Jermaine Dupri reaches new heights | mcarchives.com

Wednesday 13 June 2018

Jermaine Dupri reaches new heights

Jermaine Dupri is a music legend. The talented producer who sprung from the depths of the Atlanta music scene is leaving an indelible mark in hip-hop and R&B, branding his music with that undeniable Southern funk, identifiable even two decades since his iconic label, So So Def Recordings, was born.

His career has been nothing short of stellar, working alongside some of the world's biggest artists. From the Kris Kross craze to Usher having it his way, and who can forget Mariah's "We Belong Together"? Dupri's production roster includes names like Jay-Z, TLC, Ludacris, Alicia Keys, Destiny's Child and Janet Jackson - and he isn't done yet.

On June 14th, along with Bill Anderson, Robert "Kool" Bell, Ronald Bell, George Brown & James "J.T." Taylor (aka Kool and The Gang), Steve Dorff, Alan Jackson, John Mellencamp and Allee Willis, he will receive the honor of being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Here, he sits with Haute Living and discusses what he's afraid of, his biggest career lessons and what he is most proud of.

What is your proudest piece of work?

I have a few. I think "We Belong Together" with Maria Carey is one. I think the Usher My Way album is another. Xscape's first album - it was the first record that I put out on So So Def. Coming from a rap album that sold eight million records, and had a double-platinum single in rap music, I wanted to prove to the world that I could also produce R&B and be known as a producer as a whole, not just in rap.

When I came out with Kris Kross, people were like, "What are you doing? You don't know anything about rap music." And when I came out with Xscape, they criticized me for not knowing anything about R&B. And then when Xscape hit, people were left with nothing to say. So then it became, "Okay, well, do it again."

I speak about Usher because it was a real defining moment with Usher's career. LaFace was going to drop Usher before the My Way album because his first album did okay, but its success wasn't what L.A. Reid wanted and they had a lot of male artists at the time. And with Usher, L.A. didn't really know what to do with him because he was going through puberty, and his voice was changing. They felt like they had lost the kid they had signed. I didn't know any of this at the time. That record exceeded the expectations that LaFace thought about Usher.

Successes like that made me realize that all of this is heaven sent; this is something that God put in me to do. Because when opportunities like this happen, where I come in and help people's lives to continue and go in the right direction, I never set out to do that, that's not something I go into the studio to do, and I wouldn't put that kind of pressure on myself. That happened with Usher and Mariah Carey.

Mariah had just had a breakdown on TRL - people had counted her out, and the album didn't do so well. I remember when I would tell people I was getting ready to work with Mariah, there was no excitement, and this was so sad to me because she is one of the biggest artists in the world. At the time when I worked with her she was the biggest female artist, and she is still the biggest-selling female artist in the world today. But I realized how sad and disrespectful this industry is off of her career.

People had praised her, how big she got, all the No. 1 records she had - that s*** didn't matter after one situation on TV where she went on acting erratic, and people tried to erase her whole career based on two minutes on live TV. When I went into the studio with her I didn't go in with the intention on changing people's mind about her and putting people back in their place.

So for me, this is all very much driven by God. We went in the studio and I told her what to do and what she needed to do that she hadn't done in previous songs. She listened to me. We never argued. She never gave me any diva moments. She actually pushed me to do more for her. I stayed up late at night with her, and the song of the decade came out of it, "We Belong Together".

(excerpt from Haute Living)



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