Snow Cuts Demo with Blu Cantrell Team
October 10, 2001
Toronto rapper/singer Snow has been working on tracks for his next
album, including writing stints with Atlanta-based RedZone Entertainment,
the team of writers and producers whose credits include recent chart
success Blu Cantrell.
"We're working with producers to go back towards what Snow was
originally, and that is to bring out the urban artist," explains
Snow's U.S.-based manager Sam Kling, who also handles Elwood.
Snow, whose real name is Darrin O'Brien, was in Atlanta from Sept. 26 to
29, working with RedZone's co-founder Christopher "Tricky"
Stewart, who has worked with such acts as Mya, Tamia, Tyrese, Ginuwine,
and 98 Degrees. He also served as executive producer on Atlanta R&B
singer Blu Cantrell's Arista debut, "So Blu".
"Blu Cantrell was in the studio for three days, and that could be a
future collaboration," says Kling.
The writing stint yielded "a new single" in demo form called
"What's Up," which Kling describes as having a hip-hop vibe with
a classic Snow flow. "It's about a woman trying to be a player but
getting left out in the rain," he says.
The other song, still unfinished, is called "I Know You're Feelin'
It." It has a similar feel and vocal delivery to "What's
Up", with the addition of big R&B choruses. "It's a club
anthem," Kling says.
Kling hooked Snow up with RedZone through Peermusic Publishing's senior
director of creative affairs, Monti Olson, in New York. The publishing
company represents the music production and writing team.
"(Snow) just went down there cold and started working on new
material, and (he's) going to go down at the end of this month or early
November and start working on some more," says Kling.
Snow will be in New York City from Oct. 10, for four or five days, working
with a new EMI Music Publishing artist, producer and writer named Danny P,
who was signed by Brian Jackson, the man responsible for signing top
producers/writers the Neptunes and Rodney Jerkins.
Snow's "toasting" skills -- the rapid-fire rap first heard on
his breakthrough single "Informer" from 1993's "12-Inches
of Snow" -- were underutilized on his latest album, "Mind On The
Moon", which was aimed at the pop market.
Kling says two songs from that album, "Everybody Wants To Be Like
You" and "Someday Somehow", were remixed back in June by
Jamey Stauv (Everlast, Incubus), which "brought them more away from a
pop song to a more alternative sound, a more rock sound."
"Everybody Wants To Be Like You" was the first single off
"Mind On The Moon", but "Someday Somehow" couldn't be
the fourth single in Canada because it didn't qualify as CanCon, says
Kling, "so they (Virgin-EMI) went with 'Nothin' On Me'."
The album, he says, is just shy of gold in Canada. It never did get a U.S.
release, and the artist is now up for grabs by any label, not necessarily
one from the EMI Music Group family.
"Basically, we're working on a new record and hopefully it will come
out on EMI in Canada and we'll find a new label for it in the
States," says Kling.
"Hopefully, we will have most of the record done by the end of
November."
Kling first discovered Snow's talent when Ken Krongard, then A&R at
Arista in New York, was interested in the artist and recommended that
Kling include him on his company Madgroove's second "Mad Hitz"
compilation, in May of 2000, of unsigned artists, which is mailed to
record labels. He chose a demo version of "Someday Somehow."
"Paula (Danylevich of Hype Music) was still managing him", says
Kling, "and it was Barbara (Sedun, Snow's VP of creative at EMI Music
Publishing Canada) who told me that Darrin and Paula had split and that
Darrin needed new management".