GR Productions: An Ode To The New Jack Swing Empire That Never Came To Be

"All my beats are very hype/yes GR is movin' it right"

---New Jack Swing (1989)

Thirty years ago, New Jack Swing king Teddy Riley' was everywhere. Back in '89 you couldn't flip over a CD or 12 inch album cover and not see his name in the credits. Riley was only 21 years old and had already racked up a career's worth of hits that changed the direction of Black music. 

Riley's rump-shaking rhythms ended the reign of R&B's Great Black Pop Takeover and champagne-and-roses Quiet Storm. Joining forces with singer-musicians Aaron Hall, Timmy Gatling and later Hall's percussionist/vocalist brother Damion to form Guy, Their songs Groove Me, I Like, Spend the Night, Don't Clap, Just Dance and Teddy's Jam were R&B joints constructed like hip hop records.

 Instead of live horn and rhythm sections, the music was packaged in a whirling dervish of Riley's keyboard chords, drum machines and sampled breakbeats. First generation funksters had faded from the scene and as the Gap Band languished in contractual purgatory, Guy seized the mantle, emerging as Black music's new power trio.

 Inspired by schoolmate Doug E. Fresh's success with The Show, a record Riley helped create in his mother's apartment in Harlem's St. Nicholas Houses, he dropped out of Park East High School at 17 to pursue his musical dreams. Four years later, Riley was on a Concorde jet headed across the Atlantic. For the hefty sum of $75,000, Virgin Records summoned Riley to the UK to resurrect fallen singer Boy George's career. I can remember reading about Riley's latest coup in Essence magazine. 

The article was brief. Short on words but huge on impact. I read it over and over. The words jumped off the page, surging forward like daylight savings time. Seventy-five thousand dollars. Boy George called it "worst experience of his life." But as far as I was concerned, in my mind---This guy was really doing it.  

Manager Gene Griffin, Damion Hall, Teddy Riley, Aaron Hall and Uptown 

Records head Andre Harrell on the set of 1988's Groove Me video.

That summer, Riley's group Guy was still riding high with their 1988 self-titled album. It took a year but Guy finally cracked the million sales mark. It sold far less than Make It Last Forever, In Effect Mode and  Don't Be Cruel---albums featuring Riley productions launching Keith Sweat, Al B Sure and Bobby Brown into the sex symbol and pop star stratosphere. But in '89, there was no R&B group hotter than Guy. When they released My Fantasy, one of the hottest records that summer continued their hot streak. It would be their first number one record.

 

Flipping through Right On! magazine, I came across a photo of Riley and manager Gene Griffin signing a contract for a label deal with Motown Records. I couldn't fathom how a cat so young could have his own record label. This was pre-Bad Boy and Roc-A-Fella. Decades before the career coups of Beyonce', Rhianna and Cardi B. The music business back then was still overrun with older power brokers who pushed the buttons and pulled the strings. 

I remembered when Riley's name began to circulate around the industry back in late '87. I mistakenly pegged him as another face in the crowd.Now things were different. What Berry Gordy and Quincy Jones had obtained was now within our grasp. There was a place for us in this industry. I use "our" and "us"loosely . I couldn't even program a VCR, let alone a drum machine. Assembling my Fisher stereo rack system was like trying to figure out a Rubric's Cube (it took me days). It was years before I discovered that Cerrone's Rocket in the Pocket (Live) and Bobby Byrd's Hot Pants (I'm Coming) in My Fantasy's hype remix. Brothers I knew were clearing out their dorm rooms to make room for thousands of dollars of equipment (purchased on credit) in hopes of becoming a super-producer like my hero. Unfortunately, it wasn't in my future. But hey, a brother can dream.

As Riley made the hits, manager/godfather Griffin handled business behind the scenes. They assembled a crew from the New York-New Jersey area---an East Coast version of  Dick Griffey's team of self-contained producers-songwriters-musicians behind Solar Records' post-disco hits like And The Beat Goes On and The Second Time Around. 

 There was Bernard "Slim" Belle, singer Regina Belle's baby brother. Belle did it all. He was Guy's musical director. He wrote, arranged, produced, composed, sang and played. He was Riley's point man for years co-writing future hits like Kissing Game and Remember the Time. His shimmering melodies made Riley's productions shine like diamonds.

