Dear Readers,

For this season, the Tamara Warren blog has been a decidedly quiet space.  Essays and musings will return. If you’re looking for my byline here are some links that you may enjoy until I’m back upon completion of my MFA at the New School in Spring 2012. As a mother, full-time freelance writer, full-time student, part-time TA and humble writing instructor at GEMS, I’ve had to trim down on the extras. How am I handling all this stuff? That’s another story. Please check out these links for a little bit more of my words, and thank you for visiting!

The New York Times: Wheels Blog For Artist’s Latest Work, Inspiration Comes in Triplicate

Forbes: Tamara Warren’s Street Savvy My regular posts on cars, culture and ephemera.

Life and Times: Artist profiles and stories about culture on SC’s site. Read my recent pieces about Toyin Odutola, LACMA curator Franklin Sirmans, Storm King at Governor’s Island, Dodge CEO Ralph Gilles, fantastic wines, artist Xaviera Simmons, Glenn Ligon, men’s style, Edgar Arceneuax, gulling cars, inner city baseball, innovative product designers, and more.

BoardIQ: Recent articles I’ve tackled about the mutual fund industry for this Financial Times publication –yes financial writing is my latest frontier.

Black Enterprise: Gay Rights vs. Civil Rights, Oprah Decoded

Complex: Concept Cars from Jay-Z, R. Kelly, Missy Elliott, and Jadakiss

Be sure to stop by Gotryke, the car and culture site I co-own and operate with Chuck Gibson, as it gets a new look this season. See you in the spring.

Yesterday, after eight years I moved to Brooklyn. I waited in three long lines at the DMV tucked on the second floor of Atlantic Center next to Target, and followed the instructions for my assigned numbers — first F98 and, then J198 to reach my objective — a New York State license. When at long last, it was time to fork over my $66 dollars, the attendant asked me, “You’ve never had a New York license?”

“No, never.” I am from Michigan, and I have been holding out for a long time to claim Midwestern identity.

I’ve considered making the move before — when I lost my wallet in a cab a few years ago, or when I was chastised at the bank for having an out-of-state license. But after one woman raised her eyebrow, she left me alone. No one understood what was appealing about Detroit. Most everyone in New York migrated from somewhere else, at some point in their first, second or third generation history.

The truth was  the thought of officially giving up my Michigan residency made me incredibly sad. So many of us had left, and the license made me exempt from that official number of expatriates. When Manhattan doormen carded me, I would proudly display my pedigree, my smiling face, the Mackinaw Bridge looming in the background.The license gave me a platform to explain myself, where I come from, and to prove that in some ways, I was still there. I had plenty of rationalizations for staying — I wanted to vote for blue Michigan leaders, I spent a lot of my time in Detroit — at least a few days every six weeks. Many of the cars I test drove in New York came plastered with Michigan plates. I still spoke with a Michigan accent, a collection of clipped “ings” that people often mistook as Canadian. I waited in line, not on line. I drank pop and craved Vernor’s.  Though I was setting roots down in New York, I could go home whenever I wanted, that’s what my license said.

Yet, when my robust young son last waited in the security line to board a plane from LaGuardia to DTW, my era of living between two places officially ended. He asked to hold my driver’s license. In an instant, the Mackinaw Bridge was bent in half. I was mortified — I hadn’t realized it was that fragile, that a two-year old could crush it with his tiny fists.

During that trip home to Michigan, I visited a Secretary of State, the office in charge of issuing Michigan driver’s licenses. The line was long and tedious. When it was my turn for part one of the ordeal, the attendant told me, she had seen worse damage to drivers’ licenses, and that my crooked license would suffice. “You might make it until the expiration date in 2013,” she said. “Or you could wait.” I looked at the crowded room, that looked like it would take an entire afternoon to complete the process.

I thought about what I had in Michigan — my parents, my childhood, my friends, my heartbreaks, my education, my roots, my dreams and my childhood bedroom that my father insisted remained untouched. But there was more to me than a piece of breakable plastic. After all, my mother wasn’t born in Michigan. She wasn’t even born in this country.  At age 40, her mother had left behind Europe for a new American identity. There was a reason that no matter where we were, my son proudly declared that all bridges were the “Brook-lyn-Bridge!” It was time to go where my heart had grown, with my son and partner — my two New Yorkers.

For a few months, I made do with my fractured license, until yesterday, when on my own accord, I made two separate trips to the Brooklyn Department of Motor Vehicles, with documents showing my heritage — a social security card, a passport, and a birth certificate —and I officially moved to New York City, closing a chapter that already ended. I didn’t need plastic to my prove my identity.

The boy is learning how to listen. It’s been confirmed when he repeats what an adult has told him in a delightful singsong chirp. On occasion, he follows directions.

“Will you bring me your shoes?” He is more than willing to oblige with charming flourish as he delivers the requested objects and clumsily puts them on my feet.

Sometimes his listening leads to learned behavior – the recent act of saying “pleeaaze” and “sazankyoo.” He even places his dish in the sink when he is through, a move that is executed with an ally-oop, splattering the contents (usually yogurt) across the kitchen counter. This afternoon, he counted to twenty with a little bit of encouragement one would expect of a two-year-old.

Of course there are times he acts as if he we are speaking alien, but we have learned that the power of choice and denial is acquired at a young age. Particularly over the manipulations of bedtime, in which he has already mastered the art of stalling asking for books to be read multiple times, music and cups of water or juice.

With the holiday season in full swing, I’m faced with the choices of what I want him to hear and know and believe. While some choose to follow what’s been passed down in their culture, for me, this isn’t cut and dried.

