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