Stepping up

Despite LaFace’s exit, a new generation of urban-music producers and songwriters continues to work — and thrive — in Atlanta

When Atlanta’s urban-music scene exploded a few years ago, it not only nourished the seedling careers of rappers and singers. It also ignited the dreams of producers and songwriters — young men and women who concocted homemade demos with second-hand Casios and RadioShack tape recorders, who squeezed their emotions snugly into verses and choruses scribbled on loose-leaf paper and tucked away in a frayed notebook. They had the aspirations and the talent. All they needed was a break.

They got it once producers Antonio “L.A.” Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds — already known for penning hits for Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown and Boyz II Men — set up LaFace Records in town and began looking for people to help build the label’s reputation. The plan, grandiose as it seemed, was to turn Atlanta into the Motown of the South. They reached out to the handful of producers already here — kids like Dallas Austin, Jermaine Dupri and Organized Noize — and invited them to join the effort. Together with Reid and Edmonds, these producers grew and Atlanta’s urban-music scene exploded in earnest.

Today, though LaFace is gone, the city is still crawling with producers — well-known and aspiring — who swear that if you want to make it in urban music, Atlanta is the place to be.

The Atlanta challenge
Though still an upstart as far as music meccas go, Atlanta has carved for itself quite a reputation as a hotbed for urban hits in a relatively short time. That stature raises the bar for aspiring producers who want to add their names to the city’s list of hitmen.

Many of Atlanta’s newest hitmakers were just kids when the scene began to take shape. “Back then, since Atlanta was so small, it was a lot more competitive,” says Anthony Dent, an Oakland native who moved here from Minneapolis when he was 19 and has produced songs for Destiny’s Child (most notably, “Survivor”), Kelly Price, Puff Daddy and Jay-Z. “They had their camps and they kept it like that because they were trying to compete against New York and L.A. Now there are a lot more camps and people from each camp tend to work with each other.”

Many credit L.A. Reid with fostering that comraderie. Sean “Sepp” Hall (3LW, Pink, Tyrese), who moved from Chicago to Los Angeles and then to Atlanta, says Reid opened doors for him and his peers. “I was doing music back then, but I really wasn’t getting into my stride of working until I met L.A. He imparted a lot of knowledge to me. Basically, anybody who’s down here doing anything got started through L.A., because he was the one who had his ear to the street — or had people who had their ears to the street.”

Hall says that while Reid, who now heads Arista Records in New York, is no longer in the city, ATL producers remain loyal to him, giving him a first look at any new talent they might be developing. “If you got a group or an artist, it’s like automatic that you’re gonna run it through him. If he don’t take it then you take it someplace else, but you know if you sign somebody and you’re ready to shop them, it’s definitely coming through L.A. first. You kinda owe it to him because he put you in the game.”

The rise in the number of Atlanta-based producers not only made the area more fertile and more recognized by the music industry, it also made it more competitive. Says Teddy Bishop (Toni Braxton, 702, Montel Jordan), who moved to Atlanta from Detroit in 1991, “The whole Atlanta scene is competitive. There are a lot of producers and songwriters here, so if you’re really serious about what you do, you want to stay on your game.”

Keeping up with the Dupris
That challenge — to stay on your game — is something every producer, established or aspiring, feels. Unlike successful artists, most producers — who tend to be the men and women behind the scenes — don’t have the benefit of public exposure and a loyal fanbase to keep them warm when the cold winds of competition blow. That’s why Bryan-Michael Cox (Jagged Edge, Toni Braxton, Mariah Carey, Monica) says the only way for his peers to ward off the pressure is to work hard and stay on their toes. “I feel pressure every day,” he acknowledges. “I cannot allow myself to start slacking or going by the wayside. I have to continuously try to be on top of my game and try my hardest to get better. You have to constantly be in learn mode, no matter how much money you make, no matter how many cars you buy, no matter how many clothes you got in your closet.”

Dent agrees. “As a producer and a writer, you’re only as good as your last hit. You’ve got to always keep coming up with better songs because as soon as, say, St. Louis becomes the big place, it’ll be like, ‘OK, Atlanta’s dead now. Nothing’s happening.’”

Hall says, for him, the competitiveness has less to do with being in Atlanta than with simply being part of the music industry. “I don’t call it pressure, I call it drive. But I would feel that no matter where I am. It’s not just because I’m here — it’s because I’m a producer.”

He says the growing circle of producers in the city inspires him. “You don’t try to copy people — but you feed off their energy. If all of us got together in a room, most would leave and probably feel like going to the studio to make music. Because just being around people who are doing the same thing you’re doing gives you a drive inside to do it. Any group of people with a common goal will affect each other to go to the next level.”

Despite a sense of one-upsmanship, today’s younger generation of producers say there’s a greater sense of community and camaraderie among them than there was among their predecessors. “It used to be that everybody was just kinda in their own clique,” Bishop says. “But I think the disappearance of LaFace made everybody have a little more cohesiveness, so now we’re starting to get together more often and talk about things.”

In many ways, Christopher “Tricky” Stewart (Mya, Blu Cantrell, Sole, Sisqo, JT Money) bridges the gap between the older generation of Austins and Dupris and the new batch of hitmakers. His standing allows him to help foster unity among the city’s producers. “I think I have the respect for the music business and everything that has come before me with the older guys,” he says, “but at the same time I have the youthful side of the new guys that are trying to get in. I’m kinda in between both since I’ve worked with the top guys and the new guys.”

Hey, Aren’t You ... ?
While some producers and writers are actually frustrated artists who’d jump at the opportunity to take center stage, most tend to be the strong, silent types, content to let others deliver their words and music. Still, they admit, it can be agonizing at times not to be recognized for their talents.

Says writer Shamora Crawford, “It is difficult being behind the scenes, because if you’re creating, it’s like your baby. And then for someone else to put it out there and have everybody love it, it’s kinda hard when you don’t get that recognition. You do want people to know that you’re the one that did it. You hear somebody walking around singing your song and you walk past them thinking, ‘They need to know that I did that.’”

But Hall says he’s less concerned with public adulation than with recognition by the music industry. “It’s more important that your peers know. You make a track that’s hot, it’s blazing, but it doesn’t matter if [John Q Public] knows because you ain’t gonna ever see him. But you do it because people like the A&R person over at RCA might be listening.”

Of course, most producers don’t do it primarily for the adulation of fans or industry, but are motivated by the desire to express themselves through their artform. At least, that how it’s got to be if Atlanta’s going to stay on top of its game.

“I think R&B right now is at a stagnant state,” Bishop says. “It’s up to us as producers and songwriters to get back to creating quality music. I’m kinda getting tired of all the bling bling ... We need to really focus on getting back to creating quality music. I think it’s up to certain producers to say, ‘I’m not gonna keep giving you what the radio is demanding, I’m gonna try to stretch it, push the envelope a little bit.’”

rhonda.baraka@creativeloafing.com??