Of course, most of what I believe from my childhood feels right – that you go through the ceremony with a healthy dose of skepticism, particularly when you are not bound to any sort of religious tie.

Someone asked me if I would perpetuate the myth of Santa Claus.  “Of course in an abstract manner,” I answered. I wasn’t sure, but I though I detected a tinsy bit of disdain on her face, in my desire to tell lies to my child. I cleaned up my blasphemous behavior, with a disclaimer, “My family will do it if I don’t.”

My claim of abstract is actually part of my family’s tradition, and it’s one that I have bit into wholeheartedly. While others were at midnight mass, in my childhood, we were opening presents on Christmas Eve with some flimsy explanation that we were on Santa’s early route. This was how they did it in Europe. Even the Jewish side of my family had celebrated Christmas Eve in Germany. And then we feasted on cooked goose, and cranberries, a concession to my American-born father.All the splendor and joy of Christmas in one big finale.

This year, my boy too participated in my family’s holiday tradition. (He’ll get a healthy dose of his father’s Puerto Rican nuances on Jan. 6 for the Three King’s Day.) His eyes lit up at the sight of the tree as the concept of unwrapping became ritual in the dark of night. And when it was time for bed, he indulged in the grownups good will.  He roamed the house with his new train-toys, while other kids dreamed of Santa’s sleigh — the perfect combination of mystic, mischief and myth.

Frank Werner Kussy lived by his own definition of courage. “The right choice is always the hardest choice,” he said when recalling the details of his tumultuous past. Kussy survived three years of imprisonment in the Nazi Holocaust and is among the few who survived the horrors of internment at the Auschwitz death camp. At 99, he is among the oldest survivors of Auschwitz.  A 2005 German court ruling in his favor set a precedent as the only Holocaust survivor who successfully made a claim for reparations against the Nazis and the East German Communists.

Kussy died of natural causes on Oct. 1. He was 99 and lived in Farmington, Mich.

Kussy was born Oct. 13, 1910 in Dresden, Germany. He grew up in Weimar Germany raised in a Bohemian Jewish family. His father founded Rheostadt, a leading German technological company, which manufactured sophisticated electrical apparatuses. Kussy completed a PhD in electrical engineering at the University of Vienna, and ran the company with his brother when the Nazis ascended to power.

Kussy was first arrested by the Nazis during the Kristallnacht and later released due to his family’s Austro-Hungarian citizenship. He escaped Germany with his mother and brother in 1939, and made it as far as Amsterdam, when war broke out. Stranded in Holland, Frank met Adelaide Aleven, a Dutch Catholic schoolteacher who was active in the resistance movement, and helped find hiding for his family. Kussy and his mother and brother were discovered in 1942 in the small coastal town Bussum and incarcerated in Camp Westerbork. He was imprisoned at Thersienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Auschwitz Gleiwitz, and was liberated from Blechhammer, also a subcamp of Auschwitz. Kussy eventually lost his entire family to the Nazi death machine.

In 1945, as a refugee in the Ukraine, he did the unthinkable – he returned to Germany to reclaim his father’s factory. Aleven joined him, and they married in December that year, and soon started a family. As a Jewish industrialist, in 1953 he received a tip that he was on a list to be arrested. He fled East Germany with his wife and two small children. “My crazy life,” he would say with a smile when he spoke of that time.

He was offered a job at Square D and immigrated to Detroit, Michigan in 1954, making national news headlines with his arrival on American soil. “Man Leaves Fortune for Freedom,” were among those he clipped in a scrapbook. Kussy was immensely proud of his work ethic. “I arrived in Detroit on a Sunday night, and I went to work on Monday morning.” He converted to Catholicism that year, but remained somewhat cryptic about his faith.

As an American citizen, Kussy successfully rose to prominence in his field at Square D in Detroit. He retired from Gould in Baltimore, and continued to work as a consulting engineer for a decade. IEEE named him an engineering fellow. He holds over 60 patents and authored three technological books. In the 1980s he volunteered with International Service Corps and worked in Egypt and Zimbabwe assisting in the development of electrical equipment.

He spoke for the first time publicly about his internment at Michigan State University in 1995 and returned several times to speak to students.

After 50 years of diligent fighting for reparations of his family business, in 2005 he won a settlement against the German government, a personal victory though the settlement equated to a fraction of the business’s original value before Nazi occupation. In this action, he sought some kind of vengeance for the deaths of his mother, brother and sister, he said.

Kussy had a zest for life, with a great love for travel, family, friends and laughter. He spoke with a booming voice with a strong German accent. He loved to take long walks and talk politics and he took great delight in afternoon ice coffee and desserts of his childhood — apfel streudel and other Bohemian treats. He took his granddaughter to the same places, such at the North Cape in Norway, which he had visited with his older brother Viktor in the 1920s. Telling stories about life before and after the holocaust was an essential part of his personality, and as he aged, he grew more fervent about repeating these stories.

His survivors include son Edward and daughter Henriette, two grandchildren, one great-grand child, one great-nephew and one great-great nephew. He is predeceased by his wife Ada. Visitation  3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tues. at the Heeney-Sundquist Funeral Home, 23720 Farmington Rd., Farmington. Funeral services 10 a.m. Wed. Our Lady of Fatima, 13500 Oak Park Blvd., Oak Park.

Please direct memorial tributes to the Frank and Adelaide Kussy Memorial Scholarship for the Study of the Holocaust, University Advancement Michigan State University, 300 Spartan Way, East Lansing, MI 48824-1005. Checks can be made out to Michigan State University or by credit card https://www.givingto.msu.edu/gift/, keyword Kussy.

