{"id":228531,"date":"2025-04-09T16:44:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T15:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=228531"},"modified":"2025-04-09T16:44:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T15:44:59","slug":"im-getting-invited-to-a-few-more-lunches-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/im-getting-invited-to-a-few-more-lunches-now\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’m getting invited to a few more lunches now.’"},"content":{"rendered":"

MBW\u2019s World\u2019s Greatest Producers series sees us interview \u2013 and celebrate \u2013 some of the outstanding talents working in studios across the decades. Here we talk to Hoskins, a US-based UK producer who has worked with artists including Post Malone, Morgan Wallen, Beyonc\u00e9 and many more. World\u2019s Greatest Producers is supported by Kollective Neighbouring Rights<\/a>, the neighbouring rights agent that empowers and equips clients with knowledge to fully maximise their earnings.<\/p>\n

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Jonathan Hoskins knew his destiny. Having studied Music Technology at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, he told all his friends and family that he would have a No.1 record within two years of his 2011 graduation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter two years, I didn\u2019t have a No.1,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cIn fact, I didn\u2019t even know anyone in the music industry! If someone had told me at that point it was going to take this long to get to the point of extreme success, I would maybe have stopped earlier!\u201d<\/p>\n

But he didn\u2019t, and a mere 12 years behind schedule, the producer\u2019s wildest predictions are now coming true, as he\u2019s on a streak even hotter than the Los Angeles\u2019 sunshine he\u2019s currently basking in, having decamped to California 18 months ago.<\/p>\n

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He worked on\u00a0I Had Some Help<\/em>, the smash hit by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen, that topped the US Hot 100 last year and is still rattling around streaming charts 10 months later. As well as two other tracks on Posty\u2019s\u00a0F-1 Trillion<\/em>\u00a0album plus Wallen\u2019s\u00a0Whiskey Friends<\/em>, he\u2019s also featured on Teddy Swims\u2019 blockbuster\u00a0I\u2019ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2)<\/em>\u00a0album and Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s groundbreaking\u00a0Cowboy Carter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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But if it is, as he himself points out, somewhat surreal for a grime-loving kid from Southend to end up the toast of Hollywood and Nashville, Hoskins \u2013 as he\u2019s known professionally \u2013 has certainly earned the right to be there.<\/p>\n

Having discovered grime via pirate radio, he spent his teens running home from school to make beats on FruityLoops software and sending them out to rappers on MSN Messenger or releasing them on SoundCloud. He joined a grime collective before deciding to branch out musically after realising he \u201cdidn\u2019t know any grime producers than owned a house\u201d.<\/p>\n

He went to music college in East London and then the University of Hertfordshire, which opened his eyes to \u201cwhat it would be like to be a professional musician\u201d. Eventually realising he\u2019d have to make things happen himself, he headed for London, where, in meeting after meeting with publishing A&Rs, he was told his sound was \u201cvery American\u201d.<\/p>\n

So he asked everyone in his network to introduce him to \u201csomeone cool\u201d in LA and got involved in a K-pop camp in Seoul, meeting key collaborators such as Charlie Handsome (\u201cOur 10,000 hours of work on different areas within music just sync up really well\u201d) and Digi along the way.<\/p>\n

From there, he enjoyed breakthrough tracks with Khalid\u2019s Alive (\u201cHe was the biggest artist in America, Spotify stats-wise \u2013 being part of something given the stamp of success in America really gave me a kick on\u201d) and PartyNextDoor\u2019s The News (\u201cPeople were doing reaction videos \u2013 I used to look at those things and they\u2019d be about big, notable songs, but now it was about one I made: that put me on the other side of the glass\u201d) before moving Stateside full-time.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t rule out a return to the UK at some point but, for now, he\u2019s embracing the California kale\u2019n\u2019yoga lifestyle (\u201cAt first I thought it was stupid, but then I realised that, if you don\u2019t do that in America, you\u2019re eating weird chemicals that are banned in Europe \u2013 you either go full weirdo health guy or die at 40!\u201d) while maintaining the very English self-deprecation.<\/p>\n

Despite the hits, he has kept a low profile so far (Google \u2018Hoskins\u2019 and you\u2019ll wade through pages of\u00a0The Long Good Friday<\/em>\u00a0tributes before you find him), although, with a load more potentially huge projects in the pipeline (\u201cI\u2019m trying to make stuff for all of the biggest artists in the world\u201d), that might not be the case for long.<\/p>\n

But for now, the producer\/writer \u2013 managed by Milk & Honey and published by Sony Music Publishing \u2013 settles down with MBW for a rare interview to talk country music, TikTok and why AI is welcome to his old sound\u2026<\/p>\n

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Are you pleased you took the slowburn route to success?<\/h6>\n

Yeah. If I didn\u2019t do it day-by-day, step-by-step, I probably wouldn\u2019t have got there. But, in turn, that means you don\u2019t really take it in.<\/p>\n

When I went to the Grammys I was like, \u2018Wait a sec, this is actually pretty cool\u2019. I was on the red carpet and people were asking me questions. I really took that in \u2013 otherwise, I\u2019m just making music as I have been doing every day for 15 years.<\/p>\n

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What does a hot streak like this do for your career? Is your phone ringing off the hook?<\/h6>\n

Yeah, but it\u2019s more nuanced than that. There are some good talkers in the music industry \u2013 I\u2019m getting invited to a few more lunches now, and there are a few more, \u2018Dude, you should come to this show and come backstage\u2019. Then, at the show, they\u2019ll be like, \u2018So, I\u2019ve got this new artist \u2013 I need some songs\u2019.<\/p>\n

One thing that\u2019s great is, people listen to my songs with a different ear now. There are a lot of great ears in the music industry, but a lot of the time they\u2019re hearing so much stuff it is very useful to have the public\u2019s co-sign on some of your music.<\/p>\n

Now, when your song comes across their desk, they\u2019re like, \u2018OK, let\u2019s actually listen to this one twice\u2019 or, \u2018Let me wait for it to get to the chorus, because this guy\u2019s got a track record\u2019.<\/p>\n

“For the first six months of being in LA, I was just in grind mode and I didn\u2019t have much out that was particularly hot.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Plus, everybody I wanted to work with in terms of songwriters and producers, as soon as this stuff started coming together in a row, pretty much all of them were down to work, which was great.<\/p>\n

For the first six months of being in LA, I was just in grind mode and I didn\u2019t have much out that was particularly hot. I was just getting my head down and trying to get my word of mouth up. That combined with having songs actually out, so suddenly it was, \u2018OK, I\u2019ve heard this guy\u2019s name, this song\u2019s doing well and he\u2019s on these albums, maybe he\u2019s actually good!\u2019<\/p>\n

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Did you expect to make so many country records?<\/h6>\n

It wasn\u2019t part of the plan, but I rolled with the opportunities as they came.<\/p>\n

It stemmed from my close collaborator Charlie Handsome \u2013 he moved to Nashville and was hitting me up like, \u2018Dude, I\u2019m in Nashville, send me some stuff, I\u2019m working with these big country artists\u2019.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d listened to some country in passing \u2013 when you\u2019re from England, you\u2019ve heard of Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash and that\u2019s about it!<\/p>\n

I took the parts I felt connected to and repurposed them into country, but my country. I wasn\u2019t trying to do Waylon Jennings super-legit traditional country, I\u2019m not going to do that better than them. What I can do is, take the essence of country and the\u00a0parts I connect to and frame it in a way that sounds good and see if they like it.<\/p>\n

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