SALAAM REMI: I ask artists different things when I initially meet them.
I ask them what songs move them.
“What's the thing that you hear that makes you want to write?”
‘Cause I feel like I'm cooking for you. But if I don't know what your taste is, then how can I chef it?
RODNEY CARMICHAEL: In hip-hop, sampling is like alchemy.
It’s an art form that rearranges space and time.
And the producers who build on the tradition use sonic DNA from the past to cook up the future.
Even when you know how it works, it can still feel like magic.
Salaam Remi’s superpower is collaboration.
He’s reworked classic samples in the most unexpected ways to give artists their signature sound.
His work with two legends, in particular, shows how he inspires performances
that turn something borrowed into something brand new.
[Plays Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache”]
REMI: The Incredible Bongo Band's “Apache” is one of the records that we believe were
played on August 11, 1973, at Kool Herc’s first hip-hop party, like the birth of hip-hop in that day.
[Plays Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache”]
So I was sampling “Apache” and I decided to slow it down, and when I hit it, it turned into
[slowed down chord from “Apache”]
This song actually came at a time when Nas had a lot going on.
My mom had passed 2001. His mom had passed 2002.
He was at odds with the radio stations in New York.
You know, he had just gone through the battle with Jay-Z.
It was just all this drama, and Nas being himself was sitting there
watching all this stuff go around and being quiet and going, "All right cool."
[Plays Nas’ “Made You Look”]
At first I didn't know, I was like, “So that's what we doing?”
Like I thought we were going to be on top of the beat. I was like swinging ratchets.
I was thinking about breakdancing, b-boying, doing the “Brooklyn.”
Like I thought I was hearing all this energy.
And he leaned back the other way.
He didn't jump up when the record jumped up. He didn't try to chase the beat.
He leaned back on the beat, and let the beat propel him.
And it was genius.
[Plays Nas’ “Made You Look”]
Because I'd used “Apache” on “Made You Look,” and the way I did it, I’m like,
“Somebody’s gonna come and sample this and then try to make an R&B record out of my record.”
Probably before Nas’ record was even was fully out, I'd already started “In My Bed” because I was like,
I wanted to beat whoever was going to try to sample me to the punch.
[Plays Amy Winehouse’s “In My Bed”]
You know, Amy made me a better producer.
She was just a real sharp girl who had a knack for saying really smart stuff,
and I had a knack for pushing her to write what she really was thinking.
Even when we were doing “In My Bed,” I was like
“I'm not letting you use a Nas beat unless you write a song that I like without the Nas beat.”
And she just figured out what chords would work over the Nas beat, and then I was like
“All right, now the beat’s out of here. You ain’t getting that beat turned back on unless I like this song.”
[Plays Amy Winehouse’s “In My Bed”]
To me it’s all about lyrics.
And knowing what the lyrical intent is, and knowing what the intent of the record is,
and then I’ll find the interesting way to make the juxtaposition musically.
[Plays Amy Winehouse’s “In My Bed”]
And played “Tears Dry On Their Own.”
[Plays Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry On Their Own”]
When I met Amy Winehouse, she was on some, “I’m a jazz singer.”
[Plays Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry On Their Own” Demo]
So basically the entire song “Tears Dry On Their Own” was written as a down tempo song.
And then I’d come across “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”’s stems at one point, where they had the instrumentals.
[Plays Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s  “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”]
This could actually fit to that song.
And she was like, “I don't know about that, buddy.”
[Plays Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry On Their Own” Demo]
AMY WINEHOUSE: F--- it! I knew I’d do that!
REMI: She was still trying to, you know, get the tempo,
because she wrote it as [Salaam singing slowly] And I’m like [Salaam singing faster].
She had to get to a whole shimmie, and she was like, “How?”
And this was all in a couple days of her writing it.
[Plays Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry On Their Own”]
My evolution of sampling, really went from needing to sample because
I couldn’t figure out how to program it to the point where now I'm able to sample the sonic of something
and listen to it and not actually, physically sample the record at all.
Hip-hop is taking anything from anywhere on the planet and pulling it back to this man's story at this moment.
That's what I live for.
[Plays Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry On Their Own”]
Just getting her to go and do it at that level and that tempo…. oh she was mad at me.
[Plays recording of Amy Winehouse singing]
REMI: Basically she kept going, “Hell no. I’m not doing this. Like why am I doing that?”
