Paul ‘PDA’ Allen is a visionary, a writer and a Grammy Award-winning super dope producer. He’s one-third of the musically brilliant production and entertainment company PAJAM, along with J. Moss and Walter Kearney. He’s produced and written for some of the most famous musical geniuses in the world, including Aretha Franklin, Beyoncé and Destiny’s Child, Justin Timberlake, and R. Kelly. He’s also worked with music titans Quincy Jones, L.A. Reid and Babyface.
Rolling out got the chance to nab an exclusive interview with PDA right before Grammy weekend inside his posh and beautifully decorated office in metro Detroit. Check out the interview below as PDA discusses his 13th Grammy nod, his newly formed group Vocally Challenged, whose tribute medley that’s aptly titled “Bruno Mars” is up for a 2016 Grammy, and what projects he’s working on next. We want to know what you think, so chime in on the comments section.
Tell us how you’ve been. What’s going on with you?
I’ve been fantastic! We’ve been working hard like crazy, like never before. People think that you get a little seasoned in the industry, so you kind of slow down. But we’ve been speeding up. And we’ve just been very thankful.
Everyone knows you’re no stranger to the Grammy scene. You’ve won Grammys before so this isn’t your first Grammy nod.
No, no. It’s actually my thirteenth.
Wow, awesome. Now tell us about this nomination.
The whole “Bruno Mars” song was a dedication type of thing. Bruno is a great artist, but he’s an incredible writer and a lot of people don’t realize that he writes a lot. Like the new Adele record, he’s on there and most people don’t even know that. He’s a great producer and a great writer and it was an amazing experience.
What’s going on with Vocally Challenged?
Vocally Challenged was an idea that I had at the end of 2014, where I was like “yo, we need to put together a group kind of like Pentatonix, but like a little bit more urban, if you will.” So, we started twiddling around with some ideas and they started coming together really nicely. Next thing we knew, we had one song, we had three songs, we had five songs, we had ten songs and we were like whoa! And most people were asking “Vocally Challenged, what does that mean? You guys can sing! What does that mean!?” It’s an oxymoron. It’s a play on words. I mean it got people talking! And it worked for Icy Hot, then you got Biggie Smalls — one of the biggest rappers of all time. And so it goes on and on and on.
Tell us about the new artists PAJAM has coming on board.
I’m the visionary of the PAJAM family. Sometimes it works for me, and sometimes it works against me. But we had an idea to put together a pop artist – and actually we found her at 13. Her name is Marcy. So, we’ve been grooming her over the last several years. We’ve recorded a lot of songs, we went through boot camp and all these different things. But this Marcy girl is going to be so big! She’s a pop sensation! She’s a vocal genius. She hears things, and she makes melodies out of them. She may hear a beat and she’ll start beatboxing to it, and snapping her fingers and coming up with words. It’s amazing. Her creativity has just come alive in the last nine months. So, we’re really proud of that.
Tell us about your current and upcoming projects. Look out for Marcy coming soon (pics below). The new J. Moss project is out and is making noise and is at the top of the billboard charts. We have a group named 21:03, new project coming soon. My project, I did a dance song last year that was considered for a Grammy this year, we didn’t make the final ballot but this year we will. It’s called “Doin Something Right” and it’s a club banger, so make sure you go to iTunes or Amazon to download it and check it out — it’s off the chain . So, we’re doing a lot of stuff.
What’s next for you and PAJAM?
Next for us? More movies, more soundtracks. We’re actually scripting movies right now. We’re getting some things looked at and we’re pitching tv shows to a lot of different networks. So, that’s the bigger picture for PAJAM as a whole. We still have the label, and we’re signing artists to the label. We’re still producing and writing for other artists. We’re still doing our boot camp, because we are definitely leaders of the new school, as we would put it. We bring in some of the other talent and we cultivate them, writers producers, artists – things of that nature — choreographers, dancers, the whole nine. So, that way we’re a complete production house.
Thank you for the interview. Where can our readers find you? They can go to www.pajam-music.com and you can also reach me at @PDA_PAJAM on Twitter and IG.
Photos credit: Porsha Monique for Steed Media unless noted otherwise.