Rapper Redhead Kingpin's Do the Right Thing---originally slated as the theme song for Spike Lee's cinematic magnum opus was rocking the clubs and radio. There was female vocal trio Abstrac' and R&B vocalist Zan who co-wrote My Fantasy. Singer-songwriter Tammy Lucas wrote killer lyrics and had a melodic voice that was sweet like ear candy (Goodbye Love and Is It Good To You). R&B quartet Today had two back-to back hit singles---Him or Me and a reworking of a Solar Records jam that would go number one---Girl I Got My Eye On You. Teenaged lead singer Lee (Big Bub) Drakeford had a voice of a man twice his age. His rich baritone merged with Belle and Hall to construct New Jack Swing's signature vocal arrangement on My Prerogative that influenced countless New Jack productions. 

I didn't know it at the time but the Motown deal basically reactivated Gene's old Sound of New York Records imprint best for known for releasing Indeep's 1983 club banger  Last Night A DJ Saved My Life. Back then, urban media outlets were limited. Industry back stories came at a slow trickle compared to today's steady stream of content gushing from online sites in real time.

The label's first act was Wrecks-N-Effect, a rap trio formed by Riley to pull his younger brother Markell and his friends out of the street life that Riley experienced himself as a teen. When the group dropped New Jack Swing that fall, the missing piece was finally in place. GR Productions and the New Jack Swing movement officially had its own anthem.

          

 Kicked off with a filtered Riley vocal chant of Parliament's 1974 Tear The Roof Off The Sucker, New Jack Swing  was built around a bed of James Brown samples and East LA Chicano band The Seekers' live version of obscure breakbeat Hector, The record's drum-heavy sinewy groove was reminiscent of Groove Me and its whistle-stop squeals---keeping in the tradition of ear-piercing of the Marley Marl and Bomb Squad productions (Raw, Set It Off, Rebel Without A Pause, Night of the Living Baseheads) provided funky counter-rhythms.

  Rapper Aquil Davidson's opening verse described the music. Riley took the second one, running down his resume in his signature baritone rap/speak. There was a dope video featuring Wrecks-N-Effect, Riley and manager Griffin holding court along with cameos from the GR crew members, Guy, Heavy D, Keith Sweat, Kool Moe Dee and Al B. Sure! 

The song's killer remix showed off Riley's keyboard chops. As the beat swung with the precision of a Swiss timepiece, TR riffed along, imitating Donald Boyce's vocal riff from Kool and the Gang from 1974's Jungle Boogie and comedian Freddie Prinze's catchphrase from Chico and the Man ("looking good!"). He put the industry on notice that GR Productions was definitely was large and in charge in '89 with a final declaration:"we gettin' cold money." 

 When Wrecks-N-Effect made the rounds to TV to perform New Jack Swing they wrecked shop. During a performance on Arsenio Hall, Riley was hidden in the audience with Griffin, popping up to rock his verse to the audience's delight. When they performed at the Apollo Theater, they brought out the GR crew onstage with them. The crowd went crazy. History was being made. There was Hurby Luv Bug's Idolmaker crew and the Jam and Lewis Flyte Tyme crowd but this was something different.  An empire was in the making. Then it all came crashing down. 

                                                                                       

 '89 was a rough year for Guy. So tumultuous that when being interviewed for a 2000 piece on the group in Vibe magazine, Uptown Records founder Andre Harrell called Guy the first group to "bring drama to the label---middle of the night tragedy calls." There were isolated events with Guy members where people were shot and killed. During a Budweiser Superfest tour. Guy's chief of security was shot outside a Pittsburgh hotel as he tried to elude a New Edition production manager who was assaulted earlier by members of Guy's road crew. 

Accounts varied. Some witnesses say things started when Guy played past their designated time onstage. Riley and Guy member Damion Hall suggest Guy's energetic stage show went over better with the audience compared to New Edition's slower-paced set fueled competition that spilled over into something worse. Others point to New Edition members walking onstage during a Guy performance while some identified Guy members kicking/pushing New Edition equipment. A fight broke out between both groups road crew suspending performances for an hour. Threats were made. Allegations were made that New Edition and Griffin flew out additional crew members for backup. In the end five people were injured and one person---Anthony Bee, Riley's close friend was dead. It planted seeds of disillusion, souring Riley on the music business.

 In 1992, Riley reflected on the tragedy in Sister 2 Sister magazine. While he insists that the "beef"  was between the road crew and all was well between both groups, he lamented the death of his best friend.

