Yes.
Oh.
Mic check.
WDMN.
Welcome to Why Make Music...
A broadcast where we dive into the world of creativity and inspiration.
Welcome to Why Make Music.
As it.
Make music.
Why make music?
Why?
Why make music?
Welcome to Why Make Music.
I'm your host, ThinkTimm.
That's T-H-I-N-K-T-I-2-M's T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M.
Why make music...
The statement, the question, the podcast.
Welcome to episode 13.
In this episode, we're going to dive into the deep dive into the discography of a producer
that I admire greatly that I will most definitely say changed the direction of modern music
as we know it.
His collaborations with so many artists in the music industry.
It's almost countless.
And I personally feel as though this producer does not get all the credit that he deserves.
Maybe within the industry most definitely.
I know that he is always, always.
His name is probably on the tip of every tongue of every modern producer that does hip hop, pop, R&B,
anything popular.
But I just don't hear people talking about him the way they used to.
So this is me shouting out the big homie.
Yup, yup.
Teddy Riley.
But before I get into that, let's reintroduce the podcast.
Why Make Music... is a platform that I like to use to let you into the creative process of me,
ThinkTimm, a independent, non-associated, distributed via United Masters,
distributed on SoundCloud too.
All of the major streaming platforms.
Apple Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, your social media, TikTok, Instagram.
I don't know if Twitter has a dedicated music thing or X as it's called currently.
YouTube, YouTube Music, ThinkTimm on YouTube.
They have a topic section that basically just plays all the tracks off all the projects I released.
And currently we are sitting on 72 tracks available, three projects.
The first one is Demotional, Caught, Feelings, 26 Songs, titles from A to Z, with names about emotions.
Project number two is Beatanicals.
That's like beat as in musical beat. Botanicals like flowers, Booming Bouquet.
All the songs are named after flowers, like the botanical gardens.
That's also 26 tracks from A to Z.
The newest addition to the collection is SuperlaBass.
Reality Affect. Not effect, but a-fect.
How does that, how does Reality Affect you?
That's an Affect anyway, not causing the effect, but the Affect, Affection.
That's 26 also, so that's August, September, and October.
Check out in a couple of weeks.
Number four is dropping, be on the lookout.
But anywho, to all the creative people out there, I'm talking about the producers that are in their home studios, on their laptops, their tablets, their phones, their PCs, their Apples, their intels, their M1, M2, M3, about the cop that M4 chip.
Anywho, people in your basements, your closets, your cars, your porches, your decks, your vacation homes.
No matter how great, no matter how small, the thought begins with you.
That's one thing that I believe a creative person a lot of times is not given credit for.
Do you realize that every thought that ever has been thought comes from a person that has an idea and feels the need, the necessity to make that idea a reality?
Music, art, inventions, everything you see started as an idea, unless you're talking about nature and of course things just happen over time, I guess.
But enough about me ranting about craziness.
Let's talk about the history of one of the greatest producers to ever walk this round blue planet.
This dude is the epitome of cool, calm, well put together, well presented music.
I first was introduced to Teddy Riley's music, as everybody was in the mid to late 80s.
I'm from Philadelphia, so the radio stations here were dominated by the R&B sensation, hip hop sensations of the late 80s.
You know when Bobby Brown first popped out and he began dropping hits after leaving New Edition,
Bobby Brown put out some songs that were produced by a producer that was at that time so cutting edge to combine the hip hop essentials that we were hearing in rap music with the flow of R&B.
Bobby, my prerogative was a banger of the song.
Do you understand what my prerogative did for Bobby Brown?
My prerogative, don't be cruel.
Listen, despite how Bobby's life has evolved over a period of time, there's no denying that we all, if we were alive, if we were young at that time, we're highly into it.
But not about the artist, I'm talking about the producer, the man, the one and only Teddy Riley.
Now Teddy Riley was, I do believe he was born in New York, from Harlem I believe, and I think eventually he might have set up shop in Virginia Beach, if I'm not mistaken.
I'm wrong, I'm not a biographically correct person all the time, but yeah, this dude has done a lot for the music game.
