Persistence pays off for "Empire" songwriter

NEW YORK (Billboard) – "Empire State of Mind" has been a chart-topping hit for Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, spending bristles weeks aloft the Billboard Hot 100. The No. 1 canticle is additionally amenable for reigniting the singing aspirations of songwriter/producer Angela Hunte, who bound and produced "Empire" with autograph accomplice Jane't "Jnay" Sewell-Ulepic. It all started with a bad case of homesickness.

"My autograph accomplice and I were in London, missing home," Hunte says. "We said to ourselves, 'We accuse so abundant about New York -- about the active streets, about the crowds and the pushing, about the alms arrangement -- but I would barter that for annihilation appropriate now.' Before we larboard the auberge that night, we knew we would abode a song about our city."

The brace beatific the song to ball aggregation Roc Nation in hopes that its founder, rapper Jay-Z, would almanac the song. But back that attack failed, they became assertive it was the end of the band for the track.

Eight months later, Big Jon Platt, admiral of North American Creative for EMI Music Publishing, heard the song and fell in adulation with it. He appropriate to Hunte and Sewell-Ulepic that it would be a absolute fit for Jay-Z. Despite the women's alienation accustomed the after-effects of their aboriginal pitch, Platt beatific the song to the rapper, who, Hunte says, "recorded it that night." Jay-Z wrote all new verses aggressive by the aboriginal lyrics and larboard Hunte's words in the song's hook. At Hunte's recommendation, Alicia Keys was recruited to sing the hook.

"We were so blessed he capital to account our work," Hunte says. "For him as a rapper to booty a song by two changeable writer/producers? That's not a aggregate you see a lot. And Alicia has my aforementioned articulate tone. She fabricated the song complete so abutting to the original. She aloof nailed it."

FROM BROOKLYN TO EUROPE

A Brooklyn native, Hunte -- who grew up at 560 State Street, the abode Jay-Z mentions on the clue -- launched her music career as a singer. But eventually she began belief assembly alongside mentor/producer Salaam Remi because, Hunte says, she begin music acceptable added "commercial. I aloof acquainted there was no abode for me (as a performer) in music at that time."

In 2001, she active a accord brokered by Remi with EMI and confused to Europe, area she began autograph for Ms. Dynamite, Mis-teeq and British R&B accompanist Beverly Knight, amid others. Hunte accustomed her big breach back she wrote the clue "Do Somethin'" for Britney Spears. The song appeared on Spears' "Greatest Hits: My Prerogative" accumulation and was appear as the additional distinct off the 2004 set.

Three years later, Hunte alternate to the United States. Netting a autograph gig with babe accumulation Danity Kane, she wrote the act's aboriginal single, "Show Stopper." The clue accomplished No. 8 on the Hot 100. Since then, Hunte has formed with Justin Timberlake, Timbaland and newcomer Melanie Fiona. She's slated to go into the flat to coact with Young Jeezy, Roc Nation artisan J. Cole and advancing rapper H 2-0.

Hunte is additionally at assignment on her own as-yet-untitled album, which she describes as a "pop, cyberbanking set."

But Hunte will consistently bethink the appulse that "Empire" has had on her career. Although the singer/songwriter/producer beneath to acknowledge added details, she promises that the aboriginal adaptation of "Empire State of Mind" will be appear one day.

"The aboriginal is so powerful," Hunte says. "It's alone a amount of time until you will apprehend it bottomward the line."