Behind the Boards with Sounwave: Producer Talks Working with Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell and Sampha

The post Behind the Boards with Sounwave: Producer Talks Working with Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell and Sampha appeared first on Consequence.

Behind the Boards is a series where we spotlight some of the biggest producers in the industry and dig into some of their favorite projects. For this edition, we sit down with producer Sounwave to hear about his work with Kendrick Lamar and Marcus Mumford.

Compton producer Sounwave (born Mark Spears) has been working with Kendrick Lamar for nearly two decades, helping to shape the sound of each of the albums that the generational rapper has released to date. Despite their close relationship inside and outside of the studio, there are still moments when Kendrick catches Sounwave off guard.

“There are gonna be times where I’m creating something and I don’t even think he’s listening,” Sounwave tells Consequence over Zoom. “But the whole time he’s writing a whole song in his head. And so I’ll be turning around like, ‘Yo, what do you think of this idea?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, no, I already got the full song.’ He’ll hop on the mic, lay the whole scratch down, hook and everything. I’m like, ‘I keep forgetting, this dude’s an alien.’ That’s usually how the workflow goes.”

One example of this was when Kendrick recorded the vocals for “Savior,” a standout track from his most recent album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. “I didn’t know he even liked ‘Savior’ until he had the hook,” Sounwave recalls. “I just had that chord on a loop, and I was going through drums trying to find it, you know, how you actually make a beat. And he’s just in the cut on his phone, like talking to somebody. Next thing I know, he said, ‘Turn the mic on.’ Then he does the first half of ‘Savior,’ and then he does the hook of ‘Savior.'”

It’s this type of collaboration that made creating music especially hard for Sounwave during the pandemic. Unable to feed off the “good energy” of others, he found himself in “the biggest producer slump for a full year” and instead decided to shift gears to A&Ring albums like Baby Keem’s studio debut, The Melodic Blue.

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This also meant putting ongoing work on Mr. Morale on pause for the time being to just “live life,” which helped “create the emotions” both “sonically and lyrically” that made the album so impactful. And so once it came time to make a statement track that “Kendrick’s back” with “N95,” Sounwave knew exactly the story he wanted to tell.

“I wanted it to feel like, ‘It’s about time, five years, he’s back,'” he explains. “I wanted his welcome back home to feel like Ving Rhames from Baby Boy, instead of just a surprise party, if that makes sense. And so when them chords came in, when you hear that first kick, that first oomph, like the moves and all of that that’s in there, it’s like you get socked in the chest. It’s not like, ‘Hey, welcome back,’ shake your hand. It’s like punch you in the chest and you say ‘welcome back’ and walk away.”

Sounwave’s talent for knowing the special touches a song needs also applies to “Alright,” which initially was “a little modern” for the jazz fusion sound of To Pimp a Butterfly, but it was up to him to tweak it so it “made sense” sonically within the album. “I had to like basically format it, produce the saxophone with Terrace [Martin], the strings, everything,” he says. “It’s like, we can’t let this song die just because it doesn’t fit in my head. That’s how I always felt.”

Though he’s best known as a producer for his work with Kendrick Lamar and Top Dawg Entertainment, Sounwave has ambitions outside of hip-hop as well. In 2019, he formed a supergroup called Red Hearse with Jack Antonoff and songwriter Sam Dew which released their debut self-titled album that same year, and more recently, he produced two songs on Marcus Mumford‘s first solo album: “Prior Warning” and “Go in Light.”

Music executive Sam Taylor, who played a role in calling Sounwave’s attention to the beat for “Alright,” brought the producer and Mumford together knowing Sounwave’s desire to work outside of the box. “I don’t want to just be one genre, one this, one that, I like things to challenge me and inspire me,” Sounwave says. “Come to find out Marcus Mumford was a fan of mine. I was always a fan of him, so I said, ‘Let’s try it.’ We locked in and we just hit it off immediately to the point where [we spent] multiple days locked in the studio just creating, trying to bend the sounds in genres, mixing worlds together, and it came out amazing.”

