THE MAKING OF 'HYPNOTIZE': AN INTERVIEW WITH PRODUCER RON LAWRENCE

By Jay Quan

In the midst of the East-West conflict, Sean "Puffy" Combs assembled a production team and headed to the island of Trinidad where they created some of the most groundbreaking music in the history of Hip-Hop.

The birth of Diddy’s production team, The Hitmen, and the creation of Biggie’s “Hypnotize,” happened at the same time in the same place, and producer Ron “Amen Ra’ Lawrence was there and an integral part of all of it.

Ron Lawrence has quite a resume in Hip-Hop as a DJ, MC and producer. He grew up in the same Queens neighborhood as super producer Hurby “Luv Bug” Azor and worked with him early in the Super Lovers, The Turnout Brothers, and The Invincibles. He was one half of the rap duo 2 Kings In A Cipher with Deric “D Dot” Angelettie, and he attended Howard University with Sean “Puffy” Combs — ultimately became part of Puffy’s production team, The Hitmen.

Ron shares the story of the making of “Hypnotize”, the first single from the Notorious B.I.G.’s last album Life After Death.

“I’d, just left LA before signing to Bad Boy and I was at my brother’s house in Mt. Vernon,” Lawrence remembers. He continues, “During the time when Puffy started the Hitmen we decided to take a trip to Trinidad, so that we could get away and focus on dominating the airwaves of New York City. That was Puffy’s master plan.” Puffy summoned Ron Lawrence, Nashiem Myrick, D Dot and Stevie J and announced that he was forming a production team called The Hitmen. At one point says Lawrence, “He wanted to call us the Goodfellas. He wanted us to work on an album that was called Hell Up In Harlem at the time, but it's known today as No Way Out.”

Because of the turmoil surrounding the on going East-West conflict Puffy felt that Trinidad would be a nice place to get away and concentrate.

“Before we went to Trini, we signed our agreements and D Dot met me at my brother’s house and we went through a couple of records and one of the records that we grabbed was “Rise” by Herb Alpert, a song that we both remembered growin’ up as kids in the streets of New York, and I even remembered it from the soap operas” Ron recalls.

Ron grabbed the producer’s tools of the trade at the time for his time in Trinidad: his Akai MPC60, Ensoniq ASR 10 and stacks of records.

“Once the pre-production was done on “Hypnotize”, we took it down to the main control room and when Puffy heard it, he said: ‘Ok this is Biggie’s first single.”

-Ron “AMEN-RA” LAwrence"

“I remember tryin’ to go through customs with all that bulky ass equipment and they didn’t wanna let us through. When you go to these islands, they don’t want you to go in and make all of this money without the proper paperwork, I guess. Puffy had connections with one of the biggest guys in Trini who actually ran a studio. His father was a big tycoon and they owned gas stations, car dealerships and his son owned a studio. I believe Teddy Riley went down there before and that was like the little secret getaway.” Robert Amar’s Caribbean Sound Basin Studios is the place where the Hitmen created and recorded for the first time as a unit.

“We got down there and we recorded a lot of music. Again, this was the mission, to flood the airwaves and we were in the studio day and night. The studio had a pool, beds and a breakfast bar. We’d get up, eat breakfast and go right into the studio” Lawrence says of the daily process. He reflects: “I was always good at drums. That was my forte, drum programming and all of that, you’ll notice a lot of the records I’ve made because of the kicks and snares and “Hypnotize” was definitely one of ‘em. If you know the ASR 10 (sampler), there’s a signature rub that goes through “Hypnotize” and I also used a similar one on Phenomenon (by LL COOLl J).“

Lawrence also spoke of the hi-hat pattern on “Hypnotize” and called it a signature, noting that Jermaine Dupri later used it on “Money Ain’t A Thing.”

“Once the pre-production was done on 'Hypnotize,' we took it down to the main control room and when Puffy heard it, he said, ‘Ok this is Biggie’s first single.’ He decided that he wanted to add an analog bass on top of the bass that’s already in the song, and Stevie J could play keyboards, so he got him to play it.” Lawrence continued: “That was the magic behind that record. When Puff heard it, he said ‘That record belongs to The Notorious B.I.G.’ The chorus came from a Slick Rick line on Ladi Dadi and Pam Long of Total is singing it.” Herb Alpert, whose “Rise” was the sample used for “Hypnotize” wasn’t a fan of sampling at the time and wasn’t going to clear it. He’s reportedly turned down several other Hip-Hop acts who wanted to use it, including Ice Cube, Eazy E and Vanilla Ice. According to Ron Lawrence: “It was Randy Alpert, Herb’s nephew who actually wrote the song, and was a big fan of Biggie. He told his uncle that Biggie was one of the best, and he convinced Herb to clear the sample, but that record almost didn’t come out (with that sample).”

Although Ron didn’t witness Biggie lay his vocals for “Hypnotize", he has seen him record vocals. When asked about the claim that Biggie didn’t write anything down Ron replies: “The thing about B.I.G. is that he didn’t do it intentionally. One of the reasons that I believe that he did it was because he got tired of Puffy kinda lookin’ over his shoulder saying to change this or that. Rather than writing it on paper, he tried to memorize as much as he could. He really did it  out of what he felt was necessity almost. I’m guessing that he got so good at a point that he didn’t have to write anything down.”

When speaking of the genius of Puffy as a producer Ron says: “The genius of Puff as a producer is having the right people around him, and knowing their weaknesses and strengths. He then puts those people together and creates a formula. The definition of a producer today is different from yesterday. A producer today can just sit on a drum machine and send beats to artists. Puffy’s magic was having the right people in the room. Stevie could play bass and guitar. Mario (Winans) and Chucky (Thompson) were good on the keys. I was good at programming drums. I played a little keyboards, I wasn’t the greatest, but I could play a lot on my own.”

The Trinidad sessions and the formation of the Hitmen are historic events in Hip Hop. “After Puff heard ‘Hypnotize” that’s all he talked about the while time that we were on the island,” Lawrence says proudly.

Original article: https://rockthebells.com/articles/the-making-of-hypnotize-an-interview-with-producer/