Todd Ray

Todd Ray (aka T-Ray) is an American music producer.

Contents

Biography

Born and raised in Lancaster, South Carolina, Grammy Award-winning music producer Todd Ray (T-Ray)'s career has logged a lengthy discography, which includes artists Jack Johnson, Nas, Mick Jagger, House of Pain, The Beastie Boys, G. Love & Special Sauce, Cypress Hill, Santana, 311, Audioslave, Korn, Artifacts, and Ozomatli.

Growing up in the rural South, Todd's living conditions and local entertainment options left much to be desired. After hearing a friend's copy of Soul Sonic Force's 'Planet Rock', Todd purchased a pair of turntables. He and his friends began performing locally. At this time, their group did not have a name and people would simply refer to them as 'those white boys'. Their reputation grew. Swatch Watch sponsored them, flying them to Breckenridge, Colorado for one of the first ever snowboarding events, where Converse Sneakers reps provided additional sponsorship. [1] Using his portion of the sponsorship money, T-Ray began building his record collection, which provided a solid foundation for his budding production skills. After mastering the concept of 'breaks', he quickly finished his group's first demo. A club in nearby Charlotte, NC was having a talent contest which Todd and his partner planned to enter. When the day came, Todd's partner had a prior engagement and was not able to join him. Todd entered the contest alone and won the competition several weeks in a row, which qualified him for the finals. The final competition was judged by representatives from Def Jam and Polygram. Although Todd did not win the final competition, a Polygram representative approached Todd with the offer of a record contract (1986). [2]

With the ink still drying on their deal, T-Ray and his group moved straight from South Carolina to Rosedale, Queens, where they finished an album for Tin Pan Apple Records and appeared on the Fresh Fest Tour. But Polygram's rival, Def Jam, quickly became a household name and by the summer of 1987, the group broke up. Todd eventually ran out of money and had to move back to South Carolina. [3] With no rural job opportunities, and his pre-med scholarship lost, Todd worked non-stop on music production. Unable to afford even the floppy disks to save the beats, he would just record them on cassette. Figuring that no one would ever hear the beats, he began putting his speakers in the window and playing for the trees. The trees were T-Ray's only fans and his only source of income; he helped his family build furniture out of wood- 'folk art' furniture with bark still attached. (a fact readily verified by numerous Lancaster, SC residents) People began paying handsomely for his chairs and he was able to save enough money to make the trip back to New York. [Elemental Magazine, Issue #62] Unable to get any record label in New York to even listen to his beats, money soon began to run out (again). Finally, Todd got a call back on his application as an intern at Big Beat Records. One day, Todd approached label head Craig Kallman and said that he knew what the future of hip-hop was going to be. Todd played a tape of his beats for Kallman and informed him "All I have is music". The morning after, Kallman called Todd (about Kenny Dope's promo for Red Alert) and told him "if you know how to make this [recorded loop] into a record, you've got a job". T-Ray was the producer of Big Beat Records' first hip-hop 12-inch, 'Supa Cat' (1991- Todd is credited on the album as 'The Mad Racket'). 'Supa Cat' sold 70,000 copies and was the true beginning of T-Ray's career as a producer. He went on to produce an entire album for Double X, with 'Not Gonna Be Able To Do It" (1992) becoming his first video. (See discography for complete listing of production credits) T-Ray produced 'Aint Goin Out Like That' for Cypress Hill's album, Black Sunday (1993) and was nominated for a Grammy for it (Best Rap single). [4] Todd then became closely affiliated with the DJ Muggs led Soul Assassins producing for Cypress Hill and Funkdoobiest, among others.

By 1996, Todd had begun to produce rock & roll. His 1993 remix of House of Pain/ Helmet collaboration (Judgement Night soundtrack) led to his producing of the entire Helmet album, which led to more rock gigs, including 311, Korn, Snot, Hed PE, John Spencer Blues Explosion, and White Zombie. In 1999, T-Ray did production for Santana (which led to a Grammy Award in 2000 for Album of the Year) and a Latin group named Ozomatli who he won two other Grammys with, including a Latin Grammy- it was during this time that his life came full circle: "It was sort of like destiny in a way, for me to move from the woods to New York City," explains Todd Ray. "To get on as a producer, to go through turmoil, through hip-hop, and get to the point where I felt that people were doing hip-hop that I couldn't respect, so I moved to the West Coast to do rock & roll shit. I run into a group called Ozomatli who I wanted to do 'Incredible Bongo Beats' with. Their DJ just happened to be Cut Chemist, who I knew nothing about. But, as we're finishing the record he tells me this fucking story of how he was inspired by this fucking tape that he got from down South, and that tape was my fucking tape. The same tape I made in that shack, the same tape that I played for Craig when I met him at Big Beat. The same tape that I had played for the trees in Lancaster, South Carolina. I had made one copy for Eclipse (yes- that Eclipse), who originally lived in South Carolina too, who had sent it to an old friend in Rhode Island, who moved to L.A. and became one of the members of Jurassic 5, whose DJ just happened to be Cut Chemist. I felt like I had come 360 degrees!" [Elemental Magazine, Issue #62]

Discography

Production

Co-production

Remixes

Appears on

Unofficial releases

Sources

External links