Philly News

The Detroit Free Press

I left the boy for nine days. He was surrounded, safe and sound, with love, devotion and the capable tag team of father and doting grandparents. Yet, I was nowhere near. The first five days were an exercise in solitude. A big bed by myself, an uninterrupted chance to eat dinner, no diaper cream in sight and the option to swim laps with my eyes closed after dark. However, the sixth day of my excursion was an effort clouded by emptiness. I felt incomplete, missing my men, as if I was in a long dream, searching. The ninth day ushered in anxiety of what to expect upon my return magnified by the worry that’s besieged me on planes since becoming a parent.  It’s true — someone with enough frequent-flyer miles for an auto- upgrade has inexplicably developed a fear of flying. “If the plane crashes, what would they do without me?” The thought rumbled my bones at the slightest patch of bumpy air. If I were to go, he would be too young to remember me.  I swallowed and clenched my eyes, trying to gain a sense of rationale to chase away my thoughts of doom.

My flight arrived early. I arrived at the airport to find him sleeping soundly in his car seat. It was not my imagination, he was bigger, fuller and taller. As his eyes flickered open, a smile pursed his lips. As he came to, I was greeted by a jubilant cry, “Ma-ma!” as if it were song lyric, he chanted my name repeatedly. This is how a rock star must feel when she hits the stage for a sold-out tour.

In the following days, he clung to me, sensing the need to be together after time apart. It was appreciation overload. (“Couldn’t I sneak away again for another day or two?” I thought guiltily.) The clingy behavior is starting to subside as he realizes I’m not leaving him again anytime soon. While some of the parent-peanut gallery were concerned how I would fair with the long separation, others were encouraging. Regardless, it’s hard when you can’t have a conversation to make sure he knows, that no matter where I go, I will always come back. We don’t have that in our vocabulary just yet.

While he’s still small, we are entering a new stage of development — spending more time away from each other. This fall, we’re turning our gaze outward, focusing on our education. He’ll start pre-school and I’ll start post-school study, with others providing us with entertainment five days week, as we learn to get along within the confines of a new group where not a two-for-one deal.

This change coincides with the turning of two — the age of exhausting independence including temper tantrums, escapes, sprints, bumps, bruises, falls, bad moods, verbal jousts and the exertion of the no-word. In many ways the onslaught has already begun, which is why school is a welcome answer. Yes, I’m okay with the characteristics of this phase being someone else’s problem for part of the day.

Yet, in my nine-day absence, I’ve found a return to baby in my needy child. Perhaps his gentle tugs and persistent attention are an instinctive reaction of what’s to come, as we make the journey ahead to changing needs in which I’m no longer at the center of his universe, and in which I can breathe easy that he’s okay on his own.  Yet, at these moments, I want to scoop him up and freeze time to let him know that I feel the same way, too, that there’s a tiny part of both us that wants things to stay as they are in the silent communication between a mother and her child.

You get used to the dull thuds. That’s part of the boy’s daily agenda. Running wild with abandon, learning the perils of the universe through trials and errors. Fatigue and fast moves are a potent combination. I no longer panic when I hear bangs and booms. Bruises fade fast on his soft spongy skin.

But the blood is something else. Blood flowing on the floor, on the sink, on my hands.  So much blood I can’t even tell where it’s coming from. He’s shrieking. I’m shrieking. We’re holding each other and blood stains our skin.

After a few minutes, the gushing slows. What’s left is a gaping wound, a canyon cut into his forehead.  This is motherhood. The boy is whimpering and I must get it together, and act quickly.

I call my father. He was trained as Green Beret Medic and is my go-to guy for all medical emergencies. Breathless, I relate the details. “Ran into a wall, so much blood. What do I do?”

“Is he dizzy, throwing up?”

“No. Well that’s a good sign.”

“Don’t let him sleep.”  I put the phone on speaker as he tell his only grandchild, I would take that wall down for you.” The boy sighs in my arms.

The apartment is quiet. The afternoon heat overwhelms us. I feel his heartbeat against mine, as I used to when he was a tiny infant. His gasping breath slows to a gentle rhythm. We are both shaking. Pain has never last this long for either of us in his short life.  But he seems better. Maybe it isn’t so bad after all.  I call his dad. He hears the quiver in my voice.

Less than an hour later we are in the car. His father has raced across town, determined to save the day. In the emergency room, words are spoken. He is dozing.  I’m terrified.  Is he passing out? “Please hurry.”

We don’t wait long to get through check in at the ER. Then the waiting starts as I ingest the doctors’ opinions. “Plastic surgeon. Scars. Signs of more serious injury.” Placated by the numbing gel, he’s returned to his playful self. I’m uneasy. We wait with our boy in the hospital bed. His father is doing better than me. I feel his strength and I lean hard.

When all is said and done, it’s all okay. He’s stitched up with nine solid dents, tiny wires mending his delicate head, the injury nearly forgotten.  I, on the other hand am no so quick to forget. For days, every trip, every tumble and every cry sends me sprinting toward him.  I know life brings tribulations, and scars are part of the journey. But I want him to stay perfect, unscathed for as long as I can. Protected.

I’m back! The Tamara Warren blog had the honor of being taken over by aliens last week. I’m not sure what appeal my musings have to the international hacker population, but in any case, glad to be restored for the moment.  While I’ve been obsolete, I’ve certainly kept busy with chasing after a wild nearly-two year old, writing articles here and there and my other daily blogging endeavors at  Gotryke. I’m asked, and what exactly is that?

So let’s talk about Gotryke. On the surface, Gotryke is a car and traveling site,  but we care about much more than the cars and getting around. Yes, I write about cars.

