zlyah/
