Talk About Our Love - Background and Recording

Background and Recording

"Talk About Our Love" was written by American rapper Kanye West and songwriter Harold Lilly, with production handled by the former. The song samples American funk band Mandrill's 1978 song "Gilly Hines". Due to the interpolation, band members Claude Cave II, and Carlos, Louis and Ricardo Wilson received co-writing credits on the track. Recorded by Eugene Toale at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, California, it was mixed by Manny Marroquin and engineered by Jun Isheseki with further assistance from Blake English and Kenisha Pratt. Israeli musician Miri Ben-Ari played the violin while Ervin A. Pope was on the keyboards. Lyrically, "Talk About Our Love" revolves around a relationship that lacks support by family and friends. Speaking of the content, Norwood remarked: "For me, when you're in a relationship and you just wanna be one with that person and you want everybody to support you, but they don't."

An eleventh-hour additions to the album's final track listing, "Talk About Our Love" was not recorded until late into the production of Afrodisiac. Although Norwood had considered the project complete by October 2003 after intense recording sessions with producer Timbaland and his team, Atlantic Records executive Geroid Roberson encouraged the singer to attempt additional studio sessions with West following the success of his debut album The College Dropout (2004). "One of the executive producers of my album is one of Kanye's managers, so that's how we hooked up," Norwood explained the following year, adding, "He said he always wanted to work with me having followed his successes, I've always wanted to work with him. When we got together it was like, 'Oh, my God! This is great chemistry. It's magical. Kanye's passionate about the song, and so am I, so it worked out great'!"

Borrowing from West's own sound at that time, including wordplay and sampling, Norwood compared the song to fellow R&B singer Alicia Keys' 2003 single "You Don't Know My Name," another West production. The singer described "Talk About Our Love" as being about "being in a relationship being so deeply in love that everybody wants to be in your business. Everybody wants to be opinionated about what you do and why you do it and I think everybody in a relationship experiences that kind of stuff, people talking about your business so that is what that song is about." On the final result Norwood commented, "We collaborated and we just came up with a great melody It's about two people in a relationship where everybody is in and out of their business, which is something that everybody in a relationship goes through."

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