So Teddy Riley, everything from Rex in effect to, I'm gonna go back farther, Redhead, Kingpin, Heavy D and the boys, Keith Sweat, I'll be sure.
This dude was laying down tracks, he is the architect of, wait, hold it, pause, dot dot dot, let's give it its round of do.
New Jack Swing.
What?
You created a whole genre of music.
You created a complete movement of creativity to change the music industry as we know it today.
New Jack Swing, created by Teddy Riley.
Now don't get me wrong, I know when you dive deeper into it, I do believe originally, Teddy Riley had a partner that he worked with.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
But I am going to talk about Teddy Riley.
No shade to, I think the young man's name is, or now he's a older gentleman, Timmy Gatlin.
They put together a group called Guy, and Guy was killing it.
Guy, we're talking 1986, 87.
I was a young man, Groove me, Teddy's Jam.
Oh my God.
They were killing it.
They were the prototype that was followed by the whole entire music industry, especially in R&B and hip hop because at that time, that was before, matter of fact, if I'm not mistaken, they were one of the first major groups that was heading up
uptown records by, that was ran by Andre Harrell.
Uptown records, if you know anything about uptown records, uptown records had Heavy D, Father MC, eventually became Mary J Blige,
Sean Puffy, Diddy Combs.
Listen, it's 2024.
The things I'm saying have a long standing history in music industry, and no matter what anyone does right or wrong in their life. You cannot deny the effect that they had on the culture of music, period, point blank.
Our bodies perfect and people only do what they do.
Humans, that's what we are. We are flawed beings, we are creative beings and if you dig deep enough, you won't find some bodies.
Teddy Riley, Uptown Records guy. This dude took programming, keyboard playing, the, you know, the Roger Troutman, Roger Troutman, Zapp Band,
Riles Roger Trapman, the little vocal, little tube in the mouth, singing, playing the keys, the predecessor to the auto-tune, Groovin' Baby, Tonight, Guy, Big Daddy Kane, Let's Work.
Man, I'm being honest with you.
As I was
looking through
Teddy Riley's discography.
It was like a walk down memory lane.
Now, I'm being honest with you.
I did put together a more structured script and I'm looking over and I'm perusing it as I'm talking to you guys, but
I don't understand
why
Teddy Riley is not
Harold is the greatest person in the world. As far as not. I'm like, don't get me wrong. I'm like, I'm being honest. I'm like, I have my
hierarchy of music creators and of course, you know, I told you that
I have my higher ups and I have my tier of whatever and I feel as though that if you create and you make something and it's bouncing and it's good and it's banging and people like it.
It's a great thing. But then every now and again, you come across
the creative genius force of a person.
You have your Prince's.
You have your Quincy Jones RIP Quincy.
You have your
George Clinton. I'm like, I'm going deep into just regular funk. You know, you had George Clinton that say he'll put a track down and tell somebody to come over and pee on it.
Send it around, bounce it from place to place and you come up with a cohesive jam.
Teddy Riley. Teddy's jam. One, two, three. Teddy Riley. I ain't gonna lie to you. Teddy Riley. When I was younger when I listened to the material he was putting out in the 80s.
Teddy Riley was so fly that he took a song that he did on a How We Sure album and basically it was the same exact music and same structure and flipped it on to a guy album.
And it worked, man. You understand this is a dude who has innovated the whole entire music industry.
The reason why I say that is because think about it. If you don't know about New Jack Swing.
I'm sure you've heard of New Jack City.
Could you imagine being a record producer.
A record artist.
One of the most acclaimed producers of your time.
And I got the New Jack Swing. You created that.
You have young up and coming producers that are learning on the fly to do what you're doing in real time.
And not only are you dominating the music charts, not only are you making music that people really, really want to hear.
And you're writing songs that are really making the impact.
You have Hollywood taps, Ice T, from the West Coast.
I can't think of the boy's name that played the other detective.
And then you had Mario Van Peeples.
New Jack Swing, Wesley Snipes, New Jack City, Nino Brown.
