From the tender lullaby hum of the Jonas Brothers’ ‘Little Bird’—a love letter to their daughters—to the crimson-stamped swagger of The Kid LAROI‘s ‘GIRLS’ (yes, the one on every white tee you’ve seen), Tenroc has quietly been the name behind the sound. The producer-slash-artist is iconic enough to have snagged 2024 GRAMMY nods for Album of the Year and Record of the Year, courtesy of his work on Jon Batiste’s World Music Radio and the standout track ‘Worship.’ Now, he’s turning the mic on himself—harmonizing with Tori Kelly on ‘mourning 2 dancing,’ and most recently dropping ‘u or nothing,’ a jazzy, up-tempo love letter to the Almighty that somehow makes faith feel like the coolest party in the room. We caught up with Tenroc to talk about making spiritual songs that translate across the dance floor, his own mourning-to-dancing season, and what it takes to carve out a voice of your own when you’ve spent years shaping everyone else’s.
So the first question: you’ve shared that your dad was a DJ. Growing up around the world, what did you pick up from him about music, rhythm, or even the culture around sound?
When I was younger, he would always play me records that he used to mix back in the day, and something that stood out to me a lot was the drums. And so I feel like hearing all of those records that he would mix, those records were sort of the blueprint of what people were dancing to back in the day. And so I think it really informed a lot of my drum choices today.
Your first time attending the GRAMMYS, and you’re suddenly up for the two biggest awards through your work on World Music Radio, which is a pretty surreal entry point. What was the biggest takeaway from that night?
The biggest takeaway is that you never really know what’s going to resonate with people because those two nominations were for a song that I created the instrumental for at home, you know, in my room. When I was creating it, I wasn’t thinking about the GRAMMYs or thinking that people would resonate with it that much. It was just something that I loved, and I thought was sick. And so it informs how I work now because I still don’t really think about awards. I don’t think about GRAMMYs. I just think about if it resonates with me, and if it resonates with me, then maybe it’ll resonate with other people, too.
That record carried Christian themes while moving effortlessly through pop, jazz, soul, and hip-hop. And even ‘mourning 2 dancing’ feels almost club-ready. What do you think allows a faith-rooted song to feel universal rather than niche?
I think that I typically don’t even focus on the lyric when I’m creating in general. I think that’s why a lot of the records I work on, if they’re faith-based, they’re able to sort of break through in ways that other records aren’t because I’m always thinking sonically first. Like, what will get people moving? What will get people wanting to listen to this?
You’ve worked with artists at very different stages and styles from the Jonas Brothers to Rihanna to Reneé Rapp. When you step into a new collaboration, what helps you decide whether to take the lead or create space and step back?
I sort of just feed off of whatever the artist is giving me. And so if I see that the artist is the type of artist that likes to have a lot of control in what’s being put on the record and what’s happening on the record, then I know to step back. But there have been tons of artists where they kind of just look to me for most of the decisions, and they’re like, “Hey, like what do you think? What should we do?” In that case, then I just kind of take the driver’s seat, but it’s all dependent on the energy I’m getting from the artist.
As a producer, you help shape other people’s voices, but as a solo artist, you’re defining your own. How do you protect an artist’s identity when success starts pulling them in different directions? And how have you learned to separate your own voice from the ones you’ve helped amplify?
That’s great. I think an important question when an artist is creating anything of any style is, “Does this sound like something I would say?” So when working with any artist, I’m kind of asking that question a lot: “Does this sound like something you would say?” If the answer’s no, then you know that a little bit of their personality is being lost in the song. And so with my album, I didn’t really think too much about that because I wasn’t trying to put myself in anybody else’s shoes. I was wearing my own shoes. And so every idea I had is something that I would say, so I found it a little easier in that aspect while making my own stuff.
‘mourning 2 dancing’ is the first song from your solo catalog to feature another artist, and you’ve had such a long creative relationship with Tori Kelly. Did her joining the track happen organically, or was it something you’d been quietly holding space for?
Yeah, it happened totally organically. I had been trying to find someone to do the hook of that song for a while because I had the song for a few months before she got on it. While I was racking my brain, my wife, Sarah, was like, “Hey, like why don’t you just ask Tori to do it, and she’d sound great on it?” Then I was like, “Wow, you’re right. She’d sound incredible.” And so when I brought it to Tori’s door, she was like more than willing and she went crazy. She cut her own vocals too at home and just sent them to me, and they sounded incredible. So it was very organic. It wasn’t something that was planned in advance or anything.
The phrase “mourning to dancing” comes from Psalm 30. What does that transformation mean to you personally at this stage of your life?
So, I relate to the song more now than when I wrote it like about a year ago because earlier this year, the middle of January, I lost my father-in-law, who was also the pastor of our church. And so, we lost him sort of suddenly, but around the same time, my wife and I found out that we were expecting our first child. And so while there was something, really tragic that happened, God sort of gave us this gift of our first child that we had been waiting for a very long time. So that’s sort of an example in my life of how God turned my mourning into dancing.
In your behind-the-scenes video for ‘God Like That,’ Leland sends guitar ideas recorded on his daughter’s old pink guitar. What’s the most unexpected or unconventional way you’ve captured sound that ended up being really special?
I’ll say a lot of times on my productions that I’ve done for other people, about 70% of the time, anytime you hear acoustic guitar, it’s been recorded on my iPhone, and it’s just a thing that I do. I record my acoustic guitars with the iPhone voice memos, and then I just airdrop them to myself and put them in the computer. Just cuz it’s quicker and easier. So most of the acoustic guitars are iPhone-recorded.
On a day-to-day level, what’s the quickest way to shut down your creativity? And what helps you find your way back when that happens?
Usually, I just walk out. I just turn off my laptop, walk out of the studio, and you know, my home studio, and just watch TV or hang out. And I do that pretty often nowadays. When I was younger, I found myself creating like 24/7, all hours of the night, just making stuff. Nowadays, I’m sort of like only creating during the day. Certain parts of the day I’m creating, and I find that my ideas are more potent because they build up more, and there’s more to come out when I do create.
For someone who’s clearly gifted but struggling with impatience, what advice would you give about timing, growth, and trusting the process?
That’s great. I would say you can’t skip steps, and that was something that I struggled with a ton when I was coming up, wanting to expedite success, expedite progress, and you really can’t, and you shouldn’t want to because the time that it takes you to become successful, all of those hours you’re just getting better. When you’re really, really good, it’s easier for you to achieve success. Especially in music, you want to get better at the thing that you do. So, don’t rush the process. You have to think about it as every hour that you’re waiting, you’re just getting better at what you do.
So what’s your own mourning-to-dancing moment? Here’s hoping Tenroc’s music hits you with the same hush-and-lift as stepping into somewhere holy. Slide into our DMs and let us know—we’re on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
