The New Breed Of Producer

The story of Ryan Leslie's life is nothing short of a fairlytale; from a middle class kid with big dreams of music to producing chart topping hits for today's biggest acts in hip-hop and R&B. So on thursday when I heard a speaker was coming to lecture on the music industry, I was interested, but I had no idea what I was in for. Turns out that Ryan is touring around the east coast telling people essentially his life story- and inspiring students (like myself) to work in the music industry. After an hour and a half wait due to his car getting into an accident, he arrived to a medium sized crowd in the Wilde Auditorium at UHa. He immediately got into his story, telling it in a straightforward and comical manner. His biggest influence growing up was his father, who played trumpet in the Salvation Army. His musical influences at the time were mostly based off of his experience of this, and his trips to band camp (where he conducted) as a kid. On a year's stay in Belgium with his mother's career as an international lawyer, he was exposed to the pop music of America that many Europeans were listening to. Soon James Brown and Stevie Wonder became his idols and he wanted to make music. His father gave him his first keyboard and he was making beats and composing melodies by 8th grade. Around that same time he scored 1280 on the SATs, and applied and was accepted to many prestigous universities, such as Harvard, Stanford, and UCLA by age 15. He entered into Harvard in the fall, and suprisingly retained the amazing drive to make music that he had gained early in life. He was always in the studio and worked endlessly. He was the speaker at his graduation (pictured above), although he had just "spent a $120,00 education to be a R&B singer?" Well, he have some people to prove wrong. He had gotten his foot in the door by making a record early on, that never made it to press. Although he didn't back down. After college, he had no where to go and yet told his father he had a steady job back in Boston. He got off the plane with nothing, and practically lived in the studio there for as long as he could. He met up with a producer in the Bronx and gained attention throughout the industry with his beats. One such person was hip-hop mogul Sean "P.Diddy" Combs (he was "Puffy" at the time). Ryan had a CD of 8 tracks, and P.Diddy loved them, and he started working for his artists right away, leading to some of his majro collaborations. His most famous production was the recent Cassie hit "Me & U". So he stated, he got to where he is now with the four D's: Drive, Desire, Discipline & Dedication. Now I will go attempt to work on those four D's.