Whether it was fictional, semi-autobiographical for the time because that was the story of the inner city and how hustling was going on.
But it was monumental to the culture of hip hop and music.
Where you had a combination of a good story laid over great music inspired by the New Jack Swing era of music created by Teddy Riley.
I don't know, should I go back and put like audio effects over this? Yeah, I ain't gonna lie.
I'm fanboying over this because you would think that I'm like, oh, introducing soon, Teddy Riley is going to be here to speak.
No, it's not going to happen. I have no problem like that.
I'm just doing my proper due and saying that as a independent writer, songwriter, producer, working by myself at that time, I told you.
My man, P-R-I-N-C-E Prince was doing it by himself.
Then as music starts to change, another person comes in and changes the game and the same way Prince worked with groups and created groups in the early 80s, late 70s, the time.
Vanity Six, Appollonia Six, writing for Sheena Easton. I appreciated Sheena E. Glamorous Life.
Listen, I appreciated all the spin-offs and all the people who tried to sound like that. But at the same point, we all know that Prince music is a real acquired taste that it did not necessarily, no matter how great it was,
it did not necessarily have the impact that New Jack Swing had on it. Now, granted, granted, it did create Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis that went on to produce for Janet Jackson and countless other people.
It wouldn't have, like if you go down the, I guess you want to say the master and apprentice line of legacy of who begot who, when you go back, I think that the Teddy Riley lineage is just as impactful as the Prince lineage.
The reason being is that Teddy Riley begot Guy, begot Heavy B, Big Daddy Kane, Wreck n Effect, you understand, BlackStreet.
BlackStreet went on to do No Diggity. That's a collaboration with Dr. Dre. That's another connective tissue in the lineage of the music.
If you don't understand what it is, that when I believe it might have been, I can't remember when that album came out. I think it was like in the early 90s.
It was Michael Jackson's Dangerous. I think Teddy Riley produced at least seven songs on it.
And as you know, I've said it before during the podcast, as great of an entertainer that Michael Jackson was, I think the producers were very integral in his career.
Prior to Dangerous, I do believe the three albums before that was Bad, Thriller and Off the Wall.
And they were headed by Quincy Jones. And currently in 2024, we just lost Quincy Jones and his legacy continues.
But you hear him talk about how he added things to the ideas that Michael Jackson may have had, or he guided Michael Jackson vocally to do what he did.
So MJ may not necessarily have been the driving force behind his tracks completely. But then you have a situation that is basically coming into Mike needed a new sound.
Teddy Riley had the hot sound. If I'm not mistaken, Mike dropped the bag. Teddy Riley got the bag.
And production credit. Think about living off the royalties of a Michael Jackson album. Good or bad or indifferent.
Mike is one of the highest selling people in the music industry still years and years and years after his death.
Beatles, Elvis, Mike. No matter how you feel about it, you can't not great this.
Tagged into that greatness is Teddy Riley. Remember the time. You understand?
Jam.
Do you remember that track? Jam?
The video had Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan playing basketball.
Is that not the craziest thing in the world? No matter how you look at it, Teddy Riley's influence on the music industry has changed everything so much.
Remember the time, the video, Eddie Murphy, the Egyptian situation, the dance number, the keyboard line.
Remember that you get it. Listen, I'm not even a Michael Jackson fan like that. But that song moved me.
It's not about the vocals. I'm like, it's the music. And even if it is the vocals, it's the whole package. That's what a producer does.
The producer puts together such a project that it engulfs everything.
Remember the jaw in the closet? I'm like, there were countless tracks on there that Michael Jackson killed because I want to say it's because of Teddy Riley.
Teddy Riley was aware of how good he was because if you listen to the one song that you know that we all love whenever it comes on,
Wrecks n Effect, Rump Shaker, which was like a chill, laid back, kind of like very braggadocios Rump Shaker.
I'm like, it didn't have to be the most lyrically driven track, but the beat, what we were dealing with was amazing. It was put together so well that when Teddy Riley basically came out with his verse on
the Rump Shaker track, he was basically just given a resume of the acts that he was working with.
