Finding Your Sound: Madison McFerrin
A lifetime in music has led to a Tyler, The Creator feature, a Tiny Desk Concert and an epic new solo album — all within the span of three months.
by Brad Farberman
Madison McFerrin had just left her studio when the line came to her: “We were s’posed to get married today.” It was two days before her wedding date — a wedding she had called off — and the Los Angeles-based R&B singer turned back around. The song became “I Don’t,” one of the central tracks off her second album, SCORPIO.
“I mean, all of these songs, this is the fastest I’ve ever written and produced music, ever,” says McFerrin. “It really just all flowed out. But with ‘I Don’t,’ I remember when I was writing it, when I got to the line [sings], ‘In choosing who to / say I do to / ’cause I guess I don’t,’ I remember when I sang that, just being like, ‘Oh man, that’s so good.’ [laughs] I remember having a ‘woo-hoo.’”
Released in June with the singles “Ain’t It Nice” and “I Don’t” leading up to it — the latter song featuring co-production from WILLOW and Zach Brown — SCORPIO details the death of an eight-and-a-half-year relationship that had her feeling “suppressed.” She didn’t set out to focus on the split — she almost never works that way — but afterwards, it was like “the floodgates opening,” and this is what was on her mind. Ultimately, the LP reflects that post-relationship period, a time in which McFerrin was able to get reacquainted with her born-in-early-November self.
“I titled it SCORPIO before I was even finished writing the music or anything, and it really was just about ‘this is me coming into myself,’” says McFerrin. “Because even though, yes, it’s a breakup album in the sense that it was inspired and birthed out of a breakup, this album really is for me, and it’s really about me coming into myself.”
The gospel-influenced “Run It Back” features a mesmerizing piano performance from Cory Henry. Also a highlight of McFerrin’s Tiny Desk Concert from April, the song contemplates friends-with-benefits activities post-breakup.
“At that point, I was still very newly single, but it was February,” says McFerrin. “It was the beginning of February, so I was starting to come out of the darkness of it all and was just like, ‘OK, well now I’m horny and nobody’s around,’ you know? Like, that was the only thing this dude was good for before. So I needed to just let that out.”
A month after SCORPIO was released, McFerrin received some more good news: She was a featured guest on Tyler, The Creator’s new album. “Don’t You Worry Baby,” off DON’T TAP THE GLASS, is an irresistible dance cut boasting an unforgettable refrain: “I’ll give you the world before you fall asleep / Wake up.” Though the pair had spent about five hours in the studio — three of which were spent getting to know each other — McFerrin didn’t know for sure that she had made it onto the album until the very last minute. At a listening party the night before the album was released, the engineer hugged her and said, “Congratulations.”
“[Tyler] had written the majority of the lyrics and melody, and I came in and just kind of supplemented stuff, definitely supplemented some melodic stuff,” recalls McFerrin. “It felt very collaborative, though, in the sense of, like, he wanted my opinion. It was not something where he was like, ‘This is what it is.’ He obviously has a very clear vision, but I felt really honored that he still wanted my input, even though he knew what he wanted this to sound like. And I didn’t even know that it was mostly gonna be me until the end of the session, ’cause we were writing more stuff and I was like, ‘When’s this dude coming in?’ And then he was like, ‘No, this is pretty much just you,’ and I was like, ‘Oh OK, say less.’”
Originally from San Francisco, McFerrin grew up in, to say the least, a musical family — her brother, Taylor McFerrin, is a member of jazz supergroup R+R=NOW, and her father is the legendary vocalist Bobby McFerrin. Madison sees her entrance into the music world as less related to anything sonic, and more about merely having observed her father’s passion for his work.
“I decided I wanted to be a singer when I was five, and then I just never looked back,” says McFerrin. “Part of being a Scorpio, they say, is that we’re very loyal. And so, like, I was loyal to the dream. I was like, ‘I’m gonna be a singer and that’s it.’ I had blinders on. But I’ve, you know, still learned about a lot of different things. But I was like, ‘This is my path.’ But I think that really just has to do with you see a parent doing what they love, you know? It wasn’t even about, ‘Oh, my dad’s a singer so I have to be a singer.’ It was like, ‘My dad’s a singer and he loves it, and he gets to do it, and this is his job. This is his career. And I love to sing, so I can do that, too.’”
SCORPIO was self-released — on a date recommended by McFerrin’s astrologer — and the singer is, as she once noted on Instagram, a “100% indie girly.” So when it was time to start investing in the project, McFerrin turned to a familiar source — the money she had planned to use for the wedding. As she notes, the decision was wise — it has led to a Tiny Desk, a well-received album and a feature for an iconic rapper. All within the span of three months.
“My dad and my brother, they both own their masters, and so I wasn’t going to, particularly as a Black woman, diverge from that path of owning my masters,” says McFerrin. “And so I knew I wanted to go into this project, have it completed, and I literally was just like, ‘How am I gonna do that?’ Like, how am I gonna have the money to put this together? And I can only describe it as being spiritually guided. I all of a sudden had this thought where I was like, ‘Wait a second. Sitting in a high-yielding savings account is this money that is yours, that was supposed to be for this other thing. What better way to utilize it, and wash it of its karma, than to use it for this?’ And, you know, I felt like that is part of why this is being rewarded — it’s literally just being washed.”
