How Pharrell Helped Lion Babe Hone Their Stylish Throwback Soul
In 2013, before “Happy” or “Get Lucky,” Pharrell Williams opened a text from an industry friend. The message led him to an amateur music video shot in the woods by four twentysomething college grads. It showed a woman dripping in oil and sunlight with a glorious mane of hair, singing over a threadbare beat. “Come over here, let’s talk awhile,” she crooned while holding long, yogic poses. The song, “Treat Me Like Fire,” flowed like Beat poetry in molasses.
Pharrell was hooked. The Neptunes singer/producer, known for his love of stripped-down R&B, flew the New York–based duo called Lion Babe — singer/dancer Jillian Hervey and producer Lucas Goodman — to his Miami recording studio before they had even released an EP.
“He was just so quick, flipping through sounds on his laptop while he probably had three sessions going at once,” Goodman told Rolling Stone. “He made some loops and put them on a flash drive and just said, ‘You guys mess around with this and then come back with something.'” It was daunting enough to be in a recording studio for the second time ever (previously, they’d recorded in Goodman’s apartment), but Goodman and Hervey were massive fans.
“Pharrell was great about fine-tuning and cutting tracks down, especially since our songs have such peculiar structures,” said Hervey. She laughed that Pharrell vetoed a part of a song that, in her words, sounded like something he did in 2007.
“I wasn’t completely terrified,” Hervey laughed. She was much more nervous singing in front of Mark Ronson, weeks earlier at his London studio on a track called “Lucky Man” that didn’t make it on the record. “I was like, ‘I’m not Amy Winehouse!'” she mock-cried.
Managed by First Access Industries, the group behind the careers of Iggy Azalea, Ellie Goulding, Rita Ora and Zayn Malik, Lion Babe is well-positioned to bring their soul-inspired hits to the Top 40. Hervey’s bravado and empowered delivery, featured to great effect on the duo’s new debut, Begin, seems tailored to fill the Brandy/Monica/Aaliyah–shaped niche that has gathered dust since the early 2000s.
Lion Babe has been racking up co-signs from artists such Mark Ronson, Childish Gambino — who guests on Begin‘s “Jump Hi,” a hazy R&B jam that floats on a Nina Simone sample — and Disclosure, which nabbed Hervey’s dark, deadpan vocal for their 2015 track “Hourglass.”
Touring with Disclosure in 2015, Lion Babe brought new tunes like “Wonder Woman,” the track they cut with Pharrell, to major venues like Madison Square Garden and the Sydney Opera House. “I saw a GIF on my Tumblr of Wonder Woman,” Hervey told Rolling Stone, “And for the first time, Pharrell was like: ‘There is your topic: Go write a song about that.'” The impromptu setup became the through line of Lion Babe’s entire album, she said. “I was reflecting on the way so much of soul has these simple, standalone messages that become classics,” said Hervey. “I wanted this to be about empowerment.”