Drew and I both thought it was a 9 out of 10. You’d have a cassette of the song wrapped up in the lyric sheet, which was the only way Clive would listen to songs. It was always such a big deal to present Clive a song. Keith Naftaly, former vice president, A&R, at Arista Records: If we were going to present something to Clive, we would have to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, where 8 meant you thought it could be a top 10 single. I was blown away by the “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here” demo, so I submitted it in an A&R meeting. I met with Montell and Shep Crawford, and they played me a bunch of songs including “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here” and “We Can’t Be Friends”. I came from Def Jam and had been Montell’s A&R person there. ĭrew Dixon, former vice president, A&R, at Arista Records: I found it and brought it to Arista. Puff Daddy wanted the song for Faith Evans. Def Jam was trying to move more into the field of R&B and wanted the song for Kelly Price. Sylvia Rhone was looking at the song for her artists. But I guess it was God’s timing, because once the interest finally came for the song, a bunch of people wanted it at the same time. We were flabbergasted, because in our hearts we knew there was nothing else out there like it. The song sat around for over a year with no one wanting it. It was difficult for us, because we had success with but no success with any other artists. Jordan:I was writing from the perspective of, “If Patti LaBelle was going to be singing this song, what would she say?” So for the line “This time, I swear I’m through, but if only you knew,” we wrote that because of Patti LaBelle’s song “If Only You Knew.”Ĭrawford: It didn’t go to Patti, of course. The studio time was booked, so I went in by myself and recorded all of the music with a band before the verses were even written. When he came to me, he just had a piece of the chorus.Ĭrawford:I sung the hook to Montell: “My heart says, ‘Nuh-uh’/ Nobody’s supposed to be here.” And I remember Montell saying, “Patti is not going to say ‘Nuh-uh.’ You have to change that to change that to ‘No, no.’” A couple weeks after that, Montell was supposed to go into the studio, but he had to fly out. Montell Jordan, co-writer:Shep and I grew up playing in church together. You can listen to it whether you’re in love or whether you’re sitting at home with the shades down. I wanted to make sure it addressed the pain. If a single person says, “Shep, how come I don’t have a man?” I tell them, “When you stop looking, that’s when he’ll find you.” But I didn’t want to just have a happy song. I saw her perform at the Soul Train Awards and said to myself, “I need to write a really big song for Patti.” I’ve always been the person that women come to for advice. “THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE OUT THERE LIKE IT”Īnthony “Shep” Crawford, co-writer and producer:I wrote the song for Patti LaBelle. (The song was recently immortalized in an epic RuPaul’s Drag Race lip-sync face-off - perhaps the highest honor in the canon of contemporary gay anthems.)Īs a part of our week-long celebration of all things 1998, Billboard spoke to Cox - along with the song’s writers, which include ’90s R&B star Montell Jordan, as well as former A&R executives and others involved in the song’s story - about how it came together, the rocky road to its release, and why it still endures two decades later. But not only did it defy the odds, it helped change both the landscape of R&B and preconceptions about dance music, thanks to an iconic Hex Hector remix that’s especially beloved in the LGBTQ community. “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here,” in short, wasn’t supposed to be here.
The 98 Greatest Songs of 1998: Critics' Picks
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