Inside The Credits 033: Jon Bellion/TenRoc
Jon Bellion & TenRoc’s Path To Convergence On A Neptunes/Timbo/JT Update
Somehow, I didn’t hear the Kid Laroi single “GIRLS” until last week. It came out in late June but a stray Tik Tok found my ears and forever livened them up. The song is a perfect example of something I love to hear in music: an update and progression of a sound I revere nostalgically.
Listening to “GIRLS” brought me right back to 2002 when the NSYNC frontman officially made his pivot solo. Justin Timberlake collided with Pharrell and The Neptunes as they were making music intended for Michael Jackson (that he didn’t want), and Timbaland as he was looking to make his new millennium mark in Pop. There was a combined sound on the Justified album that hit my ears with a deep understanding and intrigue. I heard a combination of what my parents had shown me and what I had discovered on my own all at once. It was a combo of 80s MJ and Lionel Ritchie, mixed with 90s boy band, Mystikal beats, and Ginuwine.
The people responsible for honing in on that hyper specific sound and bringing it organically to the world of The Kid Laroi are producers Jon Bellion and TenRoc. Two other producers, Pete Nappi and Roget Chahayed, are also credited, but I’m gonna presume since Bellion and TenRoc are credited first, and because they have a bit of a history as a duo, that they are the main orchestrators. They first and foremost fused the Neptunes and Timbo sounds with immaculate symmetry. The beginning of the track sounds like a “Cry Me A River” interlude Timbaland would make a stank face to, and when the beat drops, the hook has a quintessential Timbo bounce. The other main element of the song is basically “Like I Love You” 2.0. There is a shifting guitar and background percussive elements that make you shimmy and provide the ideal pocket for Laroi to maneuver.
Laroi’s trappier sensibilities live seamlessly within the confines of this multi-influence instrumental collage. He replaces JT’s whisper singing with buoyant talk-sing flows that bring the dynamic early 2000s essence to 2024. Yet still, in stark transitional moments of pure sheen, Laroi leans into his ability to croon with the best of them. The vocalist is only able to innovate due to the contemporary drive the instrumental achieves. Bellion and TenRoc crafted a refined hybrid that’s futuristic pulse is only as good as the time capsule it uncovered.
The two producers linked on a rogue Shawn Mendes song, “Heartbeat,” for the Lyle Lyle Crocodile soundtrack in 2022. Then they proceeded to cook up three albums together back to back for Jonas Brothers, Jon Batiste, and Tori Kelly. Thus, their initial meeting of musical minds must’ve had an immediate spark. But they both had to start elsewhere to make that ideal moment what it was.
Bellion, who is also a solo-artist singer/songwriter himself, produced five songs for other big artists before TenRoc even got behind the boards. In 2013 he executed “Trumpets” for Jason Derulo, in 2015 he produced “Robin Williams” for Cee-Lo Green, in 2019 he finessed “Liar” for Camilla Cabello and “Graveyard” for Halsey, and in 2020 knocked out “Vulnerable” for Selena Gomez. This slew of singles gave Bellion a rounded repertoire of Pop producing. He went from saccharine to soulful to Latin to EDM-laced, thus becoming deft at producing a hybrid sound.
TenRoc emerged in 2020 and 2021 in the melodic rap and r&b space producing tracks for Rich The Kid, Nba Youngboy, Omarion, and Toosii. This stomping ground would be essential to match the eventual weaving flow of The Kid Laroi. There was just one element left to complete the puzzle of influence: learning how to produce for a male Popstar with an r&b edge.
Naturally, in 2021 Bellion produced four tracks on Justin Bieber’s career defining album Justice: “Holy” feat. Chance The Rapper, “Ghost,” “Anyone,” and “Name” feat. Tori Kelly. There is no artist in modern pop who is more adjacent to The Kid Laroi on the pop r&b spectrum. This was proven on Laroi and Bieber’s chart topping collaboration “Stay,” which also dropped in 2021. On that song, Laroi and Bieber at times sound so similar it’s hard to decipher who is singing what. Bellion’s production on Justice was equal parts open and heartfelt as well as driving and playful. He used pristine Pop sequencing to surround Bieber with a crystalline atmosphere for vulnerability. Once he collided with TenRoc, he added the necessary edge to that equation.
While the three albums the duo have done together over the past three years are bountiful, they don’t feel like they are an exact alignment of equal parts of their superpowers. “GIRLS” is building continual momentum for Laroi because it has two piercers of modern sound working on all cylinders in absolute congruence. Maybe it took them three albums to find it, but now that it’s here, I simply can’t stop going back for more.
Inside The Credits 033: Jon Bellion/TenRoc- The Playlists