I’m from Detroit, and so is Gotryke co-founder/creative director Chuck Gibson. (That’s when people say, “Now I get the car thing.”) Technically, I’m originally from Ann Arbor, 45 minutes southwest of Detroit, home to the University.  I was raised in a small rural suburb called Walled Lake. Chuck’s the real deal-—an East Side man, as in Gratiot Ave, Mack and south of 8 Mile Rd.  We came together creatively at 2030 Grand River Ave in 1998, and the rest is Detroit history.

While the perks of car writing are tops, there’s more to Gotryke’s conviction than glossy press trips and a passing interest in car news. For starters, I drive, but both Chuck and I spend more time on the subway these days. He’s grinding in Brooklyn as a rising creative director and cloak and dagger music producer. Cars are not not a necessity for us. Together, we make time to create around the idea of car culture, which is one way we get back to our roots. The Detroit auto economy made us, and that is an underlying current to what we do and who we are.  If you want a Detroit story, peruse our collective writing, art and music productions.

That’s how I sum up my part of it to people, to make them understand exactly how a 34-year old woman drives a new car every week around the city-slick New York street and hangs out at race tracks and around garages with the Brooklyn Dodges club members like Lee Quinones, who adds his .2 to Gotryke.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The secret: When I was young, I didn’t really like cars.  In fact, growing up I resented the car industry, and the rigidity it  produced all around me.  Systematically, the leaders of the Motor City conspired to isolate its residents in the booming industrial years.  City officials failed to build public transportation in which people would actually have to rub shoulders with someone from a different community. The segregated society, drawn along the borders of systemic racism, that has long prevailed in Michigan is damaging its residents, and the ability to achieve progress, is hindered by distance and isolation.  The last thing I wanted to do was perpetuate the negative aspects of the car industry.

But what I did care about was Detroit. Living downtown Detroit for many years, I saw an oasis of African-American culture.  What I discovered, by hanging around long enough, was a community of artists who could work unhindered, unbothered, and in blissful seclusion. Yet, much of the good that was happening in the city was unknown past 8 Mile Rd. People who visit Detroit with the right guides discover what locals know — Detroit is made great by it’s people.

As I started to explore the nature of these divisions, I was intrigued by the history of the machine that propelled the region, what had first caught the world’s fancy. My father was an engineer who thrived on sales trends and brass-tack logic.  And as I began to travel more, I saw the impact of the Detroit car industry on the world, at sporting events, and in taxi cabs with car company banners.  It wasn’t the suburbs that people referred to, like they say Orange County. It was Detroit this, Detroit that. And always, the music as a soundtrack and cars as the defining point of visual culture.

It all changed when I drove my first car for review. Cars became exciting.

As I got more into driving and writing about cars, what shocked me is how much I began to love car writing, driving better, faster and longer. The cars started as a side note, but became a personal measure of power. The more I did it, the more I learned and the more I began to write more thoroughly about the nuances of the automobile.  I’ve written about lots of things – music, art, social issues – I’ve interviewed icons who’ve slipped away, but it is my car writing that captures people’s imagination. I am a woman who drives fast cars, and gets paid to do it.

What it came down to for me is this: How can someone understand a region if they don’t really get the industry that propels it? I started writing about cars eight years ago, the bread and butter of my people.  While cars have created problems, they are indelibly linked to Detroit. I still believe cars have fractured Detroit and the functionality of American cities. The challenge is how to build them logically and  mindfully for a better future, for Detroit, for everywhere. That’s the part that interests me now — against all odds, how will that happen? In some odd way, I was able to take part in the pride of being a Motor City child. And so it went from there to where I’m now – the girl-from-Detroit-Who-Writes-About-Cars.

I like being a muse to artists,” Salaam Remi says. “My own issue is, what do I actually sound like?” It’s a new chapter for Remi, the 35-year-old producer long under the radar but with an extensive discography that’s impressive both in breadth and stature: The Fugees, Nas, Amy Winehouse, Lauren Hill, Sade, Ricky Martin, Brand Nubian, Sting, Mary J. Blige, Toni Braxton, and the list goes on.

He’s recently put the finishing touches on the Rush Hour 3 score and the soundtrack single “Less Than an Hour,” a duet featuring Nas’ assertive flow and Cee-Lo’s soulful vocals over the dramatic backdrop of a 100-piece orchestra recorded at Atlantis Studios in Los Angeles. The track kicks off with a deep bass and sultry female French vocals, and Cee-Lo’s yearning voice sets the tone for Nas’ deep and punchy verses, leading to the forlorn choral reprise, “I have less than an hour.” The song is whimsical, haunting and uptempo. It’s his first film-scoring opportunity, a direction he hopes to develop. For Remi, the process of working with a director and a film crew, he’s realized, is similar to working with marquee artists. In both cases, he is an interpreter who feeds off of the energy and creativity around him.

“I’m not really an upfront person. I get so much more out of watching someone before they watch me,” Remi says in a deep baritone voice. “I’m trying to figure out what’s different about this artist from the rest of the world. That’s my unique process I go through every day.”

Rock, jazz, hip-hop and reggae artists clamor equally for a textured Remi beat. He travels from his home-base recording studio in Miami to L.A. and London, recording constantly for his own Boom Tunes label released via iTunes portals. Even on his own label, his sound and style is diverse — spanning from danceable dub and aggressive hip-hop to cool jazz. He’s concentrating on new artists such as reggae singer David Sean, UK ska-rock artist Nick Harrison and Southern funk act Crunkadelic.

It’s been a winding road to Hollywood and the acclaim and respect that come with it, but it’s been one rooted in rich musical lineage. “Hip-hop for me is the generation I grew up in,” he says, remembering his New York City youth. But Remi’s introduction to hip-hop and music in general was far more personal. Remi’s musician and studio-engineer father, Van Gibbs, was his initial connection to the industry. Gibbs performed with Harry Belafonte and arranged Taana Gardner’s “Heartbeat.” “Being around the Kurtis Blow days, watching the Fat Boys in the studio, I am as much as an old-schooler as anybody can be,” Remi says.

