Meet The Super Producer Who's Worked With Kanye, Snoop, Missy Elliott & More

The '90s was the era of the super-producer in R&B, hip hop and urban pop. Indeed, these players became stars in their own right, their involvement in an act's project featuring heavily in promotional campaigns and media coverage. But, while Teddy Riley, Timbaland and The Neptunes were highly visible outside the studio, Warryn "Baby Dubb" Campbell kept lowkey.

The Californian multi-instrumentalist began as a sessionist, gradually moving into production. Campbell's break came when he was mentored by the cult Compton figure DJ Quik. (Mind, he also worked as a programmer for US veteran Richard Perry on Tom Jones' The Lead And How To Swing It.) Meanwhile, Campbell played keys in Brandy's band — going on to produce for her. Today the Grammy winner has an impressive discography, with credits for such artists as Snoop Dogg, Dru Hill, Alicia Keys, Missy Elliott and Kanye West. Still, Campbell is often identified with nurturing the sister duo Mary Mary, whose 1999 crossover hit Shackles (Praise You) fuelled the urban contemporary gospel phenom. (He married vocalist Erica Atkins.) In contrast to many of his peers, Campbell didn't consciously cultivate "a sound". Instead he's known for his musicality and for leaning in to the artist. Campbell crafts gospel, soul, R&B and hip hop.

As it happens, Campbell has an Australian affiliation. He recorded music with Sydney R&B diva Jade MacRae — but, as a sign of his high-demand in the 2000s, he can't recall much about the sessions. "It's weird," Campbell says bashfully. "I remember what she looked like — like her face and her wild hair. [But] I don't remember doing the actual records…" Nonetheless, he is cognisant of Australia's most feted contemporary soul act, Hiatus Kaiyote, describing them as "very unique". "I think Solange is the one that told me about them." (The younger Knowles has used Campbell's studio.)

a quik learner

In the mid-'90s Campbell secured a crucial studio apprenticeship under DJ Quik, then cutting his own Safe + Sound. The biggest lesson? "Well, the first thing was the attention to detail because, from the outside looking in, before I was interested in producing records, it kind of looked like he put things together haphazardly and it just came out how it came out," he responds. "I didn't know he was paying close attention to every little detail of the song; not just the track, but the lyric and even the vocals — like, 'That 'T' on 'don't' is too loud, turn the 'T' down,' 'There's one hi-hat sticking out…' He was so involved. I learned that you had to really pay close attention to detail."

luther takes it away 

One of Campbell's greatest coups was to place a song with the quiet storm icon Luther Vandross — although he initially didn't intuit it. "I didn't grow up listening to Luther Vandross because, when he was really huge, I was five-years-old or something," Campbell laughs. "And, as a kid coming up in music, I didn't like R&B singers. I only liked gospel singers. I didn't like the R&B music 'cause it was a little too soft. So I liked gospel singers and I liked hip hop. So I listened to The Winans and then I would listen to NWA. That was where my sound came from, right? And so I wasn't really into any R&B."

Vandross had newly signed to Clive Davis' J Records and was working on 2001's eponymous set. In the interim, Campbell demoed the track Take You Out. "I played the song that I just wrote to Clive Davis and he says, 'Oh, that would be great for Luther!' I'm gonna sound like a big idiot here, but I looked at Clive and said, 'Who's Luther?' I didn't know who he was talking about! I surely wasn't thinking 'Luther Vandross', because it'd been years — and I remember, by looking at the album covers and stuff, that he was signed to Epic Records. So I wasn't making the connection. [Davis] looked at me like I had three heads. He says, 'Are you kidding me? Luther Vandross!' I'm like, 'Luther Vandross — really?' He says, 'Well, we're doing it. I've signed him. You're doing it. This record will be great.' I said, 'OK.'" A preoccupied Campbell didn't accompany the sesh with Vandross at his New York pad. And he was blase when an executive previewed Vandross' finished vocal recording. "When you're a kid like that, 23-years-old, making a lot of money, making a lot of records — I just had a certain amount of arrogance on me," Campbell admits. "I didn't even like the song really that much. It was like, 'Oh, this is cool.' I thought it was cool; I didn't love it. Then [the exec] played me Luther's vocal; I was like, 'Oh, pretty cool, OK.' I was so nonchalant about it."

Davis selected Take You Out as a lead single. Campbell subsequently attended Davis' Grammy party, where Vandross performed a 'best of' — tunes he now recognised. The R&B star closed with Take You Out. "At that point, I went from being nonchalant to being overwhelmed and moved to tears," Campbell recalls. "It hit me all of a sudden that it was a big deal — 'cause I didn't know."

kanye homecoming 

Campbell liaised more directly with Kanye West. He co-produced songs on Yeezy's early albums Late Registration (We Major, featuring Nas and Really Doe, which, Campbell shares, Solange chose as her wedding parade anthem) and Graduation (Homecoming with… Coldplay's Chris Martin). In his chat with Skubiszewski, Campbell mentioned how West "likes to fight" — and will agonise over a single line in a record. "He loves a debate, oh my God!," Campbell affirms to OG Flavas. "He's gonna do whatever he wants to do, but he likes to have a debate with you about it."

These days, West is perceived as a facilitator, rather than a producer. However, Campbell — who's lately been digging Yeezy's beats on Teyana Taylor's hip hop soul opus KTSE — stresses that the Chi-towner is "hands-on". "Nobody can put samples together better than Kanye West, in my opinion. I mean, we all learned from the master, No ID. He taught us all — he taught Kanye; he taught me and a lotta other producers as well. Between him and another guy, Bink. We all learned from those guys. But somehow Kanye has this thing that he does where it's fully creative, but it's fully commercial at the same time. It has this sort of rarefied air to all his music — it feels expensive almost; it just sounds so good the way he does it and puts things together. I don't know anybody who does it like him. I don't! He's one of the best I've ever seen put samples and beats together… But [KTSE] is just him, probably sitting at home with some CDs or records or YouTube pages and going through stuff and sampling and putting things together himself. I can hear his mind."

brandy's deepest cut

Back in 2013, Solange — frustrated by negative reviews of her idol Brandy's Two Eleven — declared in successive viral tweets that, to be credible, R&B reviewers should be familiar with her deep cuts. Coincidentally, Campbell cites one of those #DeepBrandyAlbumCuts as his favourite work. "The one that I'm attached to, that I wish would have been bigger, was Brandy had a record called He Is. That is a very deep cut on the [2002] Full Moon album. It's the only song I did on that album. [But] it marked a turning point in our relationship, 'cause I was in her band for so long and I just wanted a chance to produce her — and I got that chance with that record." In fact, the gospel-inspired He Is was earmarked as Full Moon's third single. Yet, after falling pregnant, Brandy felt uneasy about shooting a video, Campbell tells. "Craig Kallman, the Chairman over at Atlantic, calls me and says, 'Can you help me convince Brandy to do the video?' I thought, There's no way in the world that I can convince her. I'm like a big brother to her, but I didn't feel comfortable saying, 'Brandy, do this video — I don't care if you're pregnant.'" Retrospectively, he thinks that alone might have been a powerful feminist statement. Regardless, He Is remains a fan pick.

no shame in their game: the new gen

Several '90s urban super-producers have slipped off the radar — among them Rich Harrison, the Washington DC go-go auteur behind Beyonce's Crazy In Love with Jay-Z. But Campbell continues to gig. In 2015 he enjoyed a hit (and Grammy nominations) with Tyrese's Shame — ironically an old track. "I make sure I stay relevant in some way or some form — that way I'm not chasing my tail when I wanna jump back in. At least my name is still relevant a little bit."

In 2018 there is a generational divide in R&B and hip hop. Some '90s heads deem contemporary urban too weird with its electronic R&B and mumbling cloud rappers. (Incredibly, Lil Uzi Vert's emo XO TOUR Llif3 is certified multi-diamond in the US!) But, as a student of music, Campbell strives to be openminded about youth movements. "I think we owe it to ourselves, no matter what era we prefer in music, to at least try to understand why — why is this record so big? Because there's usually a simple answer. And, if you find out the 'why', it'll help you not be jaded and go, 'Oh, well, these kids…'" He's deduced that, in the digital world, urban music is as much about the visual and the cultural.

Curiously, Campbell is unperturbed about the prevalence of Auto-Tune — or the rapper-cum-singer trend, where sentiment matters over vocal technique. "I've more than accepted it," he enthuses. "I love it, especially that it's going into the rap world — because you gotta think about it: How good a singer is David Bowie?" Ditto Dave Grohl. "In my opinion, Drake can out-sing a lot of those big, huge rock stars!" This new urban mode is popular, Campbell reckons, because, like rock, listeners can sing-a-long — it's participatory. "Everybody can sing one of the Migos songs." Ultimately, Campbell believes that "wisdom" (or experience) will always have value in music. Besides, popdom is cyclical. (Campbell holds that Pharrell Williams is the era's Curtis Mayfield.) "I learned to look at the subtle nuances and understand that there's nothing new under the sun. Everything rotates and goes in circles. But you just gotta be able to sit back and look at it and see it."

label ties

In the noughties Campbell temporarily served as Vice President of A&R at Elektra Records under the trailblazing Sylvia Rhone — but he had an agenda. "I went there with the mindset of knowing that I wanted to start my own label. So I figured, at that point, I knew how to make records but, after I made the record, I didn't know what happened." Again, Campbell proved an adept learner. "I did two years," he notes. "But it took me all of three weeks to realise what was happening and how everything worked, so I got very bored fast — because I realised what it did was it slowed me down from moving." Inevitably, he was exasperated by bureaucratic "layers", "politics" and "protocol".

In 2009 Campbell established his boutique indie My Block Inc — which, running on its own schedule, is artist-centric and fosters a "culture". On its roster is Campbell's wife Erica (and his younger sister JoiStaRR). The producer issued an album by the beloved New York diva Kelly Price entitled Kelly with lush live orchestration. Then, two years ago, he presented Philly neo-soulster Musiq Soulchild's Life On Earth. "What I try to do is take artists who have been discarded [by majors] but [who] still have [an] audience, they still do shows; but they don't have a label and they don't have a means to get quality production." Campbell had intended to relaunch the blue-eyed soulster Jon B. "We made an entire album, [but] it ended up not panning out," he regrets, alluding to business disagreements. Alas, the music was "scary good".

Nearly two decades into his career, Campbell has #goals. He's determined to conquer Hollywood. But, the entrepreneur maintains, "music is still my first love." He'd love to release some of his (secret) rock endeavours. "I am a big fan of classic rock – I mean, huge, huge fan!," Campbell extols. Eventually, he'll pen his autobiography. "I am thinking about writing a book — just my journey through music, you know," Campbell ponders. "I'm still fairly young — I started so young — and it's 18 years now… Maybe in the next five years — after five years, if I've accomplished a few more things, especially on the film side and the television side. We've just started a television production company where I'm producing a reality show actually on my family (We're The Campbells) — it's out now. So I want to get into that space a little more and do some more things and then it'll complete the story and I'll feel like I'll be able to have a lot to offer in the way of a book. There's a couple more things I'd like to do."