I'm like, who does that in such a way that you sit back and think like, oh damn, I got, and he just ran down the list of people that he worked with.
It was ingenious. It was such a swag before there was swag. It was such a situation that you have to sit back and say, okay, now mind you, this is before what we have now.
This is before all the social media and everything's in your face. This dude did this through traditional means of distribution and record deals.
He worked with SWV, Sisterhood of Voices, I got really messed it up. And if I'm not mistaken, because of the connection with Michael Jackson, that was one of the first songs that actually really sampled the MJ track, the Human Nature dip with the SWV song.
So business wise, this dude was really on the top of his game. You know, Rump Shaker, Wreck n Effect, New Jack Swing. I got the New Jack Swing.
But listen, I'm just going to tell you straight off the bat. We need to figure out what direction we're going to go into.
I say that because I am trying to be a positive at all times person.
And I think that we need tons and tons and tons, millions of creators to move this world forward.
Seriously.
What are we going to do?
How are you? If you are listening to this podcast, and you're not just a friend of mine or someone who knows me as a person and you are listening because you just like, hey, I'm gonna listen to ThinkTimm and see what's up.
If you are a creative person, listen man, we man, woman, girl, child, grandma, grandpa.
You can never stop being creative. Think about it.
Quincy Jones was what, 81 years old? Man, that's a life.
Yes. Creative people, creativity does not go away. If you were creating when you were 14, 15, you're going to be creating when you're 84, 85. If that's what you do, that's what you do.
Teddy Riley is still a force today.
He might be laid back living a very chill, quiet life.
I'm sure he's doing something. I'm going to use this technology that we have called the internet.
Let's see. Let's find out what is Teddy Riley doing currently, live right now. What projects is he working on currently as we speak. So we go to the good old internet.
And it's like as of lately, let's see what we got going on. Who do we know right now? So you understand he didn't did the boy groups. He didn't did Madonna.
Teddy Riley has stepped into the Korean music market.
He's worked with rapper Jay Park.
Never heard of a guy, but you understand, stepped into the Korean music market. That's K-pop.
It's amazing. Amazing what people can do, what music can do. And it's never going to go away.
That's the thing. Never going to go away.
Residuals, payments forever.
Listen man, I'm looking at this list. If I pause, it's because I'm just sitting there thinking like come on Mel B, Monifa.
Oh my God, they have plenty soundtrack.
Guys, the greatest hits of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Payla Ball.
Rush Hour movie soundtracks. Listen, for all you Shaq fans out there, he worked on the Steel soundtrack.
It's funny when you sit back and think like all the things that music can do for you and where it could take you.
It is literally amazing because we as creative people make music.
So you imagine where would you bump into a Teddy rally at?
Maybe you're traveling or whatever and there's a hotel lobby or something.
And by chance you guys have a chance to share an elevator or by chance.
However, this is what I'm talking about. This is why the podcast is called Why Make Music.
I think it should be a segment somewhere.
I think it should be a question asked by every talk show host, every radio host.
And I think that we should coin the phrase, why make music?
Pause. That, that, that.
And let the person talk and let them speak and let them tell you their story.
Could you imagine? So you see Teddy Riley.
This is a basically city grown genius.
You're going to ask him after he's been in the music business now for easily 40 years.
And he's easily still doing it. And he's probably one of the baddest dudes out there.
You say, Mr. Riley, Ted, why, why make music? What drives you to make music?
Could you imagine that answer? My answer is passionate.
And I haven't done anything. I have not gained anything from this. It's coming.
It's coming.
But could you imagine when you have 40 years of success,
you have worked with the greatest artists in the music business,
you have submitted a term, a phrase, not everyone, not many people.
I might listen. Seriously. Who coined hip hop? Cool Herc?
Who was the first person to say hip hop?
Who coined the phrase hip hop? Who coined the term hip hop?
This is what I'm talking about right here. It says, Keef Cowboy,
a rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was credited with the term
and release to hip hop as we know it today.
