When you talk to Salaam Remi, you may find yourself asking him to repeat himself often. The 30-something Miamian speaks softly, and so slowly that his words often seem to slur together. A self-professed recluse, Remi (pronounced “Ray-Me”) has always let his music do the talking for him. During his 20-plus year career, the multifaceted musicians has produced hit records for everyone from The Fugees (“Fu-Gee-La”) to Shabba Ranks, from Amy Winehouse to Kool G Rap, to extensive work with Nas (“Made You Look,” “I Can,” “What Goes Around,” etc.). In an interview with HipHopDX, Salaam Remi talks about musical lineage from pops dukes, Nas, and reputation.
HipHopDX: What all have you been working on?
Salaam Remi: I just completed Rush Hour 3, executive music production for the score. I just did some new songs for Nas’ Greatest Hits, started on some songs for his new album as well. A lot of up and coming artists out of the UK, like Nick Harrison, kind alternative rock flavor. There’s a lot of new artists that I’ve been working with, just trying to move forward. … Working on new projects with new artists, kind of seeing them from the feet up. With the success of Amy Winehouse, there’s a lot of the same songwriters coming to me that I’m working with now. … I can’t think of it all this moment, but a flurry of things between R&B, Hip Hop, Jazz, etc.
DX: You have an interesting catalog, you’ve worked with all types of artists. What did you listen to growing up?
SR: My dad was a Jazz musician, he’s from the Caribbean, so I knew all that type of stuff. I know a lot of Gospel, my grandfather was a pastor. As a small child coming up, I was surrounded by different types of music. But then where I guess where I really connected was the Hip Hop generation, with [The Sugar Hill Gang's] “Rapper’s Delight" and [Run-DMC's] “Sucker MCs.” Coming of age, I was pushing that type of stuff before I really got into producing myself. So it was everything under the sun, but definitely intensified with Hip Hop, because at the time to be a teenager, that was what to get into.
DX: What does your pops think of your music?
SR: He likes it now. When I was younger, he used to call me “Looper Vandross,” because I used to loop a lot of stuff. He wanted me to play more music than sample. But at this point, I guess I’ve made my point as far as me having my own style and influencing what I want to do. So he’s definitely proud of it, he’s pretty proud of it. His ideas and things he started on are on another level because he’s in the business route.
DX: How often do you guys sit down and just vibe out, or how often does he give you feedback on stuff you have?
SR: We’re not that close. Certain times, he manages artists. He manages Allison Hines, who has a big Caribbean record called “Roll It.” I produced a couple songs for her album, so he’ll talk about things like that, but otherwise, he lives in Barbados so he sort of passes through Miami once in a while. Just sit down and listen to things that I’m doing. The last thing he said to me a couple months ago was that when I’m playing on multiple instruments—bass, drums, etc.—that it sounds like him and his brothers jammin’ a long time ago. It’s like I have it in my blood that I’m already in the same groove that they were when they were younger than me.
DX: Have you guys ever collaborated?
SR: Sometimes I get him to play something. He’s primarily a guitarist. He played on the first Amy Winehouse album [Frank], a couple songs. Every once in a while, we’ll do something, but nothing’s that’s too popular has been something that we’ve collaborated on as of yet. It can happen.
DX: How difficult is it for you to produce so many genres, without letting one breathe into the other?
SR: I think the fact that I listen to and work on different types of music keeps me fresh whenever I get back to whatever it is. A lot of the times, I create based on the project and the artist. It’s not like I’m just making it just for making it’s sake; sometimes I do that, but I’ll get into Amy Winehouse, and I won’t be thinking about what I did for Shabba Ranks. It’s different, but say on the Amy Source album, there’s a cover of “Moody’s Mood For Love,” which is a Jazz song by James Moody and King Pleasure, and we made that into a Reggae song. So [with] me having different influences, I can mix it. But I also keep them separate just by working around the artist’s project at hand, whatever’s needed.
DX: That’s another thing about you: you rarely just produce one song for an artist. You work with Amy Winehouse and produce the bulk of the album, or on Nas’ joint, and produce five or six tracks. Do you miss seeing artists collaborate with one producer more often?
