Interview: Tank on Working with Static and Aaliyah

I recently had the chance to interview Tank for YouKnowIGotSoul and of course you know I had to ask him about working with Static and Aaliyah. Here is the portion of the interview where he discusses both, and I'm glad to have finally gotten to the bottom of whether or not Static wrote all of both of those songs for Tank. In my opinion, neither sounded like Static penned songs, but Tank explains it for us.

Click Here to read the full interview on YouKnowIGotSoul.



YKIGS: I want to ask you about a personal favorite artist of mine that you worked with years ago and that’s Static Major. What was your relationship like with him and what was it like working with him?

Tank: That was my guy, it was family so it was easy to make magic with Static, that’s what he knew how to do. I came up listening to songs that Static…my first tour, I was singing songs that Static wrote, big hits that he wrote for Ginuwine and he wrote for Aaliyah. So it was an honor and then it turned into family and from there it’s just what it was at that point. He’s sorely missed, great writer, great entertainer, great everything.

YKIGS: On your second album “One Man” he was credited in the writing credits for “Unpredictable” and “So Many Times” and I was just wondering, because they sound like more of your style than his, did we co-write those with you? How did that go down?

Tank: No he wrote those himself! I produced “Unpredictable” but he wrote it, and he wrote “So Many Times.” That’s all Static and that was probably maybe Static maybe coming into my world. We had an appreciation for each other’s craft so it worked perfect going into the studio with him. I didn’t second guess anything he wrote or anything he told me to sing, I just did it.

YKIGS: I also want to know what you remember about working with Aaliyah on the songs “I Can Be” and “What If” from her “Aaliyah” album. What do you remember most about those sessions?

Tank: Well unfortunately with those sessions, she was shooting “Queen of the Damned” over in Australia, and that was just when I was getting ready to start a promo, so I didn’t get to make the trip. But she told me specifically what kind of records she wanted, and she kinda wanted a little dangerous, a little sexy, that type of thing. I got to go in the studio and tailor make something for her, that was amazing that she called me from way overseas like “Tank, I need these kinds of records, I know you can write them for me.” And I was happy that I was able to deliver, that they were records that she actually loved them when she recorded them, she did her thing.