Amerigo Gazaway

Amerigo Gazaway
Background information
Birth name	Amerigo Gazaway
Born	(1985-11-09) November 9, 1985
Origin	Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Genres	Mashup,[1] Hip hop, Experimental
Instruments	Keyboards, Turntables, Samplers
Years active	2010–present
Associated acts	The Pharcyde, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest
Website	amerigomusic.com

Amerigo Gazaway (born November 9, 1985) is an American producer, emcee and DJ known for remixes, original instrumentals and digital sampling.^[2] He is best known for his documentary style conceptual collaboration albums which have incorporated the music of A Tribe called Quest, The Pharcyde, Fela Kuti, De La Soul, Marvin Gaye, Yasiin Bey, James Brown and others.^[3] In 2014, his Yasiin Bey/Marvin Gaye remix You Are Undeniable was used in an Apple iPad commercial.^[4] and charted on Billboard’s best-selling singles.^[5]

Early life

Gazaway was born in Nashville, Tennessee on November 9, 1985. He is the son of internationally known jazz trumpeter Gary “El Buho” (the Owl) Gazaway from the Ozarks and US-Brazilian vocalist Tatiana Mindlin.^[6] Gazaway has said that he was influenced by radio growing up including the local WRVU radio station which introduced him to many old jazz tunes as well as hip hop. As a teen, Gazaway worked at computer shop which introduced him to programming. Gazaway senior took his son on tour when Amerigo reached 17, which further drew him to a life of music. After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University in 2011, Gazaway started The Soul Mates Project, a platform for his conceptual collaborations with his brother, Rickey Mindlin.^[7][8]

Career

Under The Soul Mates project, Gazaway’s work has been called “legally iffy”^[9] and often uses more than a dozen unauthorized samples from different artist. Frequently facing legal challenges for his work,^[10] Gazaway has lectured on what he describes as "overly restrictive and unconstitutionally long copyright laws."^[11] at the University of Southern California^[12] and a Google Tech Talk: “Redefining the Remix with Amerigo Gazaway”.

Gazaway’s first full-length instrumental album, Selective Hearing Vol. 1, was released in 2010 on the Cold Busted label and charted on Beatport’s top-selling Chill-Out sales Chart.

Gazaway released his sophomore project, Fela Soul, in 2011. This was a mixture of the music of Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti and Hip-Hop group De La Soul.^[13] In December of 2011, the album took top 5 ranking on both NPR and Soul Train’s year-end “Best of 2011” list.^[14][15]

One year later, Gazaway released his third album, Bizarre Tribe: A Quest to the Pharcyde.^[16] Again Gazaway mixed the music of two significant music acts — this time A Tribe Called Quest and The Pharcyde.^[17] Bizarre Tribe earned early praise from the Los Angeles Times, New York (magazine), and Okayplayer.^[18][19][20]

In 2014 Gazaway produced the album Yasiin Gaye, in which he presented an imaginary collaboration between Yasiin Bey and Marvin Gaye.^[21][22] Gaining Marvin Gaye’s original multi-tracks, Gazaway was able to deconstruct and rebuild the samples to re-orchestrate the instrumentation into new arrangements.^[23] The album earned Gazaway a five star review from BET^[24] and praise from Marvin Gaye’s widow Janis Gaye.^[25]

As an emcee, Gazaway has released several singles, including I Can't Get Off of the Facebook in 2011.^[26][27]

Style

Gazaway’s mash-up style remixes are created from a process known as “reverse-engineering,”^[28] which heavily relies on a method of deconstructing and re-orchestrating original samples to bridge overlapping themes of two separate musician’s catalogues.^[29] The resulting product has been described by the Los Angeles Times as “drawing a different design within a similar framework.”^[18]

References