Remi actually played keyboards for Kurtis Blow on 1986′s “Kingdom Blow,” a record his father produced. “I wouldn’t even call myself a keyboard player to a keyboard player,” Remi insists. “I actually played drums first. Elvin Jones, the jazz drummer, made me a drum set. I had a full drum set when I was three years old.” Childhood included jam sessions with his dad and uncles, who were musicians and urged him to play along. Much like his son would become, Van Gibbs was broad in his musical outreach. Remi’s father was the first person to work with Doug E. Fresh in the studio. “He put together a contest that the Fat Boys won to get their deal, and [he also produced] Kurtis Blow’s album,” Remi recalls. “That’s how I was introduced to those situations.”

Yet, Remi had to earn his production stripes in his own right. “When I first started producing hip-hop, I was sampling a whole lot, and my father would call me ‘Looper Vandross,’ saying pretty much that I needed to play music, since I was looping everything. What I was missing was the engineering aspect and the sonic aspect.” So he began exploring the nuances of recordings from different eras, studying the compositions and techniques used in the James Brown records that added much of the vibe and flavor of early hip-hop. He learned to play certain instruments on top of his samples, which led to a complete studio. At the core of it were pieces he retrieved from Soundworks, which was located below Studio 54, including an SSL board, Vintage Neve Pultec EQs, LA-2A and 1176 compressors and EMT 140 plate reverbs. These pieces helped him recapture the sound Teddy Riley and Shep Pettibone used in the ’80s. Remi was gaining a name as a producer, but The Fugees’ “Nappy Heads” and “Fu-Gee-La” singles provided his critical breakthrough. He was also involved in Lauren Hill’s solo success.

Remi’s ear extended to the reggae explosion, and he was instrumental in working with dancehall artists. And he was able to get even with the lack of credit his father received for the Gardner hit when he sampled “Heartbeat” for Ini Komoze’s “Here Comes the Hotstepper,” which became a Billboard smash hit in 1994. “It’s something my dad had come up with that he wasn’t credited properly for, so my sample clearance came way cheaper since they knew they owed him,” he says with a chuckle.

Teaming up with Nas (whose father is Olu Dara) proved a potent mix for both sons of jazzmen. When Remi made hits like “Made You Look” (from God’s Son [Sony, 2002]) for Nas, he was striving for a deliberate feel that comes from his study of time period. “With Nas, the beats come as a result of our conversations. We’re really tight, and we talk a lot. In between albums, I am reminding him of what he wanted to say. With ‘Made You Look,’ he said he wanted to make something that felt like ’87 in the park.”

The song features the raucous “Bravehearts” cry in the background and Nas at his most direct and deliberate. “He also knows and understands breakbeats with a lot of music behind them and how to use his vocals and his whole flow to control the beat. A lot of younger artists I’ve found want to use those tracks, but when it’s time for them to get over, they have to yell and jump all over the place. I thought when Nas heard that track he would be very hyper, but actually, he laid back and did a very quiet, Rakim-like flow. His approach on it made it work. If it had energy, it would have been nice, but it would have played out quicker.”

BEATS AND SPACES

Remi spent the bulk of his career in New York until 9/11, which was the precursor to leaving the city. Seeking change, he moved his operation to Florida. “My main studio is in Miami in my home,” he says. “Every room in my house has something musical. I have ridiculous amounts of equipment. I call my house ‘Instrument Zoo.’”

On the road, he seeks out specific gear to re-create a working studio. “Drumwise, I have it ready for the MPC4000 because I’ve been able to sync it up to my laptop,” Remi says. “That’s my most fluent drum machine, the pinnacle of MPCs. I get a Yamaha Motif because it has a variable amount of sounds that are pretty clean.” He uses a host of bass and electric guitars and amps, as well.

Remi’s holding out to convert completely to computer-based programming but uses Digidesign Pro Tools 7.3 for his mixes. “I’m not into doing everything in the computer at this point,” he says. “When I’m traveling, it’s ease of use; my laptop is a big part of my day because I’m always looking at it.”

He knows he will make the change to all computers when technology demands it. “I have ReCycle and Reason,” Remi says. “I haven’t made a record off of Reason, but I’ve done little doodles. I’ve recorded a couple records in Logic, but my key program since before Pro Tools is Digital Performer, simply because I was used to it first. I was able to keep it all inside of the computer to do time stretching before everyone else had that popularized. I was able to record right into Performer, stretching Toni Braxton’s vocals in 1996 to 20 beats per a minute, the way many of the programs work now.”

For Remi, much of it comes down to his keen understanding of music principles. “I might time-stretch a whole record and make the song off of it. You’ve got to know how to utilize the sample to make a song that makes sense. I put it right into Pro Tools or put it right into Digital Performer or slow it down to speed it up. Sometimes I put it into my SP1200. I can take a sample and make it sound five different ways depending on what I’m trying to get out of the overall production.”

A significant factor into his process is tied to plug-ins, with the UAD-1 card ranking high as his favorite. “I have simulations on my EQs that I have the originals to, but sometimes it’s easier when I have plug-ins in front of me. With The UAD and Neve 1073, it’s the same way I would do kicks, snares and basses. I like any instrument that gives it a little vintage crunchiness. I do have an EMT plate [reverb] — which is enormous — in my garage, but I used to have the UAD version that gets it close enough and is sonically pure. I like the Apple Audio Units graphic equalizer that allows it to poke out certain frequencies and allows certain instruments to wrap around.”

