That was the first beat I did when I went to Atlanta to work with Jermaine Dupri. We’d always been cool, but then we were establishing a working relationship. I wanted to work with him and learn some things—things that weren’t in my repertoire. I knew what I was doing, but he was winning and I couldn’t understand it. He’s just winning. So he’s like, ‘Dion come by and let’s see what’s happening.’

So they were finishing up the Bow Wow album, and they needed one more joint—a single. Jermaine was like ‘Bring some samples over.’ Truthfully, I was a little hesitant to bring my best samples, so I brought my samples that weren’t as ‘diggin’ in the crates’ or important to me. Why would I pull out a Luther Vandross sample?

So I pulled out the sample and J.D. was like ‘That’s it right there!’ And I was like ‘Word?’ We started playing around on the CD turntables and Jermaine was telling me to do the record a certain way. In my heart of hearts, I thought it might fall in corny territory. But I decided to put my mind in the hit place, thinking like a producer who makes hits. What would I need to make this huge?

Maybe a half hour later I played it for him and he was like ‘That’s it.’ Then a few weeks later the record was done and Omarion was on it and I was like ‘Oh man, Omarion is on this?’ [Laughs] And not to diss Omarion, but I didn’t like the hook, I thought it was wordy. I didn’t think it was a hit, I felt everything was going wrong with the record. Then I said to myself ‘Dion, humble yourself. Get out of the real hip-hop world and accept the fact that you don’t know everything.‘ Who am I to front? And that was actually my first record that went No. 1. It was all over the place, on 106 & Park, on the radio and then it went No. 1. It changed my whole way of thinking and how I produce. I had been making it so hard for myself, so I’m like, 'Damn—this isn’t that hard at all. I can do these types of records and it’s okay.’

via Complex.