Songwriters Hall of Fame Jimmy Jam – HuffPost 12.30.11

Mike Ragogna: What are your thoughts tonight about our celebrating some of our best new songwriters?

Jimmy Jam: I’m really excited, I love this event. I thought I was only attending as a fan, but as it turns out, I’ll be giving an award to Drake–The Hal David Starlight Award, which I’m thrilled about because I’m a huge Drake fan. But these are the roots, this is where it all starts…with a song. Otherwise, the artists have nothing to sing and the producers have nothing to produce, and so on.

MR: What do you think of the new batch of artists and songwriters?

JJ: I think there’s a lot of great writing going on. I like Bruno Mars, I think he’s wonderful in the traditional sense of songwriting. He gets it. He’s an artists that can write songs for himself as well as other people, and I think that’s pretty cool. He’s brought melody into hip-hop the way that nobody else could. That is so important. He’s also really solid lyrically. I just really enjoy his music.

MR: Great. What advice do you have for new artists?

JJ: I’m a big fan of collaboration. I’ve been with my writing partner Terry Lewis for 30 years. I really like the idea of having someone to bounce ideas off of and having someone there to inspire you. I would strongly suggest finding people that you can collaborate with.