Toppa Top 10: Salaam Remi Breaks Down Ten of His Classic Records

Words by Salaam Remi, as told to Jesse Serwer:::Photo by Daison Osbourne—

During a recent afternoon with Salaam Remi at his Miami studio Instrument Zoo, we spoke with the unsung production genius about everything from his days on New York radio with Funkmaster Flex to his mastery of the reggae hip-hop remix and his hand in Nas’ new classic Life is Good, in an interview you can read in full here. While we had his attention—Salaam prefers to fly under the radar and rarely gives interviews— we had to ask about some of his best-known tunes, and a few forgotten favorites. Click through below as Salaam shares the stories behind everything from Super Cat’s “Ghetto Red Hot” to his wicked flip of the Don Dada for Nas’ recent smash, “The Don.” Selector!

Zhigge, “Toss It Up” (1992)

That was my first production deal. Those records were definitively East Coast types of records at that time. Zhigge came to me through like a friend of a friend of a friend of my dad. They were actually dancers at the time. They were Special Ed’s dancers, Kazo and Prancer, and Sound Kenny was YZ’s dancer. At that time, in those dancing crews, everybody had thick dreads on the top and fades on the side, like mop heads. Sound came in first and did one song called “Born Black,” and said I wanna do something with my crew. I gave them honestly a record that had all used samples in it,  and out of that they made “Toss it Up,” and “Toss it Up” sounded like pure energy at the time. They actually made something out of it when I was just giving them a left-over track. Maybe the horns at the beginning people didn’t recognize, but they were all just basic James Brown breaks.

I did their whole album, and took six months off from school and never went back. I’ve been rolling ever since. We had “Rakin’ in the Dough,” and they continued after that deal to do “Harlem High.” Kazo actually owns all the Levels barbershops in NY now. Also out of that crew was Trix Galore, who was rhyming on some Lo-Life skit, and he is Ant Marshall of Lyricist Lounge. The Lyricist Lounge grew out of that crew. It’s not always about what you do, it’s about the inspiration that you can give. Being around my dad, he saw black dudes with a studio in Manhattan, and he took his own business aspect out of what he saw around us at that age.

Bobby Konders feat. Mikey Jarrett, “Mack Daddy” (1992)

“Mack Daddy” was huge in Philly. Everybody from Philly will be like, “Yo, he did ‘Mack Daddy,’ that joint was bumping.” I knew Bobby Konders from working at WBLS, and we started doing a bunch of remixes [together]. Bobby got a deal at Mercury Records, and he had the idea: Ice Cube was saying “Mack Daddy,” fuck that we going to do the Jamaican version. Mikey Jarrett was a Brooklyn deejay and him and Bobby were doing some work. [I remember] Mikey said, “How you can make me ‘Mack Daddy,’ and I have 35 kids already.”

Biz had just used [the break] on “Toilet Stool Rap,” and I said let me find another way to flip it. I put some breaks together, sped it up and Mikey started doing his thing going “eh-eh-eh-eh, Mack Daddy.” There was a joke at the video shoot, like “yo Salaam,help me write down the lyrics to ‘Mack Daddy.’” Almost all he says is “Mack Daddy Mack Daddy Mack Daddy.” It was a more authentic hip-hop beat, with a more authentic reggae deejay, coming together in raw form. Most of what I do is I try to put the rawest elements together, and not water them down so that they melt together. That ended up being the main single on Bobby’s album. We actually had a record with Amel Larrieux before she came out. I used “Easin In” by Edwin Starr, so we made an R&B record off of that. Bobby had yard-style patience in the studio. He was like, “yo sing it, you took too much studio time, sing it again.”

