Inside the Rhythms of Philly: Chris Schwartz | Pt 1 | The Fugees, Lauryn Hill, Cyphers Hill and Women in Music Production

Step into the studio with Philly's own music mogul, Chris Schwartz from Ruffhouse and Ruff Nation, as we unpack a treasure trove of stories on Goat Vibes. Experience firsthand accounts of the Fugees' electrifying homecoming and the pulse of Philly that beats at the heart of disco guitar. Engage in a fiery debate over Lauryn Hill's seminal album 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,’ its well-deserved top-ten spot on Rolling Stone's list, and its profound resonance with female artists worldwide. The conversation heats up as we dissect the global success of the Fugees and the cultural fusion that skyrocketed them to universal acclaim.

The stage is set for a deep dive into the headwinds female music producers encounter, shedding light on the industry's gender dynamics before and after powerhouses like Missy Elliott took the helm. Chris gives us an insider look at the often misunderstood role of producers, revealing the unseen hands that shape the music we love. We navigate the intricate journey of 'The Miseducation' as our guiding compass, highlighting the delicate dance between artistic integrity and record label politics. Don't miss out on this gripping dialogue that celebrates the victories and untangles the challenges faced by women leading the charge in music production.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Yo, yo, yo yo. What's up? It's your god. Swag 100 representing swag 100 podcast. We here live on goat vibes with my god from rough house, rough nation. Chris Schwartz, how you doing.

Speaker 2: 0:23

I'm doing good, man.

Speaker 1: 0:24

Thanks for having me man, it's definitely great having you here. Man, definitely, definitely. You know, being being in Philly and having a Philly legend, you know, on the goat vibes, this is awesome, man, you know. Really appreciate you for taking your time and joining us here on the goat vibes, how you been though.

Speaker 2: 0:41

I've been good. You know it's talking about Philly. You know the missile and the Fuji's came through last week Saturday night right anybody here, make go the show no, I actually didn't go to the show.

Speaker 2: 0:54

I'm gonna tell you what. I'm gonna tell you what they actually. They did a. They shouted out myself from rough house, from the stage a bunch of times. But you know, they talked about Philly and they like, because Philly's been a huge market for them, right, and it was cool that they bought the Daphonics out to do a set and like freeway, I mean it's just awesome, it's like really like. You know, they, they, um, it's tour has been really great tour, really great tour. But, um, anyhow, just Philly, I mean, it's like that. Where can you say it's like it's a, it's a, it's a. To me it's like one of the greatest music cities you know ever, because of the opportunities that we were afforded here. And besides that, it's like. You know, I, till this day, I always believed that like disco, disco guitar style started in Philadelphia. Like you know, people like