You’d be forgiven for not having heard of Roark Bailey, Nelson “Nellz” Kyle, DeJuan Cross, Trinidad James, V-Script and A1 Laflare. Likewise, it wouldn’t be surprising if the name the Safety Club didn’t ring any bells. But if you claimed not to have come across stars such as Drake, Lil Wayne, Diddy, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Nas, Future, Chris Brown, SAINt JHN and Post Malone, people might think you’d been hiding under a rock.
Either that, or you’re just not in tune with the tunes that get the youth of today dancing. What the two sets of names have in common are huge international hits, multiple Grammy nominations, platinum and gold-selling records and legions of fans around the world.
The Safety Club is a merry band of music producers based in Los Angeles and Atlanta, US. The collective was born in 2020 at the start of the pandemic when some of them decided to get together on weeklong “music camps” to experiment with the idea of combining their talents in a pressurised situation to see whether they could come up with hits, quickly.
As they say, “pressure makes diamonds” — and they believed they could produce commercial records to compete with others vying for attention in the maelstrom of music channels out there. It worked! And since the launch of the Safety Club, the group of producers has created hits for some of the biggest names in the industry, those already mentioned, and Jennifer Lopez, Wiz Khalifa, John Legend, Snoop Dogg, Young Thug, and others.
Instead of being tied down to a brick and mortar studio, the Safety Club started renting homes in Atlanta, LA and Miami to bring together the music community in those states to write, produce and record great tracks in a conducive, creative environment that included young, local talent.
They soon realised that they could take their “Big Brother of the music scene” concept and give it wings, extending their travels around the world where they could identify young, local talent, mentor these up-and-coming stars and help them get a foot through the door to potentially signing with international publishers or labels. They chose Cape Town as the location for the Safety Club’s first international music camp.
Ross Lowe grew up in Cape Town, the son of musician Henry Louw, the first South African to be signed to an international record label after apartheid ended. He was signed to Warner Brothers, moved to Atlanta, and inspired Ross to become an engineer and then a music artist. Ross’ first album went gold, selling 500,000 copies — but instead of catapulting him into the limelight, Ross decided, after working as a songwriter for Sony Music, that he’d rather concentrate on music management.
He manages many of the Safety Club members under the banner of his company, RL Music Collective, which he started in 2017 with his first client Roark , the head engineer at the studio where they worked. “Roark has this uncanny ability to make everyone sound amazing. He’s honestly in the top three music engineers in the world. Despite being that good, Roark’s real passion is producing. He’s a great engineer, producer, song writer, musician (he plays multiple instruments) and singer — plus he’s an amazing person,” says Ross.
Roark is a 33-year-old master of all things musical. He started playing guitar as a teenager. “My best friend‘s family were musicians and always had instruments around the house. When we were both 13 my friend picked up a guitar and I thought to myself, he’s not going to get all the girls — and so I picked up one too.”
At college, Roark started working in the Georgia Tech studio doing session guitar work and music production. “I loved being able to make the whole track from writing the song to the final production.”
“The first song Roark remembers writing at 12 was called Garage Sale — a punk track. He sang it to me, and the lyrics don’t bear repeating. He spent his late teens playing solo acoustic guitars at coffee shops, did low paying session musician work, engineered for Fergie [from the Black Eyed Peas], Akon and Sean Paul while gaining the knowledge that would help artists [and him] win Grammys,” says Ross.
“Gaining ground in the music industry is a slow-burning process. My advice to youngsters hoping to crack it is to acknowledge that in most cases it’s not going to happen overnight. A lot of my success has been based on relationships I've built over time.”
Roark and Ross called the collective Safety Club International because they loved the idea of being able to create music across borders and cultures. It’s an informal club made up of friends who are producers and writers. They started doing camps or workshops which have developed into successful music-making enterprises. The Safety Club chose Cape Town for its first international workshop because they believed there's so much undiscovered talent to mine.
In fact, on their first night out in the city, the team went out clubbing and fell in love with a track the DJ was playing. Turns out it was the hit, Ye X 4 by local rapper, Blxckie. “We’re still trying to contact him to collaborate,” says Roark.
How did they choose which South African talent to invite into the house?
“I had hundreds of folders,” says Ross. “I went through all of them and took recommendations from people in the local industry. We whittled it down to five artists: YoungstaCPT, who was named 'lyricist of the year' and was on heavy rotation on all radio Top 40 stations in the country; DSB, a rapper and music producer from Cape Town who launched his debut album, Do My Thing in 2016; Shekhinah, who’s album Trouble in Paradise debuted in Top 5 Albums on Spotify; Paxton Fielies, who won the 13th season of Idols SA, the youngest South African female to win the title at the age of 17; and Chaise Williams, who stared out as a dancer and segued into writing songs and singing.
“The young talent had to be ready to fit into what we wanted to do. The work rate is insanely fast,” says Ross. “We made upwards of 30 potential hit tracks in under a week. It’s not that surprising, we have the best producers under one roof working with a common goal. For instance, A1 LaFlare is one of our Grammy-nominated producers who has number 1 song in the US, Big Energy with Big Latto and a massively popular song with Saweetie and Doja Cat called Best Friend. Producers Trinidad James, Nelson “Nellz” Kyle and V-Script are here alongside local star producer Luke Goliath. We have one mission statement at the camp: 'We’re in a big, beautiful house, we’ve invited all the homies — let’s make hit records'.”
Shekhinah was delighted to have been invited to the “camp” though it wasn't her first rodeo. “I did a songwriting camp last year with Noble Songs, a duo from South Africa. I love coming to these camps because this is the best way to make great songs — collaboratively. We don’t really have that culture in our country which is limiting,” she says. “I love pushing myself out of my comfort zone into a mix with other opinions and talents. It takes you to another level.”
Shekhinah auditioned for Idols when she was in grade 11 and again in matric at Queensburgh Girls High School in Durban. “It was a good experience to get my foot in the door. I met lots of industry people, crew, musicians, directors. I’m now in their network.”
When her star goes into the firmament will she leave the country? “All the best music is coming out of Africa at the moment,” she says. “International musicians want to be here and that makes feel fortunate to be African. I’d love to work in Lagos, Nigeria; Akra, Ghana; or Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.”
One of the most important things Shekhinah learnt from the “camp” was that’s it’s OK to make mistakes. “I was encouraged through my mistakes. You get to a better place having gone through the process of getting it wrong, singing a bum note.”
It was educational watching Roark gently lecture one of the other young singers, Paxton, struggling with a lyric during a recording. “Don’t say sorry unless you hurt someone’s feelings. I don’t like to apologise if there aren’t any consequences,” he says. “I’d rather say, ‘thank you for your patience’. Don’t apologise when you make a mistake... we’re working on it. It’s not wrong.”
Paxton says: “They work very fast to produce so many songs which increases our chances of a hit. They’re all so experienced.”
A friend convinced Paxton to enter Idols and before she knew it, she was in the final. “I went from never having performed to suddenly performing every Sunday on-screen to millions of people.”
Now, she says, she’s determined to find her voice. “I’m 21, I’m working on a big project that some of these tracks might filter into.”
As for Roark, the sun around which the solar system of the Safety Club revolves, he’s happy to give a few hints about what he’s doing next. “I used to want to be a rock star — and that feeling is coming back. I’ll do bands at some point. I love playing on stage. There’s a great dynamic to performing live,” he says. “I’ve been working on a new album with Diddy for the past year and with French Montana. It’s been an exciting time ... and we’ll definitely do this again ... in Cape Town.”
Safety Club International held its Cape Town music production and songwriting camp in conjunction with Gallo Records.
