Sean ‘The Pen’ Garrett reveals why he’s ‘Still Over It’

Sean 'The Pen' Garrett reveals why he's 'Still Over It'
Photo courtesy of Sean Garrett
If making hits for aunties and hotties was a person, it would be producer, singer and songwriter Sean Garrett. Aptly nicknamed “The Pen,” he has impacted the culture with a series of chart-topping compositions, most notably Usher’s “Yeah!” which ranks second on the Billboard Hot 100 Songs of the Decade for 2000–2009. His resume boasts heavyweights such as Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z, Chris Brown, Lionel Richie, Brittney Spears and more. He is also in a production duo with Swizz Beatz.
The inimitable creative has produced 53 No. 1 singles and he is the only active hip-hop producer on Billboard’s list of producers with the most No. 1 hits.
Fellow ATLien, Summer’s Walker’s sophomore album, Still Over It, is the four-time Grammy-nominated artist’s latest opus. With over 200 million streams during its first week, it carries the best first-week performance for an R&B album this year. This also marks the all-time best single-week streaming performance for any R&B album by a female artist.

Rolling out recently spoke with the multihyphenate who shared his insight about Still Over It.

Share how Still Over It came together.

We recorded this album, and Summer was pregnant the entire time. There was life happening in that moment. I’ve never worked on an album like this before. It was unique ’cause not that other artists can’t write, but Summer is different, she can really write. She wasn’t  f—in’ with the “4th Baby Mama” perspective, but there’s a lot of fourth baby mamas out here. That title, “4th Baby Mama,” means something in our community that resonates with all of us. Summer didn’t know that that would become her once the tides turned.


As a big brother, I told her “You gon’ have to say what it is, you have to take control of that narrative because that’s what ownership is about. When you can say it first, yourself, no one can come and tell you or change that narrative.” That’s what I was focused on trying to get her to see. The reality of it was she’s a fourth baby mama, but the result of it is what she said.

Describe your creative process. How do you, as a man, write from a woman’s perspective?


I love my mother, I’m a mama’s boy, that’s my foundation. I never disrespected my mother and she went through a lot as a young woman, so I identify on a number of levels.

Computers and technology are an amazing accomplishment … but the one thing that’s impossible to recreate is the emotional newness of saying, I love you, or you hurt me, or I ain’t taking your sh– no more, in a different way that’s relatable to what’s happening right now. That’s something that will never change. It’s an analysis, like forensics. You gotta inspect what you expect, from the perspective of understanding where a person is sitting. Sometimes, you gotta be aggressive so you can peel back the layers to see where a person is sitting.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Join our Newsletter

Sign up for Rolling Out news straight to your inbox.

Read more about:
Also read