The man who named Lady Gaga is his own man now

He is the man who co-created Lady Gaga — her name and her early pop songs — but he and she were torn asunder by lawsuits and life, so this man has made another singer out of thin air: himself.

His birth name is Rob Fusari, the New Jersey producer who wrote “No, No, No” for Destiny’s Child,” produced “Bootylicious” for Beyonce’s group, produced Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West,” then named Gaga and co-wrote “Paparrazzi” for her 2008 debut.

Today, as a singer, Fusari goes by the name “8Bit” in the electro-pop group Carey NoKey, performing Sunday for “Rupaul’s Drag Race” at the House of Blues.

Here is the key thing Fusari told me in a fascinating interview he gave me about how money and success could never fulfill his well-being:

“Now I realize,” he said, “you could deposit $100 million in my account tomorrow, but it’s not going to make it better.

“If anything, it’s actually going to make things worse. I know that sounds crazy. But I wouldn’t be sane if I didn’t live through it.”

Here’s what Fusari lived through as a writer-producer.

“Whenever you write for other artists, you try to get a sense of what they’re going through, to draw from their life, because you don’t want to just write your life and put it onto them. That’s not going to work.

“I was able to do what I did with Gaga because I spent hours and months on a 24-7 basis with her. I had to get to know her so I could get inside and really dig into the process of finding direction.”

After Gaga became an immediate superstar, Fusari was grateful, but he also remembered something someone told him once: Don’t get too hot too fast.

“You want to have this gradual rise that coasts up and levels off,” Fusari said. “I felt like this Lady Gaga thing was that spike, like, ‘Now what? … There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to go.’”

In the heat of super power, he and Gaga burned away. He sued her. She helped someone sue him. It was a glittery mess.

He knows now that any amount of song money puts you on someone else’s hook.

“If you have $7 or $7 million, someone is coming after your $7, and they’re also coming after your $7 million,” Fusari said.

Fusari tried to find another Gaga, male or female, for two years, because success had wormed into him an unquenchable lust for one more hit, one more Grammy, more, more, more.

Fusari became acquainted with how some self-actualized stars pay a psychological price for fame and end up with a vacancy which signifies, “You have it all, but you don’t have anything.”

He bottomed out. He stopped listening to music.

“I pushed everybody away.”

Bottoming out serves clarity. For Fusari, clarity stopped him from trying to write a hit for a new star, for a second coming of Gaga. He sat down and wrote a song that suited his own taste, he sung it himself, and his peers told him he had finally found something more important than another Gaga: Himself.

“It was like the sky had parted,” Fusari said. “Carey NoKey was born. I decided on that day I was not going to look back.”

Fusari is human, so some days he still struggles with the lying lure that external riches can heal the internal.

But he’s trying.

“I finally was able to say, and come to terms with: This whole time, my worst enemy was me, and my best friend was me,” he said. “The real problem in my life and my career started once the money and the success came.

“I was the happiest in my life when I was working toward something, and building something, when there was purpose, and movement, and energy.”

I reminded him of what literature teachers always say. It’s the journey, not the destination.

“That’s the secret. That is the magic formula,” Fusari said, agreeing. “If you can’t exactly, completely find it, at least remind yourself of it every day.”

Last week, Fusari was walking down the street in Manhattan. He stopped his thoughts and talked to a homeless man, and he had a nice conversation that fulfilled him for that moment.

“This year, I started to say, ‘Let me just stop and talk to people. I’ve got to stop getting caught up in my own world.’

“I started to look people in the eye.”

For those who are impatient for more, he advises: “Let it wait.”

“There is no finish line. But why would you want that anyway?”

Doug Elfman’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.