Although it is not documented, Lovebug Starski, Keef Cowboy,
and DJ Hollywood used the term when music was still known as disco rap.
Did you know that? Did you know that? I didn't know that.
I just looked it up just now on the fly.
And guess what? If I say New Jack Swing, you know it's Teddy Riley.
If I say who created the term rock and roll, you don't know.
If I say who created the term funk, y'all better say George Clinton.
If I say who coined the term disco, I don't know.
But you know for a fact that New Jack Swing was created by Teddy Riley.
Right? Am I right? Am I wrong?
So I'm just trying to basically bring attention to the person who also had influence
because I tell you, like I said, with the invention of synthesizers, keyboards,
drum machines, as a hobbyist musician working by themselves
and getting away from traditional instruments, meaning live instruments, drums,
bass guitars, guitars, and so on.
You find yourself gravitating towards the music that you like of the time.
I grew up in Philadelphia.
Like I said, I listen to all types of music.
But outside of my core programming, which is everything, you still have the major parts of what you can relate to.
And you find commonality and creative people that are doing what you want to do.
The thing is, you have to, I know it sounds corny, but it's true.
You have to see that it can be done to make your reality a reality.
No one somewhere might hear this and sit back and think like, oh, man, I wish I could get a group together.
I want to make some music.
And if I only had to find some folks to play this and to find some folks to do that.
And if I could find a singer and if only I had whatever.
Don't make excuses, man.
Don't make man, girl, woman, or boy, man, woman.
If you're 70 years old and you want to drop an EP or an album, you knock it out.
You go for it.
Because what I'm telling you is that there are so many people that are here in the world today that make excuses.
But technology is leading the way. You can do this on your own.
You don't have to wait for people to be available for you to catch up, make time for you.
You can do it. You could be the one answering the question. Why make music?
You could be the one making music and asking other people why they make music.
Something that anyone says will inspire you.
I just want to give props to the people who created music that I like to listen to.
I ain't going to lie to you.
I want to go and tell you the greatest thing I heard.
Now, I'm going to tie in a segue to put the two things together because I know if you're listening to this and you're like,
Okay, man. Okay, Timm. Okay, ThinkTimm. You're talking all this Teddy Riley's great.
And a couple weeks ago, you were saying Prince is great.
I'm not knocking fandom.
I am a Prince enthusiast super enthusiast greatest person ever, ever, ever, ever.
I'm like, I want to say that he was so good. He influenced people that existed before him.
Prince is one of those people that transcends time.
But everybody influences other people and everybody is influenced by other people.
The reason why I say that is because to me as a Prince fan,
it was very, very humbling to me as a Prince fan in the 1990s in the kind of the
new jack swing era has taken over the airwaves.
You got to understand the first CD that I purchased was a CD and maybe 1990 91.
It was a CD single.
It was a CD single by the singer.
And this is it. I'm telling you, I listened to everything.
So Jane Childs, this was a young woman, long hair, kind of braided dreaded twisted something.
A song called "Don't Want To Fall in Love".
And that CD single were a bunch of Teddy Riley, new jack swing remixes.
Had nothing to do with guy had nothing to do with R&B had nothing to do with hip hop.
At that point, I realized that the growth of music transcends all types of cultures
and what we're being fed by the radio stations may not necessarily be what people are into personally
because I'm sure someone had to sign off on this Jane Childs remix knowing that, oh,
this is going to take her music to a different audience in a different genre of listeners.
So Google Jane Childs I don't want to fall in love Teddy Riley remixes to get back on the story.
I kind of get off track for a second there.
But in 1990, maybe 94 or so, maybe 92 to 94, it was a song called "Acknowledge Me".
It was written, produced and arranged and performed by Prince.
And it was straightly, completely influenced by the new jack swing era of music.
So no hate, no shade.
People are great.
And when you do something that's good, it spills over to other people.
So I want you to understand that you as a listener, you have to listen to everything.
Earlier in one of the episodes of the podcast, I talked about music stats.
