About A Place With No Name - Commentary by LA Reid

As strange as it may be, once we got into the project

There was something missing for me

And I felt that I had a conversation with, uh

One of my favorite A&R men that worked on this record, Shalik Berry

Uh, and I had a conversation with Shalik that I feel like we're hitting a wall

And Shalik said, "It's time to open it up then"

He said, "You need to think about some different people"

And so next on my list was Stargate, you know?

So, I went to them and I played them the work

The body of work that we created up to that point

And I played them a couple of songs that weren't done

And I asked them to get involved, and they respectfully declined

Because they didn't think that there was anything that I played them

That they thought they could bring to life

Or that particularly spoke to them

So I left the studio a little disappointed

I got back to my office and listened to A Place With No Name, the original demo

And I asked my assistant, get this to the studio to Stargate right away

Like right now, like, don't send it

Get in a taxi, hand-deliver it and ask them to listen to it right now, please

So, I called ahead and said I'm sending somebody to the studio

But when she gets there, you have to listen right now

And they listen, and they called me back and said "This is it

This is the one, this one speaks to us"

So that's how Stargate got involved