Remi was instrumental in the sound of Britain’s chanteuse Ms. Dynamite, an artist that in turn inspired a young Amy Winehouse. Remi worked with Winehouse on both her first and second albums, Frank (Island, 2003) and Back to Black (Republic, 2006), influenced by the likes of the Shangri-Las and Sam Cooke. Winehouse’s Back to Black was recorded in Remi’s living room with some wires running up to the bedroom. “The songs were twisted around that format in the same tempo and were lyrically all the same,” he says. “What pulls the album together is Amy’s confidence and what she wanted to hear.” He used tricks of the trade to manipulate the snare sound that gives it the early ’60s feel. “A large part of it was my engineer Frank ‘Esoes’ Socorro twisting knobs.” But Remi added a few classic key touches. He studied Atlantic engineer Tom Dowd’s DVDs, learning his recording philosophy, and he spoke with former Stax sound engineer Jim Gaines about ways to achieve the crackly vintage sound.

“It came down to putting a [Neumann] U 87 microphone on a snare right in between the hi-hats,” he says, “pretty much letting hi-hats and snare go into one better mic rather than two mics where you’re trying to separate the sound. He recorded the songs in one room and moved the mics around.” Remi’s used a similar process with ’70s dub music on a record for Spragga Benz, a reggae style he’s branded “luv-a-dub.”

For the Rush Hour 3 track, “Less Than an Hour,” Remi was fortunate enough to work with famed film-score composer Lalo Schifrin. “It started because Brett Ratner, the director of the Rush Hour movies, told me he went to Lalo Schifrin, who did Mission Impossible, Dirty Harry and Bruce Lee,” he says. Remi listened to Schifrin’s Enter the Dragon and re-created the glass slides using electric guitar. “I was able to get Lalo to write strings and a full arrangement on top of that,” Remi says. “Then I programmed the drumbeat in the pattern I wanted on the MPC4000. And my Remo [drum kit] has half-size parts and all the toms in a small booth, so I recorded it through the Neve 1073 EQ with the preamps on it. I got the drums down and played the piano on a Motif and pulled the bell sound off a Triton to make it sound like glass scrapes.” Finishing strings were laid down with his blue-and-white violin.

Then came time to collaborate with the orchestra — a first for Remi. “We did that at Sony on the Barbra Streisand Soundstage.” After mixing in Pro Tools and with the SSL console, he sent an MP3 of the track to Cee-Lo while Nas recorded on a Sony C800G mic at the Atlantis studio. Nas and Cee-Lo instinctively composed topical lyrical content. “They wrote their parts without hearing each other,” Remi says. “Then I edited it all back together. There’s a lot going on back in the track.”

With longtime collaborator Nas, the work was natural once Remi had the beat and feel down. “He likes the [Sony] C800G mic going through an Avalon preamp on 95 percent of his records.” For singers, Remi prefers a Neumann U 47 because it gives him more space to layer around the vocals. “I feel like the Neumann captures from the top of your head to your stomach all the way around your head. I like to not have to reproduce the sound with electronic reverbs. For vocalists, you can do a lot of processing, so I avoid artists who can’t sing. Every track is totally different, and I use different vocal techniques. Some things are dry, and verses have a certain energy, and the chorus is bigger and spread out over strings.”

The production process keeps Remi motivated, and he maintains an intense composition schedule. This year alone he has produced songs for Busta Rhymes, David Sean, Nick Harrison, Joelle Ortiz, Leona Lewis, Chrisette Michele, Nina Skye, Money Mark, Bobby Ronson, I-20 and his own groups Champagne Flute and Crunkadelic.

He’s indeed a producer’s producer, enchanted by the notion of taking an artist and drawing out their best qualities and vision, and is always looking out for new artists and challenges. “I’m a big believer that it’s not the machine, it’s the monkey,” Remi says. “It doesn’t make a difference what you use; it’s what’s in your brain. I got past having a beat ego a long time ago. It’s based on the emotion I’m trying to pull out of the record and how I’m trying to showcase that artist. The beat is secondary. The key is still to know exactly what I’m looking for and to keep learning.”

THE INSTRUMENT ZOO

Computers, DAW, recording hardware, interfaces

Apple G5 (4), G4 (2), iBook (2)
Apogee Big Ben Master Digital Clock,
Rosetta 800 AD/DA Converter
Digidesign 192 I/O, Digi 002, Digi Sync I/O,
Pro Tools|HD3 systems (2)
HHB CDR-800 CD burner
MOTU 24 I/O (2), 2408, Digital Timepiece,
HD192, MIDI Timepiece, MIDI Timepiece II,
MIDI Timepiece AV interfaces
Panasonic SV3800 DAT recorder
Tascam DA-88 and DA-98 (2) digital 8-track
recorders, MD301 MKII MiniDisc recorder

Consoles/mixers

Mackie Onyx 1620
SSL 6000E
Yamaha DM2000

Mics

AKG C 451 E
Audix Fusion Drum Mic Pack
Neumann U 47, U 87
Oktava MK-012 (2)
RCA 44BX (3), 77 Type DX (2)
Røde NT2
Royer Labs SF24
Sennheiser MD 421 (2)
Sony C800G

Mic preamps

Avalon Vt-737sp preamp/compressor/EQ (2)
Daking 5227 (2)
Neve 1073 (8)

EQs

API 550 (2), 550A (2), 560 (4), 560A
Audio Arts 4200A
Avalon AD2055
Lang PEQ-2
Manley Enhanced Pultec EQP-1A
Orban parametric EQ
Pultec EQH-2 (3), HLF-3, MEQ-5 (2)
Tubetech PE1A
White Instruments 4700 (2)

