With SXSW Music Festival right around the corner Hard Knock TV decided to revisit one of the most talked about panels from last year: Behind the Hit: Inside the Mind of a Producer. The panel featured Just Blaze, Drumma Boy, Salaam Remi, Dan Nakamura aka Dan The Automator and was moderated by Hard Knock TV’s own Nick Huff Barili. This video clip starts of with Salaam Remi talking about chemistry working with Nas, Amy Winehouse, Lauryn Hill. Just Blaze adds that a big part of being a producer is understanding human psychology and working with creative people.
Just shares a story of the first time he worked with Eminem stating: “Big part of being a producer is understanding human psychology… I almost fucked up one of the biggest projects of my career with Eminem in 2010, when he was doing Recovery. I have long-standing relationships with a lot of the artists I work with — a lot of times I can say to certain people ‘Yo, do that verse over’ or ‘You’re a little off beat’ or ‘Your second verse is kinda weak’ and they don’t think anything of it because we have that rapport.
So, on my first day or second day of working with Em on Recovery — we’re doing this one song — and I just try to say to him like ‘Yo, the second verse you sound a little off course a little bit subject matter wise and your third verse — your flow is a little off.’ I just left it at that I didn’t think anything of it.
And, he was facing away from me. He turns around and he’s like ‘I don’t hear that, dawg’ and I’m like ‘I fucked the money up. Damn.’ I knew it was over after that, I knew it was over. Then I try to like salvage it and I’m like ‘What I mean is, you know, on your second verse you’re not really talking about XYZ and in your third verse if you notice the flow kinda diverts in a weird way. I was tryina clean it up but it was a wreck.
So about three hours later I’m sitting in his lounge waiting to probably be sent home and one of his right hand people comes and hands me a phone — ‘Here. It’s Marshall.’ I’m like ‘Hey, what up?’ He’s like ‘Yo, you’re a fucking alien. How did you hear that shit?’ And I’m like ‘Dude, what are you talking about?’
He’s like, “After you said what you said, I went home and listened to the song 30 times to try to understand what you were saying and I eventually heard it and I realized where — (you know) — that I agree with you. Yo thank you for that because nobody has ever really coached me — from the second Dre found me I was vocal producing everybody. So nobody’s ever really given me negative feedback. So, I appreciate it.”
When he hung up, I was like, ‘Fine. I didn’t fuck the money up.’
But one of the things that one of his managers said to me was ‘You know where you messed up: you didn’t give him anything positive. All you told him what you didn’t like.’ And that was that…” You are going to have to watch the video for the full story.