SR: The way that I work better, in general, say like on Chrisette Michelle’s new album, I got two songs on the album, but I actually did five; only two made it. The way I like to work is to really to get in the groove with the artist. Because sometimes it’s not the key song that comes up when you go in the studio and make one song; sometimes it takes a couple to get it going, or sometimes there can be an idea that comes up over lunch that ends up being the real record that everyone remembers. So for me, I prefer to work in situations where I’m really vested into it and doing more of a record that lasts. Because that one song here and there, it’s cool, and it does what it does, but I really get more out of the project when I work on it more, creatively.
DX: A lot of artists collaborate these days via Internet. When you listen, how often can you tell? Like, “This is cool, but they definitely weren’t in the studio together”?
SR: There’s people that have gotten to the gift of songwriting where they’re able to [do that]. I prefer not to. I hardly have time to just do tracks for track’s sake, and if that’s the case, a lot of time it’ll be tracks that are left over from my actual session with an artist. I prefer to vibe directly off of an artist and be in the same room. There’s so much more that can happen when you’re getting someone’s direct feedback. But to me, most of the music right now sounds similar because [artists] get it to sound great on MP3 before it’s even completed. Because of that, a lot of intros to the tracks sound similar, the way they move is similar, because you’re trying to impress someone. You don’t know what mood they’re in, what vibe is going on, what’s going on in the room where they’re listening to it. For me, when I’m creating, all that makes a difference. If my artist comes in in a bad mood, maybe we’ll make a sad song, or maybe we’ll make a happy song that’ll change the mood. It’s like a life reflection. I think we all want music that’s some type of life reflection as to what’s going on at that time. … A lot of industry stuff is cookie cutter at this point. As much as the artists may come out and people say, “Is Hip Hop dead or not,” or “Is R&B dead or not,” or whatever else it is, the music is still going, and it’ll never stop. But we of course know that more creative times in the music [are in the past]. Everyone knows that. But at the end of the day, the radio doesn’t come off, things keep coming out and we keep working with it.
DX: You’re in a real interesting spot. You’ve produced hit records and you have a crazy catalog, but you still aren’t on as many top producers lists as other people may think you should be. Do you think anything has held you back from being a household name?
SR: I think it’s my personality, that I really wasn’t trying to be a household name. My goal is not necessarily to be an artist, per se, on the level of if you walk down the street and see Salaam Remi next to Jermaine Dupri or Timbaland, people who have taken on the artist factor, rapped, and do different things. I prefer personally to be more in the cut, look at things as an old school producer. You know who Quincy Jones was, but Quincy Jones had years of a career before he produced [Michael Jackson's] Thriller and people on the outside knew who Quincy Jones was. I look at a producer’s producer type of career for myself, where I’m able to work on many things. The fact is, I don’t really say my name on the beginning of a record I produce, and the records I do produce don’t sound the same, so you’re listening to it and getting the artist more than me. So if you name all the artists I worked with or the songs I worked on, they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know he worked on that.” I didn’t want you to know; I wanted you to buy that artist and buy the album. That’s just something I feel more comfortable with, working behind the scenes and making sure everything goes. As far as being rated, I think it’s cool, but the reality is that for whatever label presidents and people in the industry, I’ve got a good grip on who’s who and what’s what. I’ve been doing it for so long, most of the people who were interns during my career have seen the vice president spot. So I’m cool with it.
I don’t really mind. … Whatever may be hot now may not be hot later. I’m not a really trendy person; I don’t mind not being a certain lists now, because I feel like it all comes back in. If you look back at the body of work, it doesn’t move. I’m not necessarily doing it for props; I’m doing it to add to music as a whole.
DX: When did you realize that you and Nas had the chemistry that you have?