“My whole thing now, it’s just to not be in one box,” he adds. “I just want to shock and expand as much as possible. I will go to whatever it is that I respect and love. People wouldn’t expect me to actually love folk music because [I’m known in the] hip-hop and R&B world but I actually love it, so, when that opportunity came up, I definitely jumped forward.”

Read our deep dive with Sounwave about the process behind Kendrick Lamar’s “N95,” “Savior,” “Alright,” and more below.

Kendrick Lamar – “N95”

That song had a few transformations from the version that came out. The first one that we actually recorded was a hard beat — it felt good, a little smoother. It just didn’t feel like what I wanted it to feel like. It felt more like, “This is a great record. Kendricks’s back, cool.” I didn’t want the “Kendrick’s back” moment to be a parade, surprise party, like “Hey, welcome home.”

I wanted it to feel like, “It’s about time, five years, he’s back.” I wanted his welcome back home to feel like Ving Rhames from Baby Boy, instead of just a surprise party, if that makes sense. And so when them chords came in, when you hear that first kick, that first oomph, like the moves and all of that that’s in there, it’s like you get socked in the chest. It’s not like, “Hey, welcome back,” shake your hand. It’s like punch you in the chest and you say “welcome back” and walk away. That’s what it felt like to me, that’s what I wanted it to feel like.

There were pieces that were kept from the original. And then there was another time where we had the beginning of the synth strings and that’s when [Boi-1da and Jahaan Sweet] came in and basically did that part that had that little extra oomph to it. Before with the original, it was just pianos and it was like, this doesn’t feel like welcome back. It feels like, “Hey, nice to meet you.” It was just so beautiful and it fit still, it just didn’t give you that edge. And so it’s like you’d have to direct the edge. You have to put that extra emphasis on it sometimes.

Kendrick Lamar feat. Baby Keem and Sam Dew – “Savior”

There are gonna be times where I’m creating something and I don’t even think he’s listening. He’s in a corner doing something else completely, like picking out pieces for the next video or something. But the whole time he’s writing a whole song in his head. And so I’ll be turning around like, “Yo, what do you think of this idea?” And he’s like, “Oh, no, I already got the full song.” He’ll hop on the mic, lay the whole scratch down, hook and everything. I’m like, “I keep forgetting, this dude’s an alien.” That’s usually how the workflow goes.

I didn’t know he even liked “Savior” until he had the hook. The chords of “Savior,” I know he loves the same type of chords that I love. And so I knew immediately once I played him those chords, it was gonna sink in. I just had that chord on a loop, and I was going through drums trying to find it, you know, how you actually make a beat. And he’s just in the cut on his phone, like talking to somebody.

Next thing I know, he said, “Turn the mic on.” Then he does the first half of “Savior,” and then he does the hook of “Savior.” And that’s when we found the actual drums. It’s like his actual vocals allow me to know who to get in for the drums, what direction to go. And it became that song like strictly off of him just not saying nothing, just in his own world, creating in his mind.

My guy Rascal, he sends me a bunch of samples that are just weird and obscure and [River Tiber’s “Hypnotized”] was one of them. I was just like, “Oh yeah, this is perfect.” He sent that at the perfect time. I chopped it up, reversed it, flipped it, stretched it, and it became what it was. The sample and the piano parts were already in the beat when Kendrick recorded on it. My guy J.LBS came in with the piano part. It was just us two in the studio basically, us three in the studio vibing. J.LBS, me, and Kendrick.

Kendrick Lamar feat. Pharrell – “Alright”

I remember we had a session with Pharrell. We always go in with Pharrell at least twice at the start of the albums. The first people we go and see is Pharrell. He gives us that extra push, that creative juice that we need, and then we’re hunkering down. Then we go back in with Pharrell to give us the extra stamp of approval push.

So I just remember that first time we went in for that album, we had a few amazing records. I remember my guy [music executive] Sam Taylor pulled me to the side. I guess Pharrell always has like an extra room. They snuck me into this other room like, “Hey, what do you think of this one?” They pressed play, and I was like, “Alright, stop everything you’re doing, I have to get Kendrick to hear this one.” Plays it for him, and he’s like, “Yo, this is exactly what I’m looking for.”