Super Cat, “Ghetto Red Hot (Remix)” (1992)

[Super Cat] and Heavy D had those records [together] so he kind of blended with Heavy’s side of it, and prior to “Ghetto Red Hot” we had done the “Don Dada” remix. We did a long talking intro to “Ghetto Red Hot” and the [label] cut it off, and left me with my little voice just going “uhh” at the end. That’s what that “uhh” is that starts the song. “Ghetto Red Hot” was done in one night in D&D Studios. I think it’s probably the first record that Eddie Sancho, Premier’s engineer, mixed. De La Soul’s “Bitties in the BK Lounge” had come out with the Lou Donaldson sample on there, and I used that and put together a bunch of breaks that had been used in hip-hop. The little squeak is similar to the sound that’s on Poor Righteous Teacher’s “Shakiyla,” Bobby said, “lets cut it real short and put it on the track,”—nyeehhh—and that’s where that sound comes from. I don’t even think we really got paid for that. Bobby did it to get some dubs, and keep in good graces with the Don Dada. Bobby had dealt with Cat to do the record, and the vocal was at the same exact tempo as it was cut to the [original] rhythm. I was able to make the samples lock so tight with the vocal that you never heard the separation, you just heard it like that’s what it is.

Ralph McDaniels did a great video that he shot between Brooklyn and Jamaica, that really looked like…that’s probably one of the best videos for a reggae/hip-hop record ever. The motorcycle, Robert Livingston on the front, Cat on the back, just the whole way it looked. That’s probably one of my favorite videos to a song I produced, that and “Fu-Gee-La,” because they were both raw.

Funkmaster Flex and 9 Double M, “Six Million Ways to Die” (1993)

I was on the air with Flex until ’97, as the Overseer Salaam. Regardless of how big a record I’d have, whether it was Fugees’ The Score or whatever, I would still show up on Fridays and write down the records they played at the station, keeping my ear to the street, opening those manila envelopes with the songs of the week in it. We were in the heated radio wars and I’d be listening on the other line like, yo they playing that, play this real quick, everybody is gonna turn the station. Being in the clubs, he had the chance to create some records on Nervous. Flex had the ideas, he knew what he had wanted to use, and then I put it together. He wanted to use “Six Million Ways to Die,” I was actually putting my hands on it. It was like left and right hand at that point.

At that time, we were both with Chuck Chillout. Chuck went from being a DJ to a personality [on New York’s WBLS], and let Flex DJ, and that’s where it became “Funkmaster Flex on the 1&2’s.” Flex at the time was working in the kitchen at Pratt [College] or something, and Flex would be coming up with things like, “Don’t be a biscuit,” “don’t be a bagel,” “you’re like a hot pickle.” He always had these sayings. Chuck had a record deal, and DJ gigs, and when Chuck didn’t show up, I did the records, and Flex did the DJ gigs. Flex knew that since we came out of the same moment, he could always trust me to give him a clear view of what was happening club-wise. What I got out of it was not a friend that was going to play my record, I understood what records were going to work for my friend. Up to this day when I’m creating Nas’ “The Don,” or “A Queens Story,” I already know what’s going to motivate him, what’s going to work for him. When he plays this people are going to move like that, cause I’ve watched the emotion come up so many times. We’d be in the clubs til 4 in the morning, then he’d  call me back at 7 like “yo I came up with a new one, what if I cut it like this.” Flex always has been driven. At one point, he could have called himself the number one DJ in the world before the house music DJs took back over, and I did well at the production level.

The Fugees, “Nappy Heads (Remix)” (1994)

Jeff Burroughs, who’s now with X Factor, was their product manager at Colombia Records, and he was roommates with Jessica Rosenblum, NY’s party promoter extraordinaire, and she was managing Funkmaster Flex at the time. He heard Mega Banton’s “Soundboy Killing” and [wanted] something like that for the Fugees. He called me to his office to come check out this group, and mind you he’s marketing, not A&R, so he plays me a videotape of them performing “Vocab” acoustic. It was getting close to Christmas, like Thanksgiving, and I was like let me get this last check out the labels before they shut the books down. And when they came through, they wanted to remix “Nappy Heads.” The original version felt like a Onyx record, it was grimy and uptempo. I started building the track, Wyclef came through to meet me and he had on a bubble goose and nappy, nappy hair, Adidas sweatpants. He took it and vibed on it and was like I want you to meet the girl so in came Pras and Lauryn. I remember the session—December 13, 1993—cause I had a cassette with the date on it. Clef rhymed on it for like 15 minutes, and I edited it down. For that same session he did “Gone til November,” “Born in Brooklyn Town.” Having my NY radio, club ear on, I made it so it would start off with the right kind of energy—the “Cheeba cheeba y’all” verse felt right. Lauryn came in did her part. I remember at the time Flex was like, “What are you doing this weekend?” “I’m making a record called ‘Boof Baf,’ with The Fugees. What are you making a record called ‘Boof Baf’ for?”

