Exactely one month ago I told you about Nicole and Mark Hamilton and their h2O-Productions. Their record While U Wait introduced us to an impressive number of new and fresh artists, some of them I hopefully will feature in the future with their own albums.
But back to Nicole and Mark who eventually found the time to answer the notorious jazz-not-jazz interview. So read on to share their thoughts about their own music, their influences, the music scene today in general and their musical doughnut shop.
Q: Please tell me how you’ve met each other. Did each of you make music before you teamed up?
Nicole: Actually, we were both making music prior to meeting each other. Mark was writing songs in a team with his brothers and I was just getting into producing. We met in Washington, D.C. (where Mark is originally from) through a friend of Mark’s who at the time was my boss. The mutual friend is a well known hip/hop and R&B producer named Chucky Thompson.
Hmmmm, how did we meet? Well, I studied Music Technology at New York University and worked weekends at Daddy’s House, which is a recording studio owned by Sean (Diddy) Combs. At the time, there was a lot of GREAT music coming out of the Bad Boy camp: Notorius B.I.G., Craig Mack, Faith Evans, 112, etc. Those were projects that changed the face of R&B as we know it…kinda like the introduction of Hip Hop/R&B and I was priveledged enough to be around while all of that great music was being made. ANYWAY, Chucky had just secured a sweet production deal and was about to start his own thing down in D.C. I was young, inexperienced as a producer and COMPLETELY in awe of this man’s talent, so when he and his wife at the time asked me to move down to D.C. to help them with their recording studio, I jumped at the chance! So, a few weeks after graduation, I packed up my stuff and moved into their basement in Maryland (until I could find a place of my own) and began working for what was then, Chucklife, Ent. Well, Mark and his brothers would come by Chucky’s house all the time to hang out and be in the studio with him…just to be around the music. They’d bring over songs they were working on and I’d play my tracks for them. At the time, Mark didn’t produce at all and I didn’t write lyrics. As time went on, Mark and I decided that music was something we really wanted to pursue and we buckled down and got serious. We purchased some ’starter’ equipment (analog 4 track recorder and cheap microphone) and got to work. It’s funny because there was a group of us that all kinda came up together…Mark and I, an artist by the name of Raheem DeVaughn who has an album called ‘The Love Experience’ out on Jive Records and a producer by the name of Rich Harrison (an old high school friend of Mark’s) who produced ‘Crazy in Love’ for Beyonce and most of Amerie’s first two albums. We ALL hung out at the studio, soaking up Chucky’s musical vibes and just learning about how things work in this industry. Anyway, that’s how Mark and I met. What started out as a friendship, grew into a musical/business partnership and ended in marriage…and the rest, as they say, is HISTORY!
Q: Which musicians are your influences?
Nicole/Mark: We would just like to make the distinction between musicians we LOVE and musicians that influence us…we listen to and appreciate a LOT of different music, but as far as INFLUENCE is concerned, well…to us, that means someone who has changed or impacted the way we work…the way we approach what we do…our process of writing and producing…SO, in light of that, we’d have to say some of our influences are:
Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Babyface, Miles Davis, Gamble and Huff, Eric Roberson, Chucky Thompson, Joni Mitchell, Earl Klugh, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, and the list goes on and on…
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