AROUND THE BLOCK
Oct 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Tamara Warren
From working with Kurtis Blow as a young kid to Amy Winehouse, Nas and Lalo Schifrin into his 30s, Salaam Remi has amassed major amounts of gear, a long discography and a whole lot of studio science
“I like being a muse to artists,” Salaam Remi says. “My own issue is, what do I actually sound like?” It's a new chapter for Remi, the 35-year-old producer long under the radar but with an extensive discography that's impressive both in breadth and stature: The Fugees, Nas, Amy Winehouse, Lauren Hill, Sade, Ricky Martin, Brand Nubian, Sting, Mary J. Blige, Toni Braxton, and the list goes on.
He's recently put the finishing touches on the Rush Hour 3 score and the soundtrack single “Less Than an Hour,” a duet featuring Nas' assertive flow and Cee-Lo's soulful vocals over the dramatic backdrop of a 100-piece orchestra recorded at Atlantis Studios in Los Angeles. The track kicks off with a deep bass and sultry female French vocals, and Cee-Lo's yearning voice sets the tone for Nas' deep and punchy verses, leading to the forlorn choral reprise, “I have less than an hour.” The song is whimsical, haunting and uptempo. It's his first film-scoring opportunity, a direction he hopes to develop. For Remi, the process of working with a director and a film crew, he's realized, is similar to working with marquee artists. In both cases, he is an interpreter who feeds off of the energy and creativity around him.
“I'm not really an upfront person. I get so much more out of watching someone before they watch me,” Remi says in a deep baritone voice. “I'm trying to figure out what's different about this artist from the rest of the world. That's my unique process I go through every day.”
Rock, jazz, hip-hop and reggae artists clamor equally for a textured Remi beat. He travels from his home-base recording studio in Miami to L.A. and London, recording constantly for his own Boom Tunes label released via iTunes portals. Even on his own label, his sound and style is diverse — spanning from danceable dub and aggressive hip-hop to cool jazz. He's concentrating on new artists such as reggae singer David Sean, UK ska-rock artist Nick Harrison and Southern funk act Crunkadelic.
COMING OF THE JAZZ AGE
It's been a winding road to Hollywood and the acclaim and respect that come with it, but it's been one rooted in rich musical lineage. “Hip-hop for me is the generation I grew up in,” he says, remembering his New York City youth. But Remi's introduction to hip-hop and music in general was far more personal. Remi's musician and studio-engineer father, Van Gibbs, was his initial connection to the industry. Gibbs performed with Harry Belafonte and arranged Taana Gardner's “Heartbeat.” “Being around the Kurtis Blow days, watching the Fat Boys in the studio, I am as much as an old-schooler as anybody can be,” Remi says.
Remi actually played keyboards for Kurtis Blow on 1986's “Kingdom Blow,” a record his father produced. “I wouldn't even call myself a keyboard player to a keyboard player,” Remi insists. “I actually played drums first. Elvin Jones, the jazz drummer, made me a drum set. I had a full drum set when I was three years old.” Childhood included jam sessions with his dad and uncles, who were musicians and urged him to play along. Much like his son would become, Van Gibbs was broad in his musical outreach. Remi's father was the first person to work with Doug E. Fresh in the studio. “He put together a contest that the Fat Boys won to get their deal, and [he also produced] Kurtis Blow's album,” Remi recalls. “That's how I was introduced to those situations.”
Yet, Remi had to earn his production stripes in his own right. “When I first started producing hip-hop, I was sampling a whole lot, and my father would call me ‘Looper Vandross,’ saying pretty much that I needed to play music, since I was looping everything. What I was missing was the engineering aspect and the sonic aspect.” So he began exploring the nuances of recordings from different eras, studying the compositions and techniques used in the James Brown records that added much of the vibe and flavor of early hip-hop. He learned to play certain instruments on top of his samples, which led to a complete studio. At the core of it were pieces he retrieved from Soundworks, which was located below Studio 54, including an SSL board, Vintage Neve Pultec EQs, LA-2A and 1176 compressors and EMT 140 plate reverbs. These pieces helped him recapture the sound Teddy Riley and Shep Pettibone used in the '80s. Remi was gaining a name as a producer, but The Fugees' “Nappy Heads” and “Fu-Gee-La” singles provided his critical breakthrough. He was also involved in Lauren Hill's solo success.
Remi's ear extended to the reggae explosion, and he was instrumental in working with dancehall artists. And he was able to get even with the lack of credit his father received for the Gardner hit when he sampled “Heartbeat” for Ini Komoze's “Here Comes the Hotstepper,” which became a Billboard smash hit in 1994. “It's something my dad had come up with that he wasn't credited properly for, so my sample clearance came way cheaper since they knew they owed him,” he says with a chuckle.
Teaming up with Nas (whose father is Olu Dara) proved a potent mix for both sons of jazzmen. When Remi made hits like “Made You Look” (from God's Son [Sony, 2002]) for Nas, he was striving for a deliberate feel that comes from his study of time period. “With Nas, the beats come as a result of our conversations. We're really tight, and we talk a lot. In between albums, I am reminding him of what he wanted to say. With ‘Made You Look,’ he said he wanted to make something that felt like '87 in the park.”
The song features the raucous “Bravehearts” cry in the background and Nas at his most direct and deliberate. “He also knows and understands breakbeats with a lot of music behind them and how to use his vocals and his whole flow to control the beat. A lot of younger artists I've found want to use those tracks, but when it's time for them to get over, they have to yell and jump all over the place. I thought when Nas heard that track he would be very hyper, but actually, he laid back and did a very quiet, Rakim-like flow. His approach on it made it work. If it had energy, it would have been nice, but it would have played out quicker.”
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