<p>Bibi Bourelly, who has written songs for big names like Rihanna, Usher and Selena Gomez is now hoping to make hits for herself, writes Joe Coscarelli.</p>.<p>‘Higher’, the rawest song on Rihanna’s new album, Anti, is a knockout 2-minute soul ballad about whiskey, smoking and late-night phone calls that happens to have been written by a 19-year-old. Bibi Bourelly, now 21, was also responsible for Rihanna’s 2015 hit single ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’, along with tracks last year by Usher and Selena Gomez — an auspicious industry arrival by a proud, self-proclaimed outsider.<br /><br />But the same early successes that have positioned Bourelly for a viable career as a solo artiste — her first EP, Free the Real, was released recently via Def Jam — also set the bar high for her development. While established stars have carried Bourelly’s songs far, she will now be expected to make hits for herself, even though her nimble writing and earnest rebel image defy the easy categorisation preferred by radio and marketing professionals.<br />“I’m the type of person who really wants to exist and live honestly, to just say what I have to say and be who I am and do what I want,” Bourelly said over lunch in Manhattan. “Fortunately and unfortunately, what I love entails, and makes, a lot of money.”<br /><br />In the self-made, confessional mould of recent major-label prospects including Lorde, Halsey and Alessia Cara, Bourelly has an easy confidence in her craft and no allegiance to genre. Her own 3-minute pop songs are typically guitar-based, mixing hip-hop cadences with the angst of 90s female singer-songwriters. On the fizzy single ‘Sally’, lyrics about twerking and haters are shouted over a bluesy clap-and-stomp backing track.<br /><br />That novel but not always seamless mix was apparent at this singer’s inaugural Society Sessions event, an aesthetically underground party in the renovated basement of the old Williamsburgh Savings Bank, where Bourelly, backed by a 3-piece live band of scraggly rock guys, followed a DJ playing recent hits by Future and Drake.<br /><br />‘Ego’, first released last year and also a song from the EP, best illustrates her youthful commitment to nonconformity: “They want me to be this picture-perfect girl / In a little picture-perfect world / But I cuss when I talk, and I lean when I walk.” <br /><br />And she does, punctuating her songs and speech with swagger and a few well-placed curses — and then a few more for good measure. When Bourelly catches herself spouting anodyne industry platitudes, she interrupts with the opposite: a string of playful, self-mocking obscenities.<br /><br />She is also aware of her squirminess when it comes to being boxed in by genre labels. “That’s so easy for everyone to do to me, not only because of my pen, but because of how I look — because I’m black and I’m honest and I’m emotional,” said Bourelly, who ordered a chardonnay to chase her elaborate sushi order. “The world is going to do that to me, but I’m not going to do that to myself.”<br /><br />While growing up...<br /><br />Bourelly, who is of Haitian and Moroccan descent, grew up bouncing between Berlin, where her guitarist father, Jean-Paul Bourelly, lived while not on tour, and the Washington area, where she stayed with an aunt and uncle. High school was a constant struggle, and college never an option, she said, having decided her life’s purpose by puberty.<br /><br />While she was at home in Germany, her adolescent interest in Beyoncé, Britney Spears and the Jonas Brothers mixed with her dad’s love of jazz-fusion and A Tribe Called Quest. “We would alternate days in the car,” Bourelly said. “That’s how my taste was really formed.”<br /><br />At 19, she moved to Los Angeles to work with a producer she met on Facebook. There, she quickly found a manager whose connections — along with her strong demos — put her into a room with Kanye West and Rihanna.<br /><br />The release of ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ in March 2015 got Bourelly’s name circulating. But first there was the sketch for ‘Higher’, a title now tattooed in casual script in the middle of Bourelly’s right forearm. “That song changed my life,” she said. Still, having made it first as a songwriter in the shadows was “bittersweet,” Bourelly explained. “It was awesome because I was writing for one of the biggest artistes in the world after 4 months in LA.” However, “it’s hard to give your songs away,” she added.<br /><br />Learning curve<br /><br />In what might be Rihanna’s finest vocal performance to date, she stretches on ‘Higher’ to find the plaintive voice cracks that are Bourelly’s speciality. The opportunity gave this young songwriter a chance to make her mark on a major album, and provided her with a front-row seat to the necessary operation of a superstar, with cameras constantly watching and ceaseless scrutiny. “I needed to learn how that worked behind the scenes in order to understand how to be an artiste,” Bourelly said.<br /><br />For now, she exists in a strange limbo, having met her heroes, scored hit songs and performed on The Tonight Show, but not yet having broken out on her own.<br /><br />This transitional period can raise a set of specific conundrums for Bourelly, like deciding when is the right time to get a second cellphone (“I’m not even popping enough to have a burner”) and whether she’ll be touring in a van or a bus. (“Still a van,” her manager, Pete Dinero, chimed in.) Bourelly plans to release a second EP this summer — “The generic answer is that they’re 2 different chapters to my life, but the truth is, I just have too many songs,” she said — followed by an album later this year or early in 2017. She has written more than 300 songs, but insists it’s the creation, not the career strategising, that drives her.<br /><br />As for becoming a fully formed pop star, “It’s a work in progress,” she said. “I’m not ready yet, but I’m not supposed to be.”</p>
