Mann 'Birthday Philosophy' Mixtape

Recently signed to Mercury/Def Jam, producer J.R. Rotem hand picked the Los Angeles native Mann to take the crossover hip hop world by storm.

About the project:

[July 20th, 2010] After the first two mixtapes Vintage Cutz and A Near Life Experience, then his radio single “Text” West LA, CA recording artist Mann is releasing what can only be described as a statement EP project where every person is encouraged to live every day like their birthday per Mann’s “Birthday Philosophy"

The Birthday Philosophy makes anything we can say an understatement when the music itself is the boldest statement to be made.

As Mann himself states, “"After sitting back and surveying the music scene recently I felt I had to step my game up... This EP is to say to people who aren't quite sure of who exactly I am as an artist, and why I am in the position that I'm in (i.e. Def Jam/Mercury/Beluga Heights). I'm much more than my single 'Text' showed people and I hope it comes through in this project"

The understated brilliance and cohesiveness of a project helmed by one producer/engineer in Redvision helps to answer this career balancing act of the mainstream music he has created with JR and his Hip-Hop roots that lead him to his record deal.

There comes a time when the whole of a man’s experience must be manifested in his art rather than simply a sum of all the parts he has picked up until then. A rubberband can only be stretched so far before it returns back to its original shape, and traveling around the country in support of various projects has finally brought Mann back home to the artist with the ingenuity to make it to Def Jam before this “Mann” could legally buy a pack of zig zags. An appreciator of music can listen to the final stages of an evolution of a West L.A. musician befall their very ears on Birthday Philosophy, and the best part about this, with Mann being a product of his environment in the best sense of the phrase, this is as much West L.A.’s album as it is Mann’s. Follow West L.A.’s evolution (Manns World) along with Mann’s. Treat every day like your birthday.

Download Birthday Philosophy here.

J.R. Rotem: Music Producer Los Angeles Times Feature Story

Four years ago, J.R. Rotem made a pivot from straightforward, trunk-rattling gangsta rap productions to helming saucy mainstream pop tracks. The switch worked. His hit tracks for Britney Spears and Rihanna vaulted him from rap’s A-list into the clouds of frothy club-pop, with the attendant tabloid attention – including a quick-burning relationship with Britney that he vividly (he says jokingly) detailed in a notorious 2007 Blender Magazine article.

His extracurricular exploits threatened to derail Rotem the musician. So, in 2007, he re-calibrated his production goals and established Beluga Heights, a label imprint where he could cultivate new vocal talent. Sean Kingston, the teenage Jamaica-via-Miami singer, hit first with “Beautiful Girls,” one of the defining songs of that summer.

That tune set a template of Caribbean-inflected, beat-driven synth-pop for Rotem that, three years later, has sneakily become one of the dominant sounds of pop radio. His latest project, the debut from young singer-songwriter Jason Derulo out today, sports two sleek and absolutely inescapable singles in “Whatcha Say” and “In My Head,” while he simultaneously led Iyaz’s breakout track “Replay” to No. 2 on the Billboard's pop chart.

It seems like Rotem’s finally made a second major move in his music career, having become one of a select group of producers who spin singular chart gold out of completely unknown artists.

“That’s what’s becoming our forte, identifying raw talent,” Rotem said from the minimalist, workmanlike lounge inside his Mid-City recording studio. “My brother Tommy does our A&R and he spends an awful lot of time on MySpace.”

The idea of the Rotem brothers leaving the pop troposphere to troll through epilepsy-inducing MySpace pages for new talent seems unlikely. But the formula is paying off -- he has a perfect score on breaking his first three Beluga Heights debuts, and it’s given him a wide berth to refine his productions. He’s steered his sound away from such sample-heavy rewrites as Rihanna's “SOS” into an idiosyncratic mix of Euro-besotted trance synths, rap’s drum machine clatter and insatiably melodic, reggae-tinged songwriting.

“There is a weird connection to the islands here,” Rotem said. “There’s a lot of melody and soul in that music, and when you add synths, it’s just pure ear candy, but the vocals are still really organic. What I’m interested in now is how you can take an artist who is being true to themselves, but make everyone relate to it."

Along the way, Rotem himself became vastly more relatable. Gone are the the designer sunglasses and did-he-or-didn’t-he allusions to bedding half the starlets between Vine Street and the 405. It was all a projection of his aspirations, he said. He imagined that to produce for the best (or bestselling), you have to shop and party with them.

But today, in a rumpled hoodie fit for a Whole Foods run, Rotem’s finally put his hands back on something more creatively renumerative -- his keyboard.

“I wasn’t being evil then, it just wasn’t who I was supposed to be,” he said. “I needed to get that out of my system. It was insecurity, ultimately. Nothing productive ever came out of me being on a tabloid site. But it was a lesson that music has to take precedence.” (source)

Jason Derulo: Songwriter Steps Into The Artist Spotlight

(source)

Related:
R&B Newcomer Jason Derulo Interviewed In L.A.Times

R&B Newcomer Jason Derulo Interviewed In L.A.Times

via L.A. Times

L.A. Times: "Whatcha Say" comes from a long lineage of make-up songs. Did it do the trick?

Jason Derulo: My brother called me one day to tell me he'd cheated on his girl, but that he felt terrible and really wanted to stay together. I told him, "Tell her this!" That feeling was so real, people go through it every day. So I wrote the song, and he played it for her, and now they've got a beautiful baby.

L.A. Times: I guess it worked then. Speaking of interpersonal chemistry, you're doing your debut album entirely with J.R. Rotem. That must take a lot of trust, to work so closely with one producer on your first-impression record. Why him?

Jason Derulo: Our energy and connection was like nothing I'd ever experienced. We have a chemistry like Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones; we're really like soul mates. We've done something like 300 songs together. I'd always wanted the usual prospects to work on my record, like Timbaland. But I've got so many influences -- rock, country, rap -- that I really needed someone special. I didn't want to come off as an R&B artist just because of the color of my skin. When you hear the rest of the stuff, there's rock guitars, there's live drums, there's even banjos. I've studied classical music and jazz, and ballet and tap dancing and musical theater and Shakespeare, and I wanted all of that in there.

Read more of the interview here:
L.A. Times - Jason Derulo will save your relationship

Learn more about Jason Derulo:
Jason Derulo's MySpace Page