Dynamics

dbx 160 (4), 902 (2), 929 (2)
Drawmer DS201 (3)
Behringer Composer
Kepex Compressor (4)
Neve stereo compressor
Teletronix LA-2A
Universal Audio 1176
Urei 1176

Signal processors

BBE 802 Sonic Maximizer
Behringer Edison EX1 (2)
dbx 100, 500 Subharmonic Synths
Dolby System 361 (2)
Orban 536A DeEsser
SPL Vitalizer
TC Electronic 1210 Spatial Expander

Plug-ins

Universal Audio UAD-1 Project Pak (2)
Waves Platinum bundle

Effects processors

AD&R Panscan panner
AKG BX5, BX20 spring reverb units
Alesis MidiVerb (2) multi-effects processor
Boss DE-200 Digital Delay
Dytronics CS-5 Chorus
EMT 140 plate reverb (2)
Korg AM8000R multi-effects, DL8000R delay
Line 6 Bass POD, DL4 Delay Modeler,
Echo Pro (2), POD ProLeslie 122 organ speaker
Lexicon 480L, PCM 42 (2), PCM 70
MXR Pitch Transposer
Pioneer SR202, SR303 reverbs
Quantec QRS reverb
Roland Dimension D SDD-320, Chorus Echo SRE-555(2), GP-8
Sansui RA-500 reverb amp
Ursa Major SST-282 reverb
Voce Spin rotary speaker simulator
Yamaha Rev 7 reverb
Zoom 1204 Studio Effects Processor (3)

Keyboards, synths, controllers, modules

Casio CZ-101, FZ-10M, FZ-20M, VS-10M
Casiotone MT-40
E-mu Proteus/1
Fender Rhodes electric piano
Hammond C3 organ
Kawai XD-5
Korg KP-30, KPR-77, M1, MicroKorg, microX,
MS-2000R, Poly-800, TR-Rack, Triton Rack
M-Audio Ozone MIDI keyboard
Midiman Keystation 61 MIDI keyboard
Moog Prodigy, Source
Novation Superstation
Oberheim Matrix 6R, Matrix 1000
Optigan organ
Roland D-50, JP-8080, Juno-6, Juno-106,
JV-880, JV-2080, MKS-50, SH-201, SVC-350
Studio Electronics SE1
Studiologic SL-990 keyboard controller
Univox Jazzman, Mini-Korg
Voce electric piano (2)
Wurlitzer 200A electric piano
Yamaha Baby Grand, CS01, DX7, DX100,
Motif ES6 (2), Motif Rack, Portasound
MK100, TX802 (2)

Samplers, drum machines, sequencers, turntables, DJ mixer

Akai MPC2000XL (2), MPC4000 (3), S950
samplers/drum machines
Alesis MMT-8 MIDI sequencer
Denon DN-C630 turntable
E-mu SP1200 sampler/drum machine
Ensoniq ASR-10, ESQ-1 samplers
Linn Electronics LinnDrum drum machine
Maestro Rhythm King MRK-1
Oberheim DX drum machine
Pioneer CDJ-1000 CD turntable
Roland CompuRhythm drum machine, HPD-15
HandSonic Percussion Controller, S760
sampler, VP-9000 VariPhrase Processor
Stanton SMX-201 DJ mixer
Technics SL-1210MK2 turntable
Yamaha MR10, RX5 drum machines

Bass guitars, guitars, amps

Ampeg B-15N bass amp
C. Nieves acoustic guitar
Danelectro Baritone, U2 electric guitars
Fender BXR-25 bass amp, Squier BP-15 bass
amp, Squier P-Bass, Stratocaster guitar
Kydd upright bass
Hanez acoustic guitar
Taylor 301-M-GB baby acoustic guitar

Drums

Drumworks snare
Pacific drum kit (kick, snare, high/mid/low toms)
Pearl Piccolo snare
Premier snares (2)
Remo Legero small drum kit (kick, snare,
high/mid/low toms)
Sabian B8 14“/36 cm hi-hat, B8 16“/41 cm thin
crash, B8 20“/51 cm ride, 14“/36 cm crash
Zildjian 20“/51 ride

Monitors, subwoofers, amps

Bryston 4B amp
BSS FDS-334 Minidrive loudspeaker
management system

Crown XLS 202 amp

Mackie HR824 monitors
M-Audio Studiophiles monitors
Tannoy PS350B subwoofer, System 1200
monitors
Tapco SW10 subwoofer
Yamaha NS10M monitors (4)

originally published Oct. 2007 in Remix Magazine

They say boys are slower to speak. With each passing day, my boy is finding his voice. His experiments with gurgles are becoming more articulate and conversational. He proudly spouts out a few key phrases that he’s mastered, “hot” and “uh-oh” among them. Sometimes he says “hot” when he really means “cold,” but his point has been made and he grins proudly. He learned to say “shoes” early on, too. He has a thing for shoes and can put them on, though they often end up on the wrong feet.

To compensate for his inability to speak up, he’s become quite effective at blending non-verbal communication with his limited vocabulary. When he’s ready to run wild, he will says “shoes,”  finds them and then stands by the front door, waiting for someone to notice.  Sometimes, he’ll pull me by the hand, his small palm gripping two or three of my fingers. An airplane is cause to stop whatever he’s doing and gaze into the sky, pointing toward the jet flying high above with wonder.

But sometimes he crumbles, frustrated that he doesn’t have the words yet, and the result can be a disastrous, petulant display of emotion. After all the voice is an instrument of communication dependent on language. Tone, inflection, rhythm, resonance, articulation. As a writer, I have long struggled with voice, too.

