MS. DYNAMITE
Mar 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Stacia Monteith
Heralded in the United Kingdom as the next Lauryn Hill, Ms. Dynamite (aka 21-year-old Niomi McLean-Daley) has made an explosive ascent from clubland ragga MC to soulful R&B diva. Not one to blend into the wallpaper, Dynamite confidently holds forth on everything from female self-respect to the horror of the African “blood diamond” trade on her debut, A Little Deeper (Interscope, 2003).
Ms. Dynamite takes being a role model seriously. “I'm really aware of the fact that, as a young black woman in Britain, there are not really any other black women that are given the position that I am, where I can be conscious and speak about whatever's on my mind,” she says.
Hearing Deeper, fans will not likely suspect her lack of experience as a singer and melody writer. Collaboration with veteran producer Salaam Remi (The Fugees, Nas) was key to her learning curve. “Each day, I pushed her past where she thought she could go,” Remi says. “She's very prolific and quick with it. Any type of track I threw up, she could do something with it. In three weeks, we had 30 songs.”
Remi found no need to enhance Dynamite's honeyed instrument. Of the lilting, ragga-jazz single “Dy-na-mi-tee,” he says, “It's all her vocally.” Through a Neumann U 67 mic and a Wright preamp, that is.
Remi reserved his more in-depth production skills for the instrumental parts. “The track is built on an old Studio 1 sample,” he says. “Then, I had my uncle say something that sounded like Jimmie Walker's ‘Dyn-o-mite!’ and made it as a sample, then scratched it.”
Musically, Remi is a scientist who learns through research and experimentation. “When I was doing hip-hop, I went through six months of taking apart and putting back together everything that was on a Public Enemy record,” he says. “That's how I learned to program: Listening to the radio with the [Roland] TR-707 drum machine, then turning off the radio and trying to do it.”
Although he may not spend all of his time doing remixes of other people's work, Remi takes a remix approach to his own productions. “I go through and figure out how to remix my own records,” he says. “I make 15 different arrangements of the same song, then figure out which one I like the best.”
Remi's most-utilized piece of gear is an Akai MPC3000, but his computer recording setup is integral for recording, editing and mixing. “The album was recorded directly into MOTU's Digital Performer,” he says. “I was running it on top of a Pro Tools system, so I had Apogee converters going into Digital Performer, and I mixed on Performer through an SSL console.”
Remi is also a collector of vintage gear and bizarre finds. His current favorite is the Roland Chorus Echo SRE-555. But he also has a mutant secret weapon. “I have something that someone made called a ‘mariachi bass,’” he says. “It's actually a [Gibson] L5 guitar that has an electric bass neck on it, but it just sounds like the house is falling.”
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