Music producers research

Evan Rogers and Carl Struken are American based songwriters and music producers who are also friends as well as business partners.  Together, they have helped create and build Rihanna’s career and are the principals of her production company. The duo has also produced hits for Ruben Studdard, Wild Orchid and Christina Aguilera. Their songs have sold over 60 million albums both in the U.S and worldwide.

Rogers and Sturken started their careers in the New York R & B scene of the music industry in the mid 1980’s. They began to gain their reputation by producing soon to be successful artists such as Cheryl Lynn, Stephanie Mills and Jennifer Holiday. After the success of the artists they decided to work in the Pop industry and helped to create the comeback of Donny Osmond in which they wrote and produced the smash hit ‘Soldier of love.’ Following on from their success in the music industry the duo decided to create an R & B group called Rhythm Syndicate in which they became part of themselves alongside John Nevin, Rob Mingrino and Kevin Cloud. As well as providing vocals for the group, Rogers and Sturken also wrote their number one hit "P.A.S.S.I.O.N" shortly after the success of the song, the men left the group and carried on concentrating on writing and producing full time. Their success began to broaden in the UK with producing a Top 5 smash for the group ‘Eternal.’ Rogers and Sturken then worked with boy band ‘Boyzone’ where they wrote and produced four songs of the group’s album ‘Where we belong’ which entered number one on the UK charts. ‘All that I need’ was another song that Rogers and Sturken wrote  for the boy band, which was also a number one hit but also features on the groups Greatest hits package, the song ranked in over six million pounds and was number one for over two months.

In 1997 they began to work with teen sensations ‘N Sync’ and wrote and produced the Billboard top 10 single, "(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You." Whilst working with a numerous amount of different artists Rogers and Sturken began to work with Christina Aguilera on her debut album. The album entered the Billboard charts at number one and went double platinum after only three weeks, eventually totaling a sales excess of over 11 million worldwide. The duo was a total success and everything they touched worked, they had success in most popular music genres including jazz, they also had songs on Jessica Simpson’s multi-platinum debut album as well as Mandy Moore and Anastacia. They had also collaborated with R & B sensation Christina Millan and ex spice girl star, Emma Bunton.

 As the 90’s came to a close and teen pop began to die down, Rogers and Sturken began a new project again and discovered and developed, Javier. Javier was signed to record label Capitol Records in which he would become a huge success. They wrote and produced majority of his album including the number one hit single ‘Crazy.’  Other record producers began to notice the achievement of the pair and would come to them for help. Record produce Clive Davis who has previously worked with artists such as Alicia Keys and Leona Lewis asked the pair to help him with American Idol singer Kelly Clarkson. They wrote the hit single for her debut album ‘The trouble with love is’ which also featured in the movie ‘Love Actually.’

In 2005 after a huge success in their careers, they decided to build their own label in which they named SRP Records. The first artist to be signed to the label was Rihanna, who is now a global success. Rogers discovered Rihanna while on holiday in Barbados, when Rihanna was 16 she decided to move to the US permanently to peruse her career and lived with Roger and his wife. After the signing they brought Rihanna to JAY-Z who was owner of record label Def-Jams Records and within hours of audition she was signed to the label. Rihanna’s first single ‘Pon de Replay’, co written and produced by Rogers and Sturken was a number one hit worldwide.  Most recently Rogers and Sturken have signed more acts to their SRP label including Shontelle who is also from Barbados and is a singer/songwriter; she had her first hit with ‘T-Shirt.’