Yet, long ago voice meant something entirely different to me.  I used to sing. While my talents were better suited for writing, the sensation of singing the correct notes thrilled me. A shy, quiet girl, I felt like I could turn heads with my strong vocal chords.  I practiced singing constantly — scales and  vowel enunciation. My seventh grade choir teacher encouraged me, even giving me a solo part to sing at the annual  Cedar Point competition. It was a ’50s doo-wap song, “My Boyfriend’s Back,” a memory that still makes my face flush with embarrassment. I was not used to being on center stage. Later that year, I was rewarded yet another solo for the junior high musical. I practiced the cheesy song — “Pop-pop –popular, that’s what I long to be now” — everyday.

I was always more of an ensemble player – a strong second soprano that could hit the notes if I put my mind to it. In ninth grade, I auditioned for a the Academy of Popular Vocal Music Arts, a talented group of about 50 student singers who practiced for eight hours every Saturday. The director, Gene Grier, had won multiple Grammy awards for songwriting.  Not everyone was fabulous, but there were kids with starry-eyed ambition in their eyes that I assumed would make it big on Broadway and the pop charts. Maybe one or two did, I lost track. In retrospect, the Academy was more of a course in being a good kid. Our weekly practices included something called “Attitude Adjustments.”  We also sang the National Anthem at the Detroit Tiger’s game and recorded sound tracks at United Sound in Detroit. It was a thrill to enter the studio where Aretha Franklin and P-Funk had laid down tracks and stand before the microphones, with one eye on the soundbooth.

After high school, singing kind of faded away. Writing became my artistic passion, and soon, dance became my hobby, and music became what I wrote about. (Most music writers have some kind of band attempt in their background.) There was no practical room for vocal groups in my schedule.  By the time I graduated from college, my voice had grown quieter and more hesitant; I felt as if I could barely able to carry a tune.

A few years ago, surrounded by musicians and producers with an aptitude for composition, I tried to pull it out again. Ouch. Too much time had passed. The breathy sound made me cringe and my musician friends grimaced.  I shut up, very quickly. Though I had long ago given up the delusions of becoming a superstar band member, I wondered where the voice had gone. While I’ve strengthened my language skills, I miss the way song filled by head and heart and carried me. I miss people looking over at the quiet girl, nodding their head.

But something happened when my son was born. I began to sing again — using the soft, soothing part of my register. At first it was crackly, but I developed my set list and gradually began to have fun with the nightly routine. And with each performance for one, some semblance of pitch began to return. Best of all he didn’t care what I sounded like.

With a gentle hum, the boy who is finding his voice is starting to sing along with me.

It felt like a promising first date. He sat across from me and we gazed into each other’s eyes, tittering for no obvious reason, just two people enjoying the company. He sat up in his seat to appear taller and winked at me. I laughed to myself; I was definitely bigger than him. We had spent the afternoon strolling through Chelsea art galleries, mulling over abstract charcoal drawings and bright splashy three-dimensional metallic sculptures.  Though it was my idea, he was complacent and agreeable. We realized we were hungry and slipped into the Italian pizza place before the Friday evening rush. I pointed to a chair out front on the sidewalk, half-sun and half-shade. I could see the glow of five o’ clock dusk reflecting off of his skin.  I ordered for us – me a glass of chardonnay, he a small margherita pizza and a glass of water. With his limited vocabulary, I did most of the talking.  It got a little tricky when he insisted on sticking his fingers inside the glass and swishing the water around, splashing me in the eye.

It was my first date with my son – just he and I sitting across from the table on a sunny Friday evening, shooting the breeze.  (I asked him if he liked his pizza. He said his favorite word, “hot” back to me at least twenty times, constituting dialogue.) We had been to restaurants alone before, but it was the first time that he sat in a real chair  — not the cheapo standard highchair used in every restaurant ever that his father has vowed to reinvent – but a chair.  (Okay so he did use a booster seat for extra support, but still.) Clearly, he was no longer a helpless little baby. I had a real boy on my hands.

I knew I was taking my chances by sitting so dangerously far away. How would I stop him from starting a food fight or screaming bloody murder?  Things could change without warning from sunny to storm if we outstayed our welcome. The quality of our outings generally hinges on his mood determined by many factors — when he last ate, when he last napped, when he last pooped, when he grew bored or saw something he wanted to lunge for, but on this day, he and I were on the same wavelength. In an hour’s time he only broke one glass that the restaurant staff magically whisked away in less than 60 seconds— they had their eyes on us for sure as a possible problem table.  We handled the spill as graciously as  possible, as boy smiled bashfully. All in all, the behavior was pretty good for an almost two-year old.

Sitting across the table from my son in a rare moment of stillness, I watched him shovel his third piece of pizza in. I was struck by the sensation of life blurring and emerging sharply in perspective.  I was still getting use to the idea of being a parent only to realize how quickly my child changed before my eyes. My boy is becoming a person entirely independent of me. Dates were only the beginning of our evolving relationship.

That day, I didn’t feel like somebody’s mother. I felt like his mother. I looked at him straight in the eye and he said, “Wahh?”

Soon my son would come to understand that everyone has a mother. Eventually he would form an opinion of me, and rate my job performance based on the what he perceived from other sin the maternal pool. He may even choose a life partner based on his assessment of me.  I wouldn’t never know what he really thought about me. I’d have to continue to interpret the signs, much the way I do with his baby talk. As much as I am shaping my expectations of him – to be the magnificent one that he is  – I wonder what he will come to expect of me, if I will be the kind of mom a growing son would choose to hang out with, who will take time to sit across the table when I’m no longer the one making all the decisions.

I only hoped this would be the first of many mother-son dates. He certainly was a keeper.