99 Souls on taking on Beyonce's dad for Girl Is Mine and collaborating with soul superstars - Interview

If you search for music by 99 Souls online, you won't find much more than their latest single Girl Is Mine.

That's because it took the duo, who comprise of UK-based producer Soul and Jo, the best part of a year convincing some of music's most powerful people to give them permission to make the dance track, which samples/features Destiny's Child's 2005 hit Girl and Brandy & Monica's '90s classic Boy Is Mine. And while we all know how things turned out (the track peaked at Number 5 on the Official Singles Chart earlier this year), the story behind it is pretty incredible...

Hello 99 Souls! Where are you at the moment?

Soul: Right now? We’re in the studio with a guy called Mike Kintish. He wrote that song Deeper Love with Mike Mago. We’re working on a bit of a festival anthem together at the moment and it’s a bit of a serious one… we’re working hard.

Well you’ve got a big act to follow with Girl Is Mine, which been a massive hit for you. You must be pleased?  

Soul: It’s awesome. We were climbing the chart for so long, and there haven’t been a lot of on air, on sale successes with new dance tracks yet, so to get to Number 5 with it was seriously amazing.

It took a while to get there, but were you confident of its chances all along?

Soul: These days, you can get a decent gauge of what’s happening from online reaction and things like Shazam, but we were always a bit nervous. We were assured this would be a big record, but it’s a relief for us that it's done well because if it hadn’t, things would obviously be a bit tougher for us now.

It samples/mashes up Destiny’s Child’s Girl and Brand & Monica’s The Boy Is Mine. Getting clearance to use both those tracks in that way can’t have been easy?

Soul: In terms of publishing, it wasn’t too difficult. The writers all liked the song and – not to sound too crass - they knew it wouldn’t hurt their bank balances. All the Destiny’s Child girls signed off on it straight away; Beyonce really likes the track from what we’ve been told…

One of two big obstacles was Beyonce’s dad Matthew Knowles. Way back right at the beginning of licensing the track, Matthew said no, so we got on the phone and asked him why, and he said it was because the song only featured Beyonce’s vocal and not the other girls, and he represented Destiny’s Child at the time as a whole. Once we knew the problem we realised there was a possibility of him clearing a certain version of the song. Over the months we kept in contact with him and built a rapport - a friend of ours even hand-delivered a gift to him from us! Eventually we met him and convinced him to say yes.

How do you convince a man like Matthew Knowles?

Soul: He definitely gives off the impression of being a bit tough, and he is, but he’s also a super cool guy. We got on with him really well. So Matthew was one obstacle, and the other was Brandy…

Yes, what happened with the Brandy & Monica part of the track?

Soul: Again, the writers were all on board – Rodney Jerkins wrote it and is one of the all-time greats! The issue was the master of the song. The label said they would only let us use it if one of the rappers on their label could also have the track as well. They were offering us £50k to remix this other track, but it just didn’t fit with where we wanted to go. They wouldn't clear this song with us until we agreed to do the track for the rapper.

So instead, we got Brandy to re-record it. She was doing Chicago on Broadway at the time, so it took her a while to get her in the studio, but we eventually did it. I remember we got the green light for a Sunday session with her in LA on a Friday night. We were playing Broadmasters Festival at the time (in Cornwall), and I just about managed to get the only flight I could have got to make the session in time. It was amazing to be in the studio with Brandy, and all’s well that ends well I guess!

Yes, and great that it was worth all that effort. Are you going to keep things a little simpler for the next single though?

Both: DEFINITELY!

Soul: In fact, right now I don't want to ever sample a song again! [laughs]

Jo: Girl Is Mine was originally meant to be a promo track to get our name out there. It’s a house track, but a lot what we make is more soulful house using live instrumentation. We love house music, but we find a lot of the subject matter in the songs is very simple. We’re trying to go for a deeper message, which is why we’re working so hard on our album at the moment.

Soul: We’re looking to make an album of anthem after anthem, with amazing string sections and ultimately stands up against any period of music. Obviously we’ve got a long way to go, and we’ll have to bridge the gap a bit with next single – we can’t do a complete 180.

Going back a bit, how did 99 Souls come to be?

Soul: We were both working in music under various guises before this. I started off as a DJ when I was a kid, and Jo, you basically came out of the womb playing the guitar, right?

Jo: Basically, yes. My day job is a jazz musician, which keeps me sane amongst the current madness. We met about five years ago when we worked on some hip-hop music with a mutual friend. We both have very similar aspirations when it comes to music, and we’re both incredible perfectionists. We’ll work as hard as we need to to make a track perfect. Honestly, there must be about 60 – 70 versions of Girl Is Mine. It took us a year to get it finished and we worked so, so hard on it.

What's the most difficult aspect to producing music?

Jo: 5% of being a producer knowing what you’re talking about, and 95% is looking for the right kick drum.

Which singers are you approaching to work with you at the moment? Any big names?

Jo: We recently worked with Bryn Christopher, an incredible vocalist who sang on Sigala’s Sweet Lovin’. There’s nothing better than working with a great singer – it’s like an amazing unique instrument you get to play with and when they’re great at it, it’s always very inspiring. We’d love to work with people like Alicia Keys, John Legend, Kanye West, Sam Smith, Maxwell, Jess Glynne…  big soul vocals appeal to us.

Soul: We’d love to somehow persuade Adele to get on a house track, although we’re not rating our chances on that happening. About a year ago we were sent Coldplay’s single and I had this Big Sean-style flow in my head that would go with it and I thought, we’ve got to get Chris Martin rapping on this track! One day we’ll get to work with everyone we want to, but – as corny as this sounds – you have to get to a certain position before all your dreams can come true!”

Girl Is Mine by 99 Souls is out now.