 "It started getting hectic. People started getting killed and then it started to get into the family. My best friend (Bee) got killed.  He was the one guy that I said that yo, if there is anyone who I would take off the street first, it was him. He paid his dues in the street and made it though the system and he wanted to do something. He wanted to be down with me and not take a pay, although I paid him. He was one of my highest paid men. He was my security manager. He graduated from the streets and ironically didn't get killed until he got into the good life."

Riley blamed Griffin for insisting that Guy not comment on the incident that ended up casting a negative cloud over the group. Newspaper South Florida Sun Sentinental  ("Violence On-and-Offstage A Bitter Blow To R&B: Tour) reported Griffin had flown a "hit squad" in from New York for further protection and was charged with criminal assault. 

Griffin had a reputation for "being in the streets." Briefly jailed for a drug charge, Riley installed him  as his manager. It seemed like a good move. Stylish, large and imposing, Griffin protected his "son" from a hip hop industry overrun by gangsters, hustlers and independent record labels offering shady deals. 

They were inseparable. Griffin appeared in music videos. he installed himself as a "producer" attaching his name to songwriting credits on big hits like My Prerogative  and Just Got Paid. Although Riley landed a modest publishing deal with Zomba Records, His lucrative production work was steered toward Griffin's own publishing company. In record liner notes, he positioned himself  as a de-facto group member. 

Today's artists control their destiny, casting aside managers at will. Griffin was a throwback to the days when managers controlled acts lock, stick and barrel. Teddy ruefully reflected on the ironclad arrangement. "With Gene, we had to split five ways because Gene was taking as a manager  and as a writer and artist. Gene took 25 percent for management and 25 percent  as a group member and then the 50 per cent was split between three guys.  Gene got one over on us by calling himself an artist. We didn't really dig that but we wanted to make a record. We would do anything to make the record and Gene had the contracts on us."

In the beginning, things were going smooth. GR Productions was growing.  Backed by a hot producer with a pulse on the music scene, a freshly minted label deal and a growing roster of acts signed to Reprise, Atlantic and Motown, GR Productions was making moves in the industry. They were others like Hurby Luv Bug's Idolmakers crew (Salt N Pepa, Kid N Play, Dana Dane) and Jam and Lewis' Flyte Time Productions but GR was on its way to establishing its own lane. 

The Jacksons, The Winans, James Ingram, Stephanie Mills and Starpoint came calling for hits. Then there were the remixes that earned Riley ten thousand racks a pop.

Riley moved out of the projects into a condo in the Riverdale section of the Bronx before eventually heading down to Atlanta to an exclusive suburb with Griffin installed nearby of course. There were luxury cars, fly wardrobes and jewelry. Riley had access to millions of dollars at his disposal---or so he thought.

 "I was going to buy something for my mom that cost maybe four, five, six thousand dollars. I knew I had the money because I knew what the account was. It was $1.5 million in one account. $500,000 in another account and $2 million in another account. Next thing you know, I buy this last thing for my mom and he (Gene) said, Teddy, you don't make no money decisions unless I say so. I said, Pow! That's it. Time to make that change." 

Pressed by his mother, Riley made moves to free himself from Griffin's controlling ways. Even if it meant his life. "You will never tell me that and get away with it. I don't care what you have, what you can do to me---you can kill me. You can do what you want. But before you kill me, I'm going to make sure I get out of this contract and then you can do whatever you want."

Just like that, Riley walked away from a mini-empire in the making. GR Productions was disbanded. At 19, he was teen prodigy. At 22 he was broke and unable to pay his taxes. It would take $175,000  to free himself from Griffin's entanglement. Just as the Gap Band sat out an entire musical movement they helped birth, Guy were contractually sidelined for much of the 90s as Boyz II Men and Jodeci would supplant them as modern R&B's hot groups. New young power brokers like Michael Bivins and Dallas Austin had moved in. Back in the day Puffy carried Riley's keyboards. Now he was the leader of his own hip hop soul movement that replaced New Jack Swing as the new Sound of Young Black America.

 Riley regrouped and along with his ex-GR collaborators created a new batch of hits. He would ultimately fall short of creating his own label empire ala Roc-A-Fella, Bad Boy and Cash Money but his legacy as musical trailblazer was intact. Hitmakers Rodney Jerkins, Timbaland, Pharrell and others would pass through the Riley machine and branch out on their own. They all would pay  homage to the legendary producer who was part of seminal unit that was a bridge to what came before and what would come after.