<p>Bibi Bourelly, who has written songs for big names like Rihanna, Usher and Selena Gomez is now hoping to make hits for herself, writes Joe Coscarelli.</p>.<p>‘Higher’, the rawest song on Rihanna’s new album, Anti, is a knockout 2-minute soul ballad about whiskey, smoking and late-night phone calls that happens to have been written by a 19-year-old. Bibi Bourelly, now 21, was also responsible for Rihanna’s 2015 hit single ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’, along with tracks last year by Usher and Selena Gomez — an auspicious industry arrival by a proud, self-proclaimed outsider.<br /><br />But the same early successes that have positioned Bourelly for a viable career as a solo artiste — her first EP, Free the Real, was released recently via Def Jam — also set the bar high for her development. While established stars have carried Bourelly’s songs far, she will now be expected to make hits for herself, even though her nimble writing and earnest rebel image defy the easy categorisation preferred by radio and marketing professionals.<br />“I’m the type of person who really wants to exist and live honestly, to just say what I have to say and be who I am and do what I want,” Bourelly said over lunch in Manhattan. “Fortunately and unfortunately, what I love entails, and makes, a lot of money.”<br /><br />In the self-made, confessional mould of recent major-label prospects including Lorde, Halsey and Alessia Cara, Bourelly has an easy confidence in her craft and no allegiance to genre. Her own 3-minute pop songs are typically guitar-based, mixing hip-hop cadences with the angst of 90s female singer-songwriters. On the fizzy single ‘Sally’, lyrics about twerking and haters are shouted over a bluesy clap-and-stomp backing track.<br /><br />That novel but not always seamless mix was apparent at this singer’s inaugural Society Sessions event, an aesthetically underground party in the renovated basement of the old Williamsburgh Savings Bank, where Bourelly, backed by a 3-piece live band of scraggly rock guys, followed a DJ playing recent hits by Future and Drake.<br /><br />‘Ego’, first released last year and also a song from the EP, best illustrates her youthful commitment to nonconformity: “They want me to be this picture-perfect girl / In a little picture-perfect world / But I cuss when I talk, and I lean when I walk.” <br /><br />And she does, punctuating her songs and speech with swagger and a few well-placed curses — and then a few more for good measure. When Bourelly catches herself spouting anodyne industry platitudes, she interrupts with the opposite: a string of playful, self-mocking obscenities.<br /><br />She is also aware of her squirminess when it comes to being boxed in by genre labels. “That’s so easy for everyone to do to me, not only because of my pen, but because of how I look — because I’m black and I’m honest and I’m emotional,” said Bourelly, who ordered a chardonnay to chase her elaborate sushi order. “The world is going to do that to me, but I’m not going to do that to myself.”<br /><br />While growing up...<br /><br />Bourelly, who is of Haitian and Moroccan descent, grew up bouncing between Berlin, where her guitarist father, Jean-Paul Bourelly, lived while not on tour, and the Washington area, where she stayed with an aunt and uncle. High school was a constant struggle, and college never an option, she said, having decided her life’s purpose by puberty.<br /><br />While she was at home in Germany, her adolescent interest in Beyoncé, Britney Spears and the Jonas Brothers mixed with her dad’s love of jazz-fusion and A Tribe Called Quest. “We would alternate days in the car,” Bourelly said. “That’s how my taste was really formed.”<br /><br />At 19, she moved to Los Angeles to work with a producer she met on Facebook. There, she quickly found a manager whose connections — along with her strong demos — put her into a room with Kanye West and Rihanna.<br /><br />The release of ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ in March 2015 got Bourelly’s name circulating. But first there was the sketch for ‘Higher’, a title now tattooed in casual script in the middle of Bourelly’s right forearm. “That song changed my life,” she said. Still, having made it first as a songwriter in the shadows was “bittersweet,” Bourelly explained. “It was awesome because I was writing for one of the biggest artistes in the world after 4 months in LA.” However, “it’s hard to give your songs away,” she added.<br /><br />Learning curve<br /><br />In what might be Rihanna’s finest vocal performance to date, she stretches on ‘Higher’ to find the plaintive voice cracks that are Bourelly’s speciality. The opportunity gave this young songwriter a chance to make her mark on a major album, and provided her with a front-row seat to the necessary operation of a superstar, with cameras constantly watching and ceaseless scrutiny. “I needed to learn how that worked behind the scenes in order to understand how to be an artiste,” Bourelly said.<br /><br />For now, she exists in a strange limbo, having met her heroes, scored hit songs and performed on The Tonight Show, but not yet having broken out on her own.<br /><br />This transitional period can raise a set of specific conundrums for Bourelly, like deciding when is the right time to get a second cellphone (“I’m not even popping enough to have a burner”) and whether she’ll be touring in a van or a bus. (“Still a van,” her manager, Pete Dinero, chimed in.) Bourelly plans to release a second EP this summer — “The generic answer is that they’re 2 different chapters to my life, but the truth is, I just have too many songs,” she said — followed by an album later this year or early in 2017. She has written more than 300 songs, but insists it’s the creation, not the career strategising, that drives her.<br /><br />As for becoming a fully formed pop star, “It’s a work in progress,” she said. “I’m not ready yet, but I’m not supposed to be.”</p>