Known as the “The Chef,” Bilal Hajji is based in Sweden working and writing with chart-topping artists like Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Nicki Minaj, One Direction, Pitbull, and many more.
Starting off strong, Hajji’s first released song, “Step Up” by the Scandinavian pop singer, Darin, went to number one in Sweden for 9 weeks. This catapulted his career as a songwriter, collaborating and producing music for artists across many genres from the Marc Anthony to Sting, as well as Enrique Iglesias and Usher. We caught up with Hajji at BMI‘s “How I Wrote That Song” annual pre-GRAMMY weekend event at The Roxy.
How was it working with Marc Anthony on “Vivir Mi Vida”? It won a Latin Grammy Award in 2013 for Record of the Year and was in the top-five in the Billboard Latin Songs for 51 weeks.
Bilal Hajji: Marc is a brother and a friend and such an amazing person. What can I say? Fun summarizes it all. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of excitement because we knew already that the song was going to do something. It was just the feeling we had when we were listening to the song. It was just unbelievable. We are all music lovers from the beginning, so it spoke to us before it got released. The song was actually written in Moroccan and French in the beginning and it got released [by Khaled -as “C’est la Vie”] in so many European countries and African countries and reached number one in France and number one in Sweden and it started to become a phenomenon.
Marc heard it and it was actually my boy AJ who I wrote it with, because I always work with a team. It’s always a team and if someone tells you it’s a one man show, they’re lying. My boy AJ played him the original version and he just loved it and wanted to do it and actually his little son got stuck on it and started coming back to Dad like, “play the same song! play the same song!” Until he said this is something that I need to pay attention to, my son has been asking me for the same song about ten times now. It was such an amazing time doing that song, because that’s not the only song that I did with Marc. We are friends, we hang out a lot and we take each other’s opinions about songs, he would send records. Even if it’s not a record that I was involved with, he would send it and ask for opinions and the same here. So it’s more than a business relationship, it’s a friendship and I appreciate that, and I appreciate him for being a part of my life and being a person I can always go to.
Speaking of friends and working with friends, how was it working with Pitbull.
Bilal Hajji: The party don’t stop, Mister worldwide man. He’s just amazing. He’s a hard worker. He is a very hard worker. He never sleeps. Pit would work 24/7 and his work ethic is just…I get inspired by that, it’s like look at this guy he’s up there but he’s still hustling like he has nothing, like he’s still trying to break from the beginning. He’s on the grind 24/7 with a very very good ear, he can hear a hit from a thousand miles just like “oh let me get that, oh let me get that.”
How did you first come into contact with RedOne?
Bilal Hajji: I knew Red my whole life, I knew him since I was 5 years old. He’s my brother’s best friend and my mentor. He taught me a lot about music. I owe him a lot when it comes to music, the knowledge of it, the secrets of it, the tricks of making hit songs. I’ve learned a lot from that guy.
What is your creative process with RedOne when you’re working on stuff together?
Bilal Hajji: It depends. Every time it’s different. It can come from a lyric idea, a title idea, or a movie like it’s totally different. Sometimes it starts with guitar and us humming melodies, or sometimes it’s a hook that I already had recorded on the phone that I was just humming something on the phone and it sounded good to me and I recorded. Then I go to the studio and work on it. Sometimes someone sends you a track or we do a track and start to come up with the melody and lyrics to it. It’s just so many different ways that we can do it.
What’s a song you’re most proud of?
Bilal Hajji: Ahh I can’t. I just can’t.
Maybe top two or three?
Bilal Hajji: You know what? I’ve never thought about this question even though people ask it a lot. I have never spent time figuring out which is my favorite. My favorite could probably be “Vivir Mi Vida” because that is a record that when I did it, and it was in Moroccan and French it meant a lot because a big part of my family doesn’t speak English, so they don’t even know what I’m writing about or what I’m talking about. So that was the first track they could actually understand and understand me as a writer, and my perspective on things, how I see things, and how I express things. So I guess that could be it just because of that reason. All of the stuff I’ve been involved in, I think it’s pretty much the same it’s like your kids, you might have a favorite but you don’t really say it.
And what’s coming up next?
Bilal Hajji: Right now I have a lot of stuff with Pitbull, Marc again, Becky G, Madison Beer who is young, but very talented. She is 16 years old but she has so much to say and so much to give to the music that I’m very excited about her. I’m also developing my own artist called Sarah, she’s from Sweden, a little village in Sweden, literally 300 people up north. But her voice is just something that really grabs you from the first note. When she opens her mouth you’re all hers.