Joe Nicolo has had an outstanding career as a multi-grammy winning producer but is also best known for founding one of the seminal independent record labels Ruffhouse located in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Ruffhouse went on to sell over 100 million records. He has received a Recording Academy Heroes Award and was inducted in the Philadelphia Walk of Fame.
Key Takeaways
[1:47] Nick welcomes Joe “The Butcher” Nicolo and asks him about his youth in Philadelphia and his twin brother who still operates Studio 4 as well as where he got his technical skills from.
[9:10] A revolution in music… Joe tells the story of how he inherited the early Philadelphia Rap scene at Studio 4 and eventually worked at engineering and/or producing a lot of the early stuff with Jive Records.
[15:06] Before sharing the story of starting Ruffhouse, Working at Studio 4, and being a staff producer at Columbia Records, Joe vents on an issue that 34 years later “doesn’t bother him at all.”
[19:50] Joe talks about the first act he recorded for Columbia and begins listing off the impressive list of artists starting with the legendary Cypress Hill record as well as the inception of Kris Kross with Jermain Dupree and the creation of the incredible blockbuster song “Jump.”
[27:00] The infamous Cypress Hill event on Saturday Night Live; Joe shares the story, expletives included!
[28:30] The Fugees were found by Columbia’s street team and were signed after a memorable office performance which left Wyclef in his underwear, standing on a Fender amp — this leading to 14 million copies sold for “Killing me softly.”
[34:54] Balancing entrepreneurship and being a producer was easy, thanks to his partner Chris Schwartz; Joe speaks to that relationship, as well as having had early and sustained success — which makes things easier in general.
[40:11] Selling Ruffhouse to Sony and getting his baptism of fire in the movie business was an interesting change for Joe but his creative heart was always in music.
[43:30] Joe tells about working on Billy Joel’s River of Dreams, about the nine Grammys he’s won, and he shares an anecdote on meeting his mentor, Beatles’ producer George Martin.
[48:05] On being inducted into the Philadelphia walk of fame as well as starting a foundation called SoundMind Network and his current projects.
[53:40] Nick thanks Joe for coming on and sharing so much of his story.
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Find out more about today’s guest, Joe Nicolo
Find out more about your host, Nick Terzo
Mentioned in this episode:
“F*ck Compton”, by Tim Dog
People:
@CypressHill (@B_Real | @OGSenDog | @ericbobo | @DJ_Muggs | @MixMasterMike)
@Wyclef (Wyclef Jean)
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