Dallas Austin Wrote Some Of Your Faves' Biggest Hits — Now He's Getting His Hall Of Fame Due

By Jewel Wicker


Dallas Austin was once "catfished" — before the phrase had even been coined — by ladies pretending to be Salt-N-Pepa. The musician and songwriter in back of dozens of pop and R&B hits, including Top 10 smashes by TLC, Pink, and more, says he consistently spent hours on the phone with the imposters. He even traveled to New Jersey to meet the person he imagined to be Spinderella at a skating rink to no avail. Eventually, he met the real rappers at a basketball game and realized he'd been played. The posers, Austin says, had also been speaking with Jermaine Dupri and helped instigate a beef that was brewing between the two Atlanta creatives. At the time, Austin was producing for the Michael Bivins-discovered order Another Bad Creation and Dupri was masterminding rival Atlanta kid sort Kris Kross. It'd take the two boys years to reconcile.


The two have definitely come a long way since then. Thursday night (June 13), Dupri will support induct Austin into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, recognizing him for the bevy of hits he’s helped write. Austin mentioned he instructed them Hall of Fame he wanted Dupri, who entered the hall in 2018, to do the honors immediately whenever he learned he'd be inducted. "I met him at the vehicle wash in North Clayton [when I was] 17, and me and him [have] been companions back and forth since then," he says, noting the two are also working on beginning a firm together.


Austin says being inducted is the largest honor I could have" — and it's definitely well deserved. The Georgia-bred songwriter and producer was the man beyond several of the timeless girls anthems of the '90s and early 2000s. From TLC's "Creep" to Monica's "Don't Take It Personalized (Just One of Dem Days)" and Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me," Austin helped these outspoken young ladies create the songs that would come to define their lasting legacies. "I would take mostly girl perceptions, look at it from a guy's standpoint, and write a song. I feel like I got more depth out of women's songs," Austin says. Long before Lil Yachty helped write City Girls's "Act Up," the women's anthem of summer 2019, Austin penned Blu Cantrell's "Hit 'Em Up Fashion (Oops)," a song about getting revenge on a cheating ex by spending all of his cash.


in case you ask Austin about the secret in back of his songwriting success, he'll react with a carefree response that would imply they were somehow easy. Writing for artists is all about getting to know them and understanding how to take one's own experiences and filter them through another person's perspective, he'll mention. Yet capturing spirit all of the artists Austin has penned for isn't as effortless as he's made it look.


Since executive producing Boyz II Men's 1991 debut album, including the single "Motownphilly," Austin has written and produced for JC Chasez, Madonna, Carly Rae Jepsen, and more. TLC's "Creep" noticed Austin producing and writing a quintessential R&B song of the '90s, featuring a jazzy trumpet sample woven while in a hip-hop beat and controversial lyrics about cheating on a preoccupied boyfriend.


Less than a decade later, he'd trade that sensual R&B sound for the gritty pop stylings of Pink on "Don't Let Me Get Me," a song backed by an electric guitar as a substitute opposed to a trumpet. Austin mentioned he wrote the song right after arguing with his on-again-off-again girlfriend at the time, TLC's Chilli, before a session with Pink. "I got back inside the studio and I'm just like, 'I'm a hazard to myself,'" he says. The songwriter says several of the songs her wrote for the singer's 2001 album Missundaztood were inspired by his own tumultuous relationship, but he'd modify the lyrics to create them uniquely Pink.


This is how Gwen Stefani's synth-pop hit "Cool" was created, also. Austin, says he remembers listening to No Doubt's "Simple sort of Life" and wondering how Stefani and bandmate-slash-ex-boyfriend Tony Kanal were able to work with each other and make such personalized songs about their relationship. Inspired by this, he began writing "Cool." He believed finishing the song with TLC, yet says he was miserable in the session. "The last thing I [wanted] to do is sit in a studio with [Chilli] and record this song with her talking about we're cool," he says. He wrote "Damaged" for the order as a substitute and contained on to "Cool" up until he met Stefani several years later. Right after explaining how she’d inspired the lyrics and playing it for her, the two finished the song with each other.


Of course, not all of Austin’s hit songs were inspired by his relationship with Chilli. Years right after Austin helped the kids of Another Bad Creation find success with "Iesha" in the early '90s, he signed Monica, a 11-year-old who sported "Greenbriar [Mall] rings, sweatsuit, and gold glasses" to his record label, Rowdy — a venture Austin hopes to relaunch this year — and executive produced her debut album, Miss Thang. Even as a kid, Monica had experienced a number of hardships. So on the project, as an alternative opposed to toning down her attitude, Austin tapped into it. He says he remembers thinking "if Brandy's attitude is 'I Wanna Be Down,' Monica's attitude is going to be 'get down.'" He wrote the album's lead single, "Don't Take It Personalized (Just One of Dem Days)" and eventually co-produced the hit teamwork "The Boy Is Mine" with Brandy. By the time Monica was prepared to record her second album, Austin and Dupri had reconciled their previous contradictions. Dupri produced and co-wrote the hit single "The First Night" for the project.


Right now, decades soon after they first met, Austin and Dupri are hoping to work with each other on a common basis. The two are both continuing to grow Atlanta as an entertainment hub, with Austin working in the newly formed Georgia Entertainment Caucus to make build a bridge between the music organization and government. One of their objectives is to make sure the state's music-tax incentives are efficient and to prepare an entertainment district in the city. The Dallas Austin Foundation, formed by Austin in 2003, also provides him an outlet to teach local kids about the agency characteristic of the music industry. In doing this, he hopes to help the next wave of creatives avoid the agency problems he and his companions went through early in their careers.


Later this year, he'll also launch a new organization, JDA, alongside Dupri. Austin says he hopes the Atlanta-based corporation firm will eventually encompass music, film and TV production, a management firm, and more. "We want JDA to be the Dreamworks of Atlanta by the time we're done," Austin says. "[It will] wrap up our story nicely."