Grammy winning producer Di Genius, is also a singer, and songwriter from Kingston, Jamaica who is quickly making a name for himself on the international music scene. He continues to produce and write songs for some of the biggest stars internationally with 2 tracks on John Legend’s upcoming album. Already in his catalogue are hits with Sean Paul, Drake , Nelly Furtado , Lianne La Havas, Shakira, John Legend among others. The New York Times named him a “Reggae Veteran At The Age of 18,” but Stephen says he is not one to pay attention to accolades as he just holds his head down and makes music.
In 2017, Billboard.com listed Di Genius as one of the producers who brought dancehall back to the mainstream, noting his work on Drake’s hit song “Controlla” off the multi-platinum selling album Views.
Stephen produced Run Run, a song that was supposed to be the lead single for Shenseea’s Alpha album with a production style that is similar to 80s dancehall.
Dancehall started in the 70s but took shape in the 80s and 90s, Stephen says he stays close to the era for inspiration and some of the producers from back then give him advice on how to duplicate the sound with freshness.
“It was really and truly inspired by the era, it was like Steelie And Cleevie produced by Gussie Clarke, that era like songs like Rumors, I intentionally used the same typa sounds. Big up Uncle Cleevie cause he is someone I talk to all the time and him tell me like the insights, like ‘oh we use the DX for this drum sound’ or ‘look up this sound’ just so me can get it right. So thats why when Run Run came out everybody did think I just sampled the riddim but I actually re-create the sounds and really get it to feel the same way. I still had to get clearance for some of the stuff cause some of the things in the songwriter I had to clear it.”
“I feel like all of the different time periods are equally important, just like how I coulda bring back that with a modern artist like Shenseea, she is much younger than I am so she just wasn’t aware of that time. I remember when I played her the demo and she hear it and just say ‘mi love it, I wah record it,’ it just still sound fresh to them, like younger people. For me, they always say you haffi know where you come from to know where you going so to me personally you haffi I listen to those kinda things cause it is important to me to form new ideas. It’s also the history, it is the foundation of what we are on. If it wasn’t for people like Steelie And Cleevie, Gussy and Donovan Germain and all those people who know the sound probably wouldn’t be pushed to where it is right now,” he told World Music Views.
He continues, “Cleevie tell me to, most of the older producers use to say ‘where unuh a go with this, computer riddim and blah blah blah’, same evolutionary thing that people take a time fi accept, and them pushed the envelope and that was like the newest thing at the time.”
At the beginning of Stephen’s career in the mid 2000s and for the next ten years , dancehall in Jamaica was controlled by two individuals and two crews. Persons drew battle lines between ‘Gully’ and ‘Gaza’: Lead by the war of words between Mavado and Vybz Kartel spilled over into high schools and inner communities whose tribalistic tendencies took the lyrics to heart. There were daily reports of school fights and community wars. Eventually the government stepped in and the two declared a truce at a show in West Kingston. There have been numerous versions of how the turmoil ended but Stephen provided the soundtrack for the period, at times recording both artists on the same riddim. He explains where those aggressive drum patterns came from and how the mix of Jamaican sounds with American influence came to define an era.
“The sound is really just a sonic representation of what I was inspired by. Me ketch a weird time growing up cause obviously my father was Freddie McGregor, I have the real background a roots of the music but I also grew up in the 90s where its like BET, MTV all a dem thing deh, so I am super fascinated with Timbaland and Pharrell, and all of the new stuff that was happening, so in my head when me start doing music is like me trying to merge every single thing that I like,” he explains.
Red Bull and Guinness, a riddim he co-created with Delly Ranks for example, had what sounded like gunshots at the beginning with cymbals and hi-hats colliding like a military marching band.
“So a riddim like ‘Red Bull and Guinness’ or ‘Powercut’ it have a rock and roll intro and then it go innah hardcore dancehall. What happen is that they were coming up in the time when I was experimenting and coming up as well so Mavado would find a song on a Red Bull and Guinness and that helped shift the sound in the game as well and the clash thing come from that and that created a whole era too,” Stephen reflects.
For those who seek to cast blame at the feet of artist for the violence in Jamaica, Stephen says artists can only be relatable if their songs are relatable and to be relatable there must be something similar going on in the society.
“Them usually quick to point at the music influencing the reality and nobody really takes account for the reality influencing the music.”
– Stephen Di Genius Mcgregor
“I think everything is perspective, and nobody really take account for the reality influencing the music and influencing how the people now are acting. For songs to get popular, and for artist to get popular and for figures to get popular they have to be doing something that is relatable. The artist himself cant force someone to like it. So when you see Skilli say Whap Whap of Brysco say ensure the song don’t work because them funny and people want to laugh after it, it works because there is something happening why it’s relatable,” he says.
“I read the other day in a book it says art was created to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. It disturbs some people but it a comfort the youth them cause music take them from God knows what they would be doing, society is changing, right or wrong thats what is happening. Not saying it’s ok, or good or bad but we can’t single out the youth them and say blame this and don’t look at anything else” McGregor explains.
Another issue creeping up in dancehall is the use of hard drugs. With the advent of ‘Trap Hall’, songs like Pop Molly by No. 1 streaming artist Skeng and Navaz on the track Pop Molly with a music video laying out instructions on how to participate in the molly lifestyle.
The Molly theme is also consistent in Skeng and Sparta’s (Tommy Lee Sparta) Protocol. Molly culture is also celebrated in Intence’s No. 1 YouTube hit Yahoo Boyz.
Lawyers, doctors and other interest groups have made statements that ‘ecstasy’, is now accessible to children who were attending ‘pill parties’. Stephen says it is because Molly has become part of what inner city youths and artists who represent the inner cities of Jamaica are experiencing.
“Skeng dem sing bout that because that’s what they are experiencing around them, so to somebody now who probably live innah Jacks Hill, weh never ever go in the streets yet, who probably never hear bout Molly till it go in a song, the youth them probably already done innah dah world deh before, so to him, its just like ‘wow how could somebody dare sing about this and influence my kids’, but that’s what happening around them, people relate cause its relatable. Nothing is forces, its reality happening.”
The 32-year old producer says he has been doing so much that he didnt remember some of his accomplishments when World Music Views reminded him, he says it’s all a blur and he just “moves through it.” Through that maze, Stephen manages to produce music for John Legend, Skakira, Nelly Furtado and more and he is not signed to a record label. Di Genius is among the few persons in reggae and dancehall music to own his masters and he spends most of his time in California where most of the deals get signed in the music business.
“There is a lotta stuff going on in the background, just constant work and constant sessions, and connections, so a lot of these things come about through management and publishers and just relationships,” he says.
“The John Legend thing for example, I was at Sony/ATV at the time for publishing and one of the A&Rs just asked if I would do a song with John Legend and we go in the studio, nuff a the latin thing the say way, like management and different labels reach out. I (am) not signed to a record label but I am signed to Warner Chapel for publishing.”
Stephen says his wish for Jamaican artists is for them to understand the whole business and collaborate instead of competing. He uses the example of the Afrobeats culture to infer that the collaborative approach will help Jamaica’s industry. He says if there are more than one major artist from Jamaica at a time bursting on the international scene the impact would be bigger.
“It woulda look better in the bigger culture,” he says
Watch the full interview With Stephen Di Genius on YouTube.
