Salaam Remi: The Fugees & Nas Music Production Stories In 2 Recent Interviews

(video courtesy of Vibe)

First at the BMI "How I Wrote That Song" discussion panel that took place Saturday January 30 at the House of Blues in Hollywood during Grammy weekend. Salaam spoke on producing The Fugees' breakout record, "Fu-Gee-La".



Next...via Soul Culture

Versatile producer and long-time Nas collaborator Salaam Remi shares his thoughts on will.i.am using the very same (Iron Butterfly's) ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ and (the Incredible Bongo Band's) ‘Apache’ samples for the title track of Hip Hop Is Dead that Remi had used to create ‘Thief’s Theme’ and ‘Made You Look’ for Nas merely a few years earlier.

“On ‘Thief’s Theme’ I intended it to sound like the summer of 2004… We put the record out, I remember we took it up to Flex… But nobody said, ‘You know what, that record’s crazy’ – we didn’t get that feedback. We got, ‘Uh oh, what’s he doing?’” he says in the video below.

“When he (Nas) called me when Will had the track for ‘Hip Hop Is Dead’, he was like, “Um, you know, Will kinda did a track you gon’ laugh when you hear’.. Then when I heard it, I laughed, because that was the irony. Like, ‘Hip Hop is dead so I’ma choose the same beat that I used for ‘Made You Look’… and my last single and use it again, because it doesn’t make a difference what I come out with’. And it was kinda a part of his sarcasm.”