Hip-Hop Is Dead was a lot of singles produced by Will-i-Am. Dre, 3 or 4 Kanye West records, Scott Storch, LES and Wildfire, Stargate, Mark Batson–that album doesn’t really have me involved in it. Those two albums, if you look at the credits (which people don’t seem to read anymore) Dr. I helped him out with “Where Are they Now,” he wanted the James Brown sample and I had to ability to make the track sound good, and I just re-did Will-I-am’s orchestra on “Who Killed It,” cause he was on the road in China or something. SR: The last two albums were concepts but…on Hip-Hop Is Dead, none of the songs I produced are even on the album. His last two albums had these huge concepts but not the continuity you get from this album… LU: I think Nas fans have been waiting for that. What a lot of people are talking about is, it’s “an album.” There are a lot of songs that are hitting them in ways that they like, but more than anything else they are accepting it and talking about “the album,” and that’s really an artform that’s been lost in the singles-driven world. For me sitting on the other side of it I felt it had enough personal depth, and enough musicality. Nas repeated something in an interview, I had said to him right after we got the masters: this album feels like Back to Black or The Score to me. We’re in 2012 now, the divorce started in 2009 and that song came up not too long after so it’s been a process.
The thought process was over the last couple of years, not now. We’ve done some mixes the last couple of months, but my enjoyment is seeing it see the light of day and people capturing and feeling the emotions that were put into it. From the time we dropped “Nasty,” a lot of the records for me were done. This isn’t July 17, it’s probably two Julys ago. The majority of what was done for this record has been done for quite some time, at least for my part. Salaam Remi: At this point, I’m kind of coasting, just because I’ve done a whole lot the first half of the year. When it drops are you cracking a cigar and enjoying the fruits of this album, or are you not even thinking about that? LargeUp: Life is Good is one of the most talked-about (and best-received) albums of the summer. Hit the link below to get Part 1 of this rare interview and read on after the jump for Part 2. Today we unveil part two of that interview, wherein Remi goes deep on his involvement in Nas’ #1 summer release Life Is Good and Amy Winehouse’s Back Is Black, dropping some gems along the way, like the origin of the Big Kap intro on “Nasty” and the Amy sitting down at the piano to play “Girl From Ipanema” at their first meeting. “‘Know my name if you gotta write it on a check’ has been my motto for a long time.” Perhaps even more impressive than the list of artists he’s worked with would be the titles of the songs he’s produced for them–in almost every case the signature tunes with which we most strongly associate their names–and more impressive than that would be the emphasis he gives to molding not just songs but careers, empowering his proteges to be visionaries in their own right while he is content to remain behind the scenes. “Most people didn’t even know I exist, and I don’t want them to,” as he explains. Dynamite and the Bush Babees, just to name a few.
Yesterday LargeUp revealed one of the music industry’s best-kept secrets, publishing an in-depth interview with Salaam Remi, the world renowned–yet notoriously press-shy–producer of hits (some might say classics) for Nas, Amy Winehouse, The Fugees, Jazmine Sullivan, Super Cat, Ms.
0 kommentar(er)