And I go back to it because I think preparing for that episode, I became overwhelmed by the amount of information
because they say in your lifetime, in a person's lifetime, you, you can never name them.
You hear over a million songs in your lifetime.
Out of those million songs, what can you name 500 songs?
Can you name a hundred songs off the top of your head?
It's an amazing thing.
So I say that because I want you as a lover of music, as a creator of music, to think about it.
These creators that are put out for us to listen to by the programmers, the playlist makers, the people who curate the music industry nowadays,
that marketing agencies, ad agencies, music supervisors, that pick songs that are good, that pick songs that are good,
that basically become like an earworm in your head.
There are so many songs that you'll never, never hear.
Expand your range.
Just you personally, not everybody.
Everyone can't listen to everything, but think about it.
If you like one thing, you don't have to listen to it all the time.
You can listen to other things, give other things a chance.
There's a lot of cool music out there.
Speaking of which, shout out to Annieplaysguitar on social media.
This is a young lady from England.
I'm not sure what part of England, but she is a phenomenal guitar player.
I say that because of a couple years back, I got a Annie teaches guitar package that she was putting out,
which came with almost like a textbook written guide for guitar playing along with a four part video.
I got this back in 2021.
I had it on the hard drive and the hard drive crashed and I didn't have access to the video footage of it.
Earlier this week, I emailed her and told her,
not only do I follow you on social media, and we've chatted back and forth a few times as far as saying,
yo, what you doing this fire or just, you know, how sometimes somebody leaves a comment or whatever.
So like she's not super duper famous, unreachable, but she's on tour with a band right now.
If you go follow her on social media, but she is one another one of those don't say it can't be done by yourself
because she writes and she plays and she sings and she produces and her music sounds cool, really good.
But she sent me the four videos that I lost without a problem.
And it took less than 24 hours via email. Hit me up.
She gave me the Google Drive links and said, don't worry about downloading.
You have access to the Google Drive. So shout out to you, Annie.
I know you're listening, but because I'm not nobody and nobody's listening to ThinkTimm, but people who know ThinkTimm.
I say that to say, listen, everybody can make music.
Everybody can do it.
It doesn't have to be the same 10, 20, 50 people.
The other day I was watching Dancing with the Stars and they celebrated their 500 episode
and they came on and they danced to Crazy in Love, the track that was produced by Rich Harrison.
And they said, oh, 20. No.
I don't know if it was 20 years ago, but yeah, I guess it had to be about 20 years ago because
that's when the track originally came out 20 years ago was Dangerous in Love.
2003, I believe.
But they basically think about it.
If Crazy in Love came on today, you will still be dancing to it.
And these artists are still popular.
At the same point for every crazy in love.
There's like 500, 600, a thousand tracks that are just as good as you because you listen to the program music that people program for you
that you don't get a chance to listen to.
Shout out to Rich Harrison, producer extraordinaire.
Once again, you made your mark with one song, one sound.
And your family is probably set for the rest of their existence because of that.
I admire those type of things and I think they should be shouted out.
Shout out to Teddy Riley, the Riley family, the Riley legacy.
Shout out to all the new Jack Swing followers and new Jack Swing disciples.
Shout out to, did you know, did I say that another person that Teddy Riley worked with or basically mentored at a very early age was the one and only.
Are you ready for it?
I do believe it was Pharrell Williams.
Pharrell Williams.
And Teddy Riley, if I'm not mistaken, Pharrell Williams had a very integral part in making Rump Shaker.
How you like that?
That's the Virginia Beach connection.
But anyway, my name is ThinkTimm and as always, you can catch me on my social medias, THINKTMM.
And remember, why make music?
It's a question. It's a statement.
It's something that you can always do and always depend on to start a conversation.
Ask someone, Why Make Music?
This is episode 13.
New Jack Swing. New Jack World. New Jack Mindset.
Thank you to the great Teddy Riley for sharing his idea with us so, so many years ago.
Thank you for making me like a Michael Jackson album.
Normally, if you ask me, I would say my number one favorite is Off The Wall, but it's closely followed by Dangerous.
Peace.