Theron Thomas is a Grammy-nominated songwriter, producer, and member of the Virgin Island hip-hop duo R. City, and continues to make waves on music’s mainstage with big contributions, most recently Jung Kook’s “Seven” featuring Latto, which just broke the record as the fastest song to reach one billion streams in Spotify’s history.
Thomas has used his pen to help with some of the biggest collabs of the year, including Chlöe and Future’s “Cheatback,” Ciara and Chris Brown’s “How We Roll” and Lil Durk and J. Cole’s “All My Life.”
Thomas spoke with rolling out about making Spotify history, and his goal when writing songs.
What were the emotions around making history with “Seven”?
I didn’t expect it. I’m not going to sit here and be like “Yo, I knew that song was good enough.” I didn’t know. I knew I liked it. I tried an idea first and the producer was like, “Theron it’s not that good. I need something more simple.” I was in there with my son, and I was like, “What’s more simple than the days of the week?” That’s when I came up with the “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,” chorus. We went from there and Jon Bellion came in, and Watt and Cirkut were on production. Latto came in on her verse, Jung Kook Cook killed the vocal, and at the end of the day, I feel like we got a great song and a great conversation — being that we made history and all.
What do you want listeners to catch when you’re writing songs?
I’m trying to put melody to the conversation. If I put a melody to the conversation and I can talk about it, I feel like the listener can digest it and relate to it. In any song that I’ve ever written and I say, “That’s my best friend. She’s a real bad b—-, she’s got her own money, she doesn’t need no n—-” or “Pour it up,” I feel like those things can be said in a normal conversation. So if I could say it in a way and put a melody to it, I think I can bring people together, and bring people together to relate to it because they’re like, “Yo, I felt that way. I’ve said that. I understand that perspective.” That’s the vibe I’m trying to make in the studio. My goal is always to make the biggest and best song every day. Not saying that I do it every day. I miss more shots than I make — [if I’m] being truly honest and transparent, but the shots that we make, we score big when we do score, and that’s very important.