SR: The majority of records for Nas that I’ve made, I make in front of him. He’ll walk in and say, “I wanna do blah blah blah,” and we’ll work on it. Or, we actually talk a lot, so it’ll be based on a conversation. With “Made You Look,” we were having a conversation about how Flava Flav looks in the [Eric B. & Rakim] “I Ain’t No Joke” video, when he’s in the park dancing with the clocks on, thinking about what the music sounded like in that park-like atmosphere. If you look at the “Made You Look” video, they captured part of it when Nas is standing up in the Rucker Park and the camera’s going on around him, it’s was based on that same energy. So, most of the records that we make are based off of conversation. … This past weekend, we were at my house, going through records listening to stuff that we felt had a particular sound to it, and that’s going to be the influence for his next album. We’re music listeners first of all, and the more we listen, things just come out that have a certain energy to it. Of course, the root is still Hip Hop, the root is still Queens. We love [Public Enemy's] "Rebel Without A Pause" and certain records gave us that push and energy. But he also trusts me enough that if he’s doing something, I can tell him to switch his voice or something like that. We have that type of relationship.
DX: A lot has been said about how reclusive Nas can be. I remember hearing DJ Premier say, “You don’t get in contact with Nas. He gets in contact with you.” Would you say that?
SR: I guess to most people, yeah, that’s realistic. If you’re looking for him, you’re not going to find him; but if you’re not looking for him, he’ll come to your house, that’s real. I personally keep contact with him a lot, but that’s because we’re always doing stuff. I’m also a bit of a recluse myself, so wherever I’m at, it’s not lights camera action. It’s somewhere quiet, in the cut, with a lot of music going on.
DX: What’s the craziest experience you’ve had with him?
SR: It’s funny now, 'cause I guess it’s second nature to me at this point. Because this’ll be our fifth album of collaboration. But at this point, what I see with Nas is that there are different levels are cool. When I work with him in Stillmatic [Studio], he’s comfortable enough to come sit down in my studio, and I say, “Try this try that.” But like I said, we know a lot of the same people in a lot of the same areas. He was somewhat comfortable with me where our conversations were already there. God’s Son was another level of, “Aight cool, what’s up,” inner circle. But then the albums keep going down, the circle keeps getting smaller and smaller.
In general, from what I see, Nas can be anywhere and be cool. I was in L.A., and he pops up at the studio in a Ferrari. I’m like, “Oh snap.” He was by himself. A lot of times, you don’t get that. A lot of people who are on his status, or have barely gone platinum have to have an entourage, four bodyguards, etc. He’s just a rare dude, who just walks wherever he wants to walk, when he wants to walk there. … Hits the mall to buy something, goes in public or whatever, supermarket…just a regular dude. He knows how to move, and he enjoys his life. Most of our experiences would be just the fact that he goes anywhere and doesn’t really care whatever’s going on when he feels like it.
DX: Who haven’t you worked with yet that you’d like to?
SR: What I’m open to at this point, and looking forward to, I’ve been really inspired by the combination of, say a Gnarls Barkley project. I’m happy I was able to work with Cee-Lo on the Rush Hour 3 Soundtrack with Nas, but I was inspired by the fact that most of the records that I look up to and listen from the '60s and the '70s were a lot of similar musicians, but they would mix and match bands. … My thing that I want to do is get with different people and put together an album. I was thinking about something today: a Tweet and Bilal duets album, or another type of music might be interesting. Just projects where you work for a couple weeks, and you come out with an album and call it a different name. I told Busta, “Let’s just do the Dungeon Dragon album.” Who is Dungeon Dragon? There is no face on it, but they may know the voice. We just knock it out in a week, and it’s done, that’s what it is. You can benchmark a stamp on time by getting out and doing things like that. Pretty much, just going in and trying to create something that hasn’t happened before.
I think there’s a wealth of talent, but there’s a lack of talented executives. And that’s one of the things that can really spoil this, being able to create albums and then just put them out to the masses. … A lot of the times, you’ll have a great song that can’t come out due to label politics. It’s kind of ridiculous. It’s really about switching up things and keeping all this talent going, because that’s where the next forward movement of music is going to happen. So we have Cee-Lo, Danger Mouse is doing his thing with Gorillaz, The Grey Album, etc., and him and Cee-Lo gave us “Crazy.” As a creative person, we all needed something that had a different, eclectic mix of sound. So that’s what I look forward to. I can’t think of a particular artist in general, but any artist who’s talented who just really about
