Dec 14, 2016 lijah Scarlett talks producing "For Whom The Bell Tolls." BY: JOHN KENNEDY Two years ago, producer Elijah Scarlett was an NYU freshman embarking on his first winter in the Big Apple. The New Orleans native, who was accustomed to year-round warmth, was down about the frigid campus conditions, so he bundled up behind his laptop and channelled his winter blues into a chilly instrumental that would eventually open J. Cole’s fourth solo studio album, 4 Your Eyez Only. “I was pretty bummed out,” the now-20-year-old producer tells Genius about creating the foundation for Cole’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” “It was kind of crazy because it feels like they really got the vibe down with all of the lyrics and the emotion of the song.” The beat landed on J. Cole’s project after Dreamville president Ibrahim Hamad discovered it on Soundcloud in January 2016 and reached out to an incredulous Scarlett. Cole added some zest to the beat—horns (Nico Segal, Anthony Ware, Theo Croker), strings (CharGaux) and background vocals (Kay Foxx)—and sung a metaphor about rainfall to open his emotional LP. “It’s a lot prettier,” Scarlett says of the final product, which he heard after the album’s release. “I thought they would probably change a bunch of stuff and it would kind of be a different thing but it was cool.” elijah scarlett @elijah_scarlett yo i'm rlly tired rn but check out the first song on j coles album guess who made that beat it was me lolololololOLOLOLOLOLOLOL 3:39 AM - 9 Dec 2016 Scarlett originally whipped up the beat on his laptop using production program Ableton—he used a Rhodes VST to add the lush keys—and spent months tweaking the five-minute track. Cole truncated it to just over two minutes, choosing the section that features a toy piano sound that resembles bell chimes (hence the song’s title and nod to Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel). A music major currently studying abroad in Berlin, Scarlett began producing three years ago, after focusing on jazz while enrolled at New Orleans' Benjamin Franklin High School. His placement on Cole’s 4 Your Eyez Only is a first—in fact he’s previously only collaborated with friends who are emerging musicians. While musicial geniuses like Flying Lotus, Arca and Jai Paul are his sonic heroes, Scarlett lists Lupe Fiasco and Earl Sweatshirt as his two dream rap collaborations. For now, though, he’s just taking in his big-time 4 Your Eyez Only credit—and trying to get through finals week. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me,” Scarlett says.