But we sat on it, because if you remember, To Pimp a Butterfly is very jazz-driven, it’s like jazz fusion. And so that kind of fit the mold, but it was just a little modern for us. And I remember, like the last few days, we had a void of missing that feeling on the album. So we double back to it and I was just like, I’m not going to let this song pass us just because of the sonics. Like the message is here. Everything feels good about this record.

So it’s up to me to make it make sense sonically. So that’s when I had to grab Terrace [Martin] and put the sax on here, grab the live drum elements. Like, I had to just morph it into what it is to actually fit sonically. And once that happened, everyone was like, “Yeah, this is it. This is what we’re missing.” It fits perfectly. It gives out the point that we still want to give out. And it just became what it was.

Basically, all of the live drums that you hear, I had to layer the kicks. I had to like basically format it, produce the saxophone with Terrace, the strings, everything just to make it make sense in the world of To Pimp a Butterfly. It’s like, we can’t let this song die just because it doesn’t fit in my head. That’s how I always felt.

I remember the first time hearing that I had chills like, “Oh my God, what did we just do?” Like in a good way. At the end of the day, it’s a bittersweet moment because of what’s happening [with Black Lives Matter]. At the same time to be able to give that moment of frustration an actual song, a voice, it just felt bittersweet for me. Even to this day, I still get chills thinking about it.

Kendrick Lamar feat. Sampha – “Father Time”

“Father Time” was probably one of the first earlier joints that made it through. Me, my guy Bēkon, and [DJ] Dahi, we used to have these random jam sessions just to get out all our sonically pent-up aggression. And sometimes it works, sometimes it’s just stuff that’s too obscure and weird. It would never come out, but we can just ride around to [it].

But that would be one that actually stuck. It was just so personal and so vivid that it was like, you can’t let this one go. And the sound of it, the sonic of it, is just like a classic sonic, so it’s never going to die. It’s never gonna like, be outdated or anything. So it lasted the test of time from I think it was late 2018 ’til the day it dropped. And still today it’s probably one of my favorite songs on the album.

We were just always fans of Sampha. We happened to be in his hometown. And it was like, “Hey, let’s reach out to Sampha,” and you know, he popped up. He was involved in the jam session for like a good, I want to say, two days. And that was one of the ones that we just loved.

We were just vibing and when that one came on, in the midst of creating it, that stuck to him, too. At that point, we just all locked in right into it, trying to figure out what direction to go. Then when Kendrick came with his lyrics, that told the story of where the rest of the production should go. Like it just put everything right there in front of you to take it home.

Kendrick Lamar – “United in Grief”

I want to say 90% of the album was probably created with just like melodies, like piano chords with Kendrick locking in and writing feelings from the motions of the piano and strings. And then after that, we built around it, but that happens with a lot of albums that we do, too. One song that was drum-driven, that we started with the drums first was probably the second half of “United in Grief.” That was like the one that I just happened to have these drums that I was chopping up.

He pops in to say, “Yo, what is that?” — the album’s basically almost done — and gets to the point where he just like starts to mumble. He’s doing the same cadence, the same flow that you hear on the record now. And then all of a sudden, you hear clear, “I grieve different.” And I was like, “Oh, shoot.” That hit me. That was just like a spiritual moment. Like, that’s it. So we built around that. But other than that, everything else was probably chord-driven at the beginning.

We were in New York. And we were just freestyling, throwing paint at the wall. And I remember just chopping up these drums in my own little world. At the time, it wasn’t nothing like too out of the ordinary. It was just more so like that’s how we always work. I start something — usually it’s with the chords, but this time just happens to be drums. And all you hear is [rapping lyrics from “United In Grief”].

Like I said, it just shocked me right there. It’s like, “Oh, no, we need to build on this.” We need to add to this. We need to get the strings, get the chords, get this, get this, get this, and then once we did that, that told us where to put it. Like the beat basically, the songs told us where that song should go on the album after it’s done.

Behind the Boards with Sounwave: Producer Talks Working with Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell and Sampha
Eddie Fu

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