Amerigo Gazaway

Amerigo Gazaway
Background information
Birth name	Amerigo Gazaway
Born	(1985-11-09) November 9, 1985
Origin	Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Genres	Mashup,[1] Hip-Hop, Experimental
Instruments	Keyboards, Turntables, Samplers
Years active	2010–present
Associated acts	The Pharcyde, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest
Website	amerigomusic.com

Amerigo Gazaway (born November 9, 1985) is an American producer, emcee and DJ known for remixes, original instrumentals and digital sampling.^[2] He is best known for his documentary style conceptual collaboration albums which have incorporated the music of A Tribe called Quest, The Pharcyde, Fela Kuti, De La Soul, Marvin Gaye, Yasiin Bey and James Brown and others.^[3] In 2014, his Yasiin Bey/Marvin Gaye remix You Are Undeniable was used in an iPad TVC^[4] and charted on Billboard’s best-selling singles.^[5]

Early life

Gazaway was born in Nashville, Tennessee on November 9, 1985. He is the son of Jazz trumpeter Gary “El Buho” Gazaway.^[6] After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University in 2011, Gazaway started The Soul Mates Project, a platform for his collaborations with his brother, Rickey Mindlin.^[7][8] Gazaway graduated from MTSU in 2011.

Career

Under The Soul Mates project, Gazaway’s work has been called “legally iffy”^[9] and often uses more than a dozen unauthorized samples from different artist. Frequently facing legal challenges for his work,^[10] Gazaway has lectured on what he describes as "overly restrictive and unconstitutionally long copyright laws."^[11] at the University of Southern California^[12] and a Google Tech Talk: “Redefining the Remix with Amerigo Gazaway”.

Gazaway’s first full-length instrumental album, Selective Hearing Vol. 1, was released in 2010 on the Cold Busted label and charted on Beatport’s top-selling Chill-Out sales Chart.

Gazaway released his sophomore project, Fela Soul, in 2011. This was a mixture of the music of Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti and Hip-Hop group De La Soul.^[13] In December of 2011, the album took top 5 ranking on both NPR and Soul Train’s year-end “Best of 2011” list.^[14][15]

One year later, Gazaway released his third album, Bizarre Tribe: A Quest to the Pharcyde.^[16] Again Gazaway mixed the music of two significant music acts — this time A Tribe Called Quest and The Pharcyde.^[17] Bizarre Tribe earned early praise from the Los Angeles Times, New York (magazine), and Okayplayer.^[18][19][20]

In 2014 Gazeway produced the album Yasiin Gaye, in which he presented an imaginary collaboration between Yasiin Bey and Marvin Gaye.^[21][22] Gaining Marvin Gaye’s original multi-tracks, Gazaway was able to rebuild and deconstruct the samples to re-orchestrate the instrumentation into new arrangements.^[23] The album earned Gazaway a five star review from BET.^[24] and praise from Marvin Gaye’s widow Janis Gaye.^[25]

As an emcee, Gazaway has released several singles, including I Can't Get Off of the Facebook, in 2011^[26] which was reviewed by Time Out (magazine).^[27]

Style

Gazaway’s mash-up style remixes are created from a process known as “reverse-engineering,”^[28] which heavily relies on a method of deconstructing and re-orchestrating original samples to bridge overlapping themes of two separate musician’s catalogues.^[29] The resulting product has been described by the Los Angeles Times as “drawing a different design within a similar framework.”^[18]

References