Kurt Riley Talks Mentoring Young Producers, Why Laa Lee Is At The Top Of The Game
Billboard-charting producer and musicologist, Kurt Riley, has joined the call for the more seasoned Reggae/Dancehall music producers to help to nurture and mentor their younger counterparts in the industry.
Riley made his comments during a recent interview with Television Jamaica’s Anthony Miller for The Entertainment Report, where he, like many other music experts, expressed concern about production issues which compromise the “end product”, of what could be truly great songs.
“Yeah, it naw stick. And sometime when yuh listen to some songs, di verse dem wicked, but when it come to do punch line weh suppose to drape yuh and meck yuh do suppm, it weak! It nuh hold yuh! Dat a my problem; too much bad song out deh, but when it come to say suppm deh fi meck yuh seh ‘yeh’, it fall short,” he said.
“Di songs (nowadays) are being made too straight. Is like yuh just press record and just do suppm,” he said.
In addition, Riley expressed a widely held sentiment that most of the beats being produced in Jamaica, particularly the Trap-infused, were all sounding alike, and called for beat-makers and artists to be creative and aim to differentiate their compositions in order to curb the monotony in the music.
“Nothing is wrong with the software that they are using. But nobody is thinking like: ‘meck wi really huh hard’; ‘let us meck a difference’; ‘I don’t want to sound like everybody else’; ‘I don’t want to use the same snare that everybody else is using’; ‘I don’t want to use the same rim that everybody else is using, that all 10,000 of us is using; ‘I don’t want to use the same kick’,” Riley lamented.
“So what happens? All the songs dem sound di same,” he added.
Riley though, pointed out that while artists and producers were going after the slow-paced Trap tempos, Dirt Bounce artist Lalee, had capitalized on the uptempo beat and made a massive windfall with his latest hit, which has even seen him getting a Digicel ambassador contract.
“And when you check it, di BPM range is another thing. Everything is basically between 94 and 98. Between 100 and 105, or 110 is open. And who is leading the 110 lane? Lalee,” he stated.
“Nobody is there doing what Laa Lee a do. So is like open land fi Laa Lee. But as I said a lot of these things, people don’t look at,” the Kingston College old boy added.
Riley told Miller that he was not averse to calling or offering advice and reviewing songs and beats for younger producers, and had been doing so for some time with relative success.
“Mi give thanks fi di one day dem weh choose fi listen, and so far it look like it working for them,” he said.
“I give my opinion in the best interest of the business, because if hit music is not made, I Kurt Riley as a deejay, don’t have a job. So I need music to play,” he said.
In elaborating on the relationship between younger producers and their older counterparts, Riley said in some cases the veterans tend to pre-judge their juniors and this was a big turnoff.
“Really and truly the new producers dem, dem reach out an dem get disrespect. Den yuh have a ting weh people who do it before a seh yow dem young boy Nuh have no sense. But you cannot say dat; we all need a chance,” Riley said.
“We cannot bash what have to come, and what have to come is change. Just guide it. If you as a producer that do it already and you know the ins and outs a business, don’t dead wid di information; don’t keep it to yourself. Don’t seh yuh naw tell dem bwoy deh became dem bwoy deh naw no manners. No. Reach out bredda.
He named Stephen “Di Genius” McGregor, Steelie and Clevie and Dave “Rude Boy” Kelly as among Jamaica’s top riddim makers.
“Dave had this thing to me, about the street… Stephen’s productions made it easy for you to get a forward out of a song. He just knew how to mix it, how to do the dropouts,” Riley said.
“He had an element of sophistication,” Miller proffered.
“Yeah man! Him have it lock!” Riley responded.
Kurt learned the music production business from his father, the late Winston Riley, who also had an exceptional career as a producer with his Techniques label producing tracks such as Super Cat’s mega hit Boops, the iconic Ring The Alarm by Tenor Saw, Sister Nancy’s version of Bam Bam, and Loneliness by Sanchez. The senior Riley’s Stalag riddim is the most sampled dancehall beat of all time.
In March this year, Director of the Institute of Caribbean Studies at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Dr. Sonjah Stanley Niaah, had, like Riley, clamoured for the veteran producers” to engage with the younger artistes; engage with the younger producers.
“There is a big conversation going on at Clubhouse now, because the young people don’t feel like the older producers are giving them the time of day, guiding them enough, appreciating what they are doing,” the Reggae Studies Unit senior lecturer had said.
“So I am here to say one of the things that must happen, is that conversation between the generations… I want to also see the ways in which for future, the quality – and the question of quality obviously is subjective – what makes your music timeless. There is some formulae that you can use. There are things that you can detect about a hit song; whether it has a proper chorus; how the rhyming guh,” she said.
The professor had said she was enthused, though, by the fact that many of the younger artistes, like Chronixx and Koffee, had been drawing for older riddims, rhyme schemes, and styles dating back to the 70s and 80s, and incorporating and interpolating them in their newer productions and giving to the world, masterpieces.