Check The Credits: Crystal Nicole Tells The Stories On Writing for Rihanna, J.Lo, Mariah Carey & More

“Love All Over Me” – Monica

I was just playing that one in the car with the song’s inspiration – my husband – the other day [laughs]. I was in the studio with Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox.  Jermaine was like, “Look, this is what we’re here to do. Monica needs a number-one R&B record and that’s what we’re going to do tonight.” To be honest, he just kind of spoke it into existence. It was very supernatural. B. Cox started playing these chords and before he could finish the song was already written. It was like somebody just poured the words into me and I just poured them out on to the page. A funny thing about that record is how I got a piece of the concept from something so far from the meaning of the song. I was actually at the park a few days earlier with my husband – you’re going to think this is either really funny or really nasty [laughs] – and we’re walking in the park and I stepped in some dog poo, so end up having to throw my shoes away. I get to the studio a few days later and Jermaine is talking this number-one R&B record stuff, but I can’t get out of my mind that I threw away my shoes, because I stepped in dog poo. Somehow I came up with the first line “I must not have been paying attention. I stepped right on it and didn’t even know how deep I was.” Crazy as it sounds, that came from me thinking about what had happened a few days before. I love to take things that have nothing to do with each other and make them marry each other. Like taking dog poo and turning it into the number-one love ballad.