being an artist and a producer

We live in a time when pop music is very beat-driven and producer-driven. Sometimes the artist gets lost in the production. You are both a producer and artist. Do you see the roles as the same ?

A I have always felt that too many different things in electronic music are called "production." In a rock band you have rhythm, bass line, keyboards, guitar and production. In electronic music all of this is called "production." I have written a lot of songs where someone comes in right at the end when the song is 90 percent ready and adds in a bass line and gets production credit. I feel a lot of it is because computers carry a lot of mystery around them, and it is hard for people to see it for what it is. Also a part of it might be a pinch of sexism. I have seen [this] over and over. ... Obviously creative girl producers like Missy Elliott, Peaches and M.I.A. credited in the press as only singers, and then whatever guy who was in a 5-meter radius when the recording happened gets all the production credit, even though it says on the CD cover credit that they produced it. But I feel it is changing now. Everybody has computers ; everybody is writing music on their computers at home, including girls. So we’ll see.

metromix.com, May 2007