Since 2004 Sean Garrett’s watched songs he’s written for Usher, Nelly and Destiny’s Child burn their way up the charts, earning him industry accolades and Grammy nominations. With Sean currently working on projects with Ciara, Beyonce and the Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie, more successes are assured — making this Atlanta hitmaker a Player to Watch in 2006. Shortly after scoring his publishing deal with Hitco/Windswept, in 2004 Garrett wrote his first commercial record “I Don’t Want to Hurt You” for Motown artist Latif. “Basically you do a co-publishing deal with a company and they help you shop your records around to artists and labels,” Sean explained to SOHH.

That same year Garrett wrote or co-wrote Destiny’s Child songs “Soldier” and “Lose My Breath,” Janet Jackson and Kanye West’s, “My Baby” Ciara’s breakout hit “Goodies” and arguably the biggest hit of that year, the Usher smash “Yeah,” which Sean says is his most memorable songwriting experience overall. “Seeing ‘Yeah’ go through different aspects to become one of the biggest records of 2004 was big. It was my biggest record of 2004. It was also great to work with Lil’ Jon and Ludacris and Usher on that. That was a great pleasure to see all of those guys come together and see a great opportunity to turn into something magical. I think that will go down in history as one of the great collaborations bridging r&b and hip-hop,” Sean told SOHH.

While songwriting can sometimes involve many personalities collaborating on a given record, Sean generally prefers to work alone or with the artist. “Too many cooks in the kitchen can definitely burn the food. Generally I write the song myself or co-write with the artist, depending on who the artist is. I write, arrange and most of the time, I co-produce the records. I pretty much do all of that. Sometimes I just write, sometimes I co-produce, it just depends on the situation,” Sean explained. One of Sean’s favorite songwriting experiences came recently while working with Beyonce on her upcoming album B-Day.