The Fugees, “Fu-Gee-La” (1995)

“Nappy Heads” worked and I remixed “Vocab,” and I was actually working on songs for Clockers, and recorded a song with them that’s still unreleased, and Spike turned it down. But during that same session, I had the beat I made for Fat Joe. Lauryn said play that Fat Joe beat, and Clef jumps up and says, “We used to be number ten, now we permanently one.” That was recorded and put together before they even had a second budget for another album. A lot of The Score‘s energy was based around “Fu-Gee-La,” so “Cowboys” beat was made to match “Fu-Gee-La,” and they did a good job at making it eclectic. I didn’t even need to go in there and produce records. I encouraged them to do it themselves. I had produced my two songs on the album, and the budget was super tight, so Pras calls me one day and says “yo, you remember that old record ‘Killing me Softly’? How would you do it, what would you do?” And I was like ummm it would be like some Bonita Applebaum type shit, “Oh that’s the same thing I was thinking let me call you right back.”

Ini Kamoze, “Here Comes the Hotstepper” (1994)

Ini, at the time, was going through a lot of personal and street turmoil and street stuff. He was in the belly of the beast, staying in Brooklyn, in the PJ’s, on the low. HE was already esteemed as a reggae artist, and had the huge “Hotstepper” record that was working in the reggae level, but he was still in a situation were he was going through a lot, and I’ll just leave it there. He came in with a cast on saying yea the homies got me, he had a bullet in his hand. He was staying in the hood, but he was also a lyricist that was listening to Cypress Hill, and everything else. His “naaa nanana naaa nana na naaaa” was his version of Cypress Hill going “naa na naa na na na na naaaaaa” [from “Hand on the Pump”]. He was listening to Das EFX and Cypress. His lyrics, “I’m a lyrical gangsta, murderer” was the combination of hip hop’s energy lyrically. So I’m listening to the acapella, and my remix vibe at that time was putting 80’s stuff underneath it, and then one day it hit me. My father arranged what became [Taana Gardner’s] “Heartbeat,” the original track. They did it over but it was really his creation, so he was able to make that go through.

I tweaked it and played it for Flex and Angie, and they were like yo that shit is hot. Steve Smith, who was program director of Hot 97, was like what records are happening, and the two records that Angie pushed forward were “Nappy Heads” and “Here Comes the Hotstepper.” My dad had Beats to the Streets promotions at the time. We made the record hot, and once it blew up and a bidding war happened, he was like, “You know what, Jah sent this for me, I had a vision, this wasn’t necessarily something that you did.” So they decided rather then pay me to do the album after that on their own, and the result was such… doing over songs that didn’t necessarily work out. But that record had the Smurfs sing it in Swedish. It is a staple of my catalog and a great example of how something that was made for Brooklyn under a bit of stress—”Heartbeat” is Brooklyn, “Murderer” is Brooklyn…. The energy was made for the jerk chicken spot on Flatbush, but it translated and worked in Iowa, and anywhere around the world, and in different languages.

Da Bush Babees, “Remember We” (1996)

I had produced a song on the album called ‘I just can’t stand it’ that had  a similar vibe to that, and they were like please just remix ‘Remember We.’ I found the original not to be inspiring to me. They were vibing off what I did for the Fugees and “Nappy Heads.”Ali Shaheed Muhammed had produced a few records for them, and they had the Tribe sound at the time, they started to get a little buzz happening. Bush Babees was definitely a good record for me, and the track I was using was literally just the “Lyrics to Go” drums but chopped up my way with samples that weren’t done before. It was an original-ish track, then I threw in the little operatic vocals in the background. I was imagining stuff. I could hear how the music would expand on an arrangement level. You hear something simple and then arrange it all the way out, make it simple again, whether that’s a drum loop or piano like on “I know I Can” or something fully fleshed out. It’s being able to hear what arrangements will support the song the most, which is a reggae thing to me. How do you drop it in, maybe sometimes the song’s not that good, but the mix on it actually makes it work. It happens all the time.

Nas, “Made You Look” (2002)

What transpired between Stillmatic, and God’s Son was turmoil for him, and myself. While we were working on Stillmatic, my mom had passed. That week I had worked on a Sade remix, and I had actually put him on the Sade remix. It was before the funeral even, and I was still working. Stillmatic was when he was going through all the stuff with Jay-Z. He was kind of in that underdog spot but he still handled it. Unfortunately the whole situation with Hot 97 showed up next summer, to the point where he was even at odds with Flex and Angie, who were not just people I know. That’s like talking to my brother. He knew that I was that tight with Flex and Angie, so at first he started the album and made his anti-Hot 97 records without me being around.

The inception of “Made You Look” was: what did it sound like when Rakim had his “I Ain’t No Joke” video, and that was the first time you saw him, and Flavor Flav is in the video, and the whole energy of “Run’s House,” and then BDP busting on stage in the “My Philosophy” video. Between those three visuals, what did that music feel like. I was chopping up [classic breakbeat] “Apache” for Ricky Martin. I was working with him when I first moved to Miami. It was gonna go, “den-den-den-den-den-den…Ricky! Ricky!” That’s what I was going to do. And then I slowed it down as I was chopping the sample up. I called [Nas] and left him a voicemail that had the beat on it. He hit me like yo, come through. He was in Orlando, I had just moved to Miami, so I packed up my truck and stayed in the house they had out there. I left for a day and he Rakim-ed it: “Let’s get it all in perspective…”  You can actually hear how Ra would have sounded on the track. I sat there for about three or four days [doing] edits, putting the glass breaking and the reverses, and just messing with the track.

His birthday party, Sept. 14, was the first time we played it publicly, and everybody’s face was just like what the fuck just happened. We tweaked it a little more did the mixes, his whole crew was in Miami and they did the “BRAVEHEARTS” and just made it feel good, and when it eventually came out, I went and personally talked to Flex, let’s squash the beef, and Flex, because he and I were so close for that amount of time, he entertained the conversation differently, and was like alright, it’s squashed. Then I went and erased the song that was dissing Hot 97, actually. But “Made You Look” was created out of the tension going on in his life and his career, and at the same time showing how cool he was in the middle of the tension. When people say “play some real hip-hop,” they play that, because it stands up. It was the accumulation of a lot of tension, moms dying, his mom, my mom. I never articulated it as I just said, but that’s what it really was. All the crazy New Yorkers, the Mobb Deeps were making R&B records. Irv Gotti and them were winning at the time, they were controlling the radio. I just moved out here to Miami, walking around with sandals all day calling them my Jesus Tims. I literally had sandals on and shorts when I made that…

Nas, “The Don”

Last July 4, Heavy D had hit me about “Nasty” and he was like “yo, how do you get records to sound so vintage, but still so fresh and young, every time I make something old it feels old, how are you keeping this urgency like a teenager, like pow pow pow pow, even when you do reggae stuff it just be sounding like it’s authentic.” And I was just like “Yo, I just make it like I taped it off the radio.” If I go to a Beatles vibe, I’m able to hone into it sonically and get there right now. And he was impressed by that, so he told me that there’s this Super Cat record that if you were able to do it to make it work that would be incredible. “Dance Inna New York,” I had never heard it, so he sent it to me, and I was like wow some Cat shit I never heard. Nas called me, and I’m playing it on my computer and I’m detailing the conversation with Heavy, and he got so excited talking about how we used to be listening to Heavy to know what’s what, and now he’s calling us like, yo how you did that record? I’m like damn, that’s just 360.

Nas asked what’s that playing in the background? It’s the Super Cat record he sent me, to see if I can find a way to  flip it, and he said, it sounds like Cat said my name right there. Cause Nas and Cat were on tour together were they were at Columbia. Nas used to open up for Super Cat on some of his promo tours, and vice-versa. He recognized that voice and it meant something to him. Super Cat is not just some reggae artist, he’s somebody he got a chance to interact with. He was doing “Halftime” on Cat’s promo tour. I pulled it back a  bit and said damn, it kind of does sound like your name . If you listen to the record you wont hear “Nas,” even if people listen to where I had sampled it from they don’t really hear it. A couple weeks later Amy [Winehouse] passes and my mind is in a tailspin, and I’m like let me take this record that Heavy gave me. I chopped it up basically into the track: “Nas di don, Nas di don, Nas di don” with the voice being loud, and the bass in there and I pushed it up a little bit. At the “Nasty” video shoot, I called Heavy and was like I think I found a way to chop it up but I got it saying “Nas di don, Nas di don,” and he said, “if it works for Nas or whoever, I ain’t hating, go for it, that sounds good.” I had some of Nas’s verses that we never used on my iPad, so I actually took the first verse from an old song, and I had my iPad plugged into my brothers car with my DJ mixer on there. I’m in a Honda, and we in Corona riding out in queens, so I scratch the first verse onto it and and that’s majority of the first verse, and they are like yo that shit works so I called him and said listen.

I researched the record and saw Jah Thomas produced it. I had actually bought some multi-tracks from Jah Thomas like ten years ago. I called Jah Snowcone, and they tried to call Da’ville, who’s Jah Thomas’ son, and Snowcone call ah mon up di lane to get a number for Jah Thomas, yaad style. Jah Thomas found the 16 track for me, made a tape, and then transferred it to Protools. I sent him the money, boom, now I got the multitrack, going in and moving around things, drove my engineers crazy, trying to line it up too where the track was banging to where I wanted it, and also I had Cats’s voice that I could turn up, down, pan, make it sound bigger, better, play it accapella. I was able to manipulate it that way, then I lined up the sample credits. I tried to reach out to Cat, cause it meant something to Nas and myself that it was Cat. My oldest, greatest record is a Super Cat record, and both of us [wanted] to make sure that was lined up as being “The Don.” Eventually there were different versions, and then the one that came out popped off. It had a story, and also I wanted to make sure Heavy D was credited, paid and sorted out. He just sent me the record on some good vibes, like yo, if you could find a way to flip this, this shit would rock now. Heavy was hearing the Heavy D deejaying across it, but what I ended up making it into had nothing to do with that, it was choppng it up into a whole different thing.

Mega Banton, “Soundboy Killing” (1993) and Super Cat’s “South Central (Outstanding Mix)” (1995)

One of the uncovered, undiscovered records that I did most of is Mega Banton’s One Million Megawatts album. I did my version of the Sick rhythm with “Combination Part 2″ on there. I had gotten bored with doing reggae the way we were doing it, cause you started getting records that weren’t really that good, and once you get those I back off. Then I was like I’m gonna start doing [reggae with] the [R&B] classics, cause [Salaam and Funkmaster Flex] were doing the classics section in the club. That’s where [Mega Banton’s] “Soundboy Killing’ came from, with the Barry White sample. When [reggae producer] Jack Scorpio came up and we were working on the Mega [Banton] album, I flipped the remix, and made that work, and then Ini had “Heartbeat” on Super Cat on “Here Comes the Hotstepper” and the Super Cat “South Central” remix had [The Gap Band’s] “Outstanding.” I was intentionally making songs for a playlist. If you’re playing your classics you can go into your [hip-hop sample] reggae, then go into your other reggae, then back out, rather then playing your classics and now you gotta get into hip-hop and move it around. It was before it was even a trend in hip hop. Before Mary’s ‘My Life.’ When I was doing Super Cat’s [“South Central”] Puffy came in the studio like “heyyy yo, what are you doing?”