MUSIC
Platinum producer
MARK BATSON empowers artists to reach Grammy potential
{STUDIO CITY, CA}
By Jason Dean
Mark Batson is used to being surrounded by musical talent. That's just how he was raised. His father, blessed with rich baritone pipes, was an opera singer. The product of a musical family, Batson was classically trained in piano at the age of four, just as his older brother and sister had been. Yet his ascension to A-list producer has not been an effortless glide on a gilded path. His musical virtuosity, readily apparent when he sits down at the grand piano in his Coldwater Canyon home, has had surprisingly little to do with the measure of his success.
The Brooklyn native's coterie of collaborators is a Who's Who of mega-selling artists that includes Beyoncé, James Blunt, Eminem, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Nas, Seal, and Gwen Stefani. As a producer, arranger, and songwriter, he has been honored with numerous Grammy awards, including Best R&B album with Beyoncé and Best Hip Hop Album with Eminem. He has also been nominated for album of the year twice with Eminem and India.Arie. He has been paired with artists at the peak of their success, mentored unknown artists in need of someone to groom their potential into results, and provided a second wind of inspiration for established artists in need of a successful record to remain commercially viable.
Batson injected "instant creative karma" to Dave Matthews Band's 2005 record, "Stand Up," according to one exec close to the project. At a creative crossroads, the band was experiencing the pressure of lofty expectations and a directional impasse. "Dave came to me and was like, 'I wanna make a hip-hop record.' Well, I ain't gonna put Dave Matthews over 'Rapper's Delight,'" recalls Batson. "I had to figure out how to make a record with them, that I could keep them together . . . . I sat with him and we devised a plan to make them keep going." Batson and Matthews cowrote all but one of the tunes, and the record shot to No. 1 on Billboard's album charts. The single, "American Baby", is the highest charting single in the history of the band.
"I like to create with other people," states Batson. "Share the production, share the publishing, share everything." He considers longtime collaborator Dr. Dre the most talented producer in the business. "He makes the best records that people wanna buy," says Batson, placing the emphasis on "best" with an insider's authority.
Though he was a child prodigy, translating that talent into marketable success was still eluding Batson by the time he turned 21. He studied music at Howard University and was a pianist for the Smithsonian Museum, but his level of proficiency wasn't earning him a living. He credits Pharrell Williams, one half of the production duo The Neptunes, with giving him an inspiring example from which to draw upon. (The Neptunes produced some of the biggest-selling artists of the 1990s and 2000s, including Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, Madonna, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Kanye West, et cetera, ad infinitum.) "I watched him and I was like, wow, this dude has disciplined himself into an art form that makes money," Batson recalls. "And I wanted to make money. I was tired of being broke."
The richness of their connection obscured any financial hardships his family experienced when Batson was growing up in the projects in the 1970s. "When your parents love you, it's real good," he says. "It doesn't matter where you are." His father worked at the post office, as the occasional opera gigs were not sufficient to support a wife and four kids. "On the weekends, all the drummers and percussionists from various neighborhoods would come and sit outside my projects and play together. I grew up around hip-hop at the beginning, when block parties were first doing rap music."
Life took an unexpected detour early on, though, when Batson's father died. The impact of that jarring loss shaped him from that day forward. "You know, your father dies when you're 12, and your father is the rock, the leader of your family, it's a real big deal," he recalls solemnly. The Stevie Wonder album, "Innervisions," one of his father's favorites, helped pull him through that devastating period, and to this day he considers Wonder the musician who has most inspired his life, his work, and the vital connection between the two.
A consummate creative soul, Batson's approach to his work is an organic blend of qualities he wears openly on his sleeve when he goes to work. He does not shy away from vulnerability; in fact, the recording studio is where the honesty of emotions must be free to come forth. When he's working with an artist, whether it's Eminem or Anthony Hamilton, he expects full emotional commitment. "I want them to shed their biggest fears," he explains. "Because that's what I'm doing when I'm working with them. I'm shedding my biggest fears. Who . . . is not scared to work with the biggest artists in the world? That's scary. I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna shed my fears, and I'm gonna kick it with you, and I'm gonna make your music that special."
"I have helped so many artists find where they wanna be," he continues. "It's not just like making a record for me. I'm a therapist. I want them to heal themselves on the record. If they're a gangster, I wanna hear all that gangster on the record. If they're afraid, then I wanna hear all that fear. I just want the truth of the music and what their feelings and emotions are. That's what I want. Because that's what people want to relate to. That's why Adele won album of the year. Because people felt her energy. People want that."
At the time of this interview, Batson had just finished writing and recording tracks for up-and-coming artist Lauren Pritchard, who is signed to Universal and mentored by hot London producer Eg White (who produced Adele). Listening to some of the rough tracks in his home studio, it's impressive to hear how Batson has locked into the Grammy-winning chanteuse's signature sound without sounding the least bit derivative.
All in all, it's just another day at work for Batson: shedding fears, sharing ideas, harnessing the healing power of music, and enjoying massive success along the way.
