Ever since the BMI Urban Awards where Cali Swag District as well as herself won a BMI award for the hit song “Teach Me How to Dougie” she has definitely been getting the recognition she deserves. She says “Kurupt came up to me and expressed total shock. Dawn Richard from Dirty Money was pumped about the whole thing. Kreayshawn tweeted me a shout-out saying that she was totally excited that I’m a female producer. It caused chaos on my Twitter account. I’m getting so many followers”. Artists such as Kreayshawn, YG, and Dawn Richard’s are just a few that has expressed interest in working with her.
Runway Star grew up in the music studios with her dad Richard West who worked with Deke Richards of the Motown Records producing group, and sure enough followed in his footsteps. When she was five years old she received a Casio keyboard, and she would spend hours toying with it and the little tunes that it would produce, and over time she really took interest in actually wanting to pursue producing as a career. She started to pick up on different keyboards and learned how to EQ a track.
When creating the beat for “Teach Me How to Dougie” Runway Star decided to keep things simple like the Neptunes which she is a big fan of. She says that the Neptunes let the artist build the beat up with the vocals, and that’s the stance she took when creating the beat for Cali Swag District. She used Reasons and Pro-Tools together, for the drums she used the Tom Tom’s and the 808, and flipped it all together to make it work. She sure did made it work! This is girl is in the lab knocking out tracks.
Since working with Cali Swag District Runway Star has collaborated with another producer Nigel Starr. and has formed the Production group called “The Makerz” When talking about the team up she says “Nigel is really good with melodies and playing the piano. I can play the piano just a little bit – not the way he can. He’s also an engineer so his ears are as tuned as mine. It made sense for me. Together it just works out amazing.”
What the two are working on at the moment is an EP for an artist named Young De. They are also working with another named Ceekay Jones who just released a new song that we produced called “Gucci Punk” with Taxman from The Kottonmouth Kingz. Runway Star and Nigel both directed the video for that song also.
In addition to having undeniable skills as a producer Runway is also a very talented artist and writer establishing herself as a rising trendsetter and international hit maker. This girl is going places and I hope to see more women producers come out and do their thing like she is.
Listen to more of her work at http://www.myspace.com/runwaystarproductions
