Right Now

Album: The London Sessions (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song was written by Blige with Disclosure brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence, Sam Smith and songwriter Jimmy Napes, who previously co-penned both Disclosure and Smith's debut albums. Howard Lawrence explained to The Observer: "The track 'Right Now' started with some chords I made on Jimmy Napes' piano. We took that and gave it a Disclosure-y feel with some drums that Guy made. Mary leaves the instrumental side to us and gets much more involved when it comes to writing vocals."
  • The song was released as the second single from The London Sessions album, for which Blige recruited a number of new British producers including Disclosure. She explained: "The sound in London at the moment is house music. That is what the majority of people are producing their songs like. But the ones that get truly successful are the ones using proper songwriting. Rudimental for example – they write proper songs and then produce them like dance music. And that is exactly what we're trying to do, along with a few other people."

    "But that applies to any genre, not just dance music," Blige continued. "You could take the songs off Sam Smith's album, produce them in a completely different way and they would still be a huge success – you could produce them like acid jazz and I still feel like they'd get somewhere."
  • Blige previously worked with Disclosure on a remix of their song "F For You" and Sam Smith on an updated version of his hit single "Stay With Me."
  • The black-and-white, documentary-style video shows everything from Mary J. writing lyrics to the singer meeting the Disclosure brothers and laying down her vocals in the London studio.
  • Blige performed this on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2014.

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