It was the moment JR Rotem had been waiting for his entire life. After years and years of making beats, one of them had finally wended their way to someone important: D’wayne Wiggins, not only a founding member of R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné!, but also the man who developed and signed Destiny’s Child.

“He got a copy of one of my beats and he liked the song,” beams Rotem from his LA base of operations. “Back then I wasn’t ...