With fans and the industry still abuzz over Rihanna’s 24th birthday release of her two remix collaborations with Chris Brown, Billboard spoke with The-Dream, producer behind RiRi’s “Birthday Cake.” The singer/songwriter shared details of the creations and his own feelings on how we should react to the pairs musical reunion.
“For me, it’s just music — two talented people doing a record together, doing two records together, and that’s what it was,” The-Dream told Billboard.com. “It wasn’t about an incident that happened. The true thing really is to forgive, and… you want to believe in people.”
The-Dream, who is currently readying his own album, The Love IV: Diary of a Mad Man, says that the “Cake” remix was finished barely a week ago, after a 78-second version of the song appeared on Rihanna’s sixth studio album, Talk That Talk, in November.
“It was Rih’s idea,” says the producer. “Not only do we work together, but [Rihanna] is a friend of mine. And it’s like, ‘You wanna do something? Then cool, let’s do it.’ I don’t know how she got the logistics and how it happened — maybe she’ll talk about it one day. I showed up at the studio, and it was like, ‘All right, cool, let’s finish this record,’ which we probably should have finished the first time we did it.”
The-Dream says that Rihanna’s fans should accept her collaboration with Brown as a positive example of forgiveness.
“I think [the topic] that should be more on the tongues is: how do we proclaim to be a nation of forgiving, and we go by all of these rules and everything, but we can’t actually do it?” he says. “It actually makes you look weaker than your adversary — if you don’t have the power to forgive, but you lie and say that you did.
“Because this is about her,” The-Dream continues, of Rihanna. “If she can forgive, that’s where she is mentally. As a friend, it’s like, ‘Okay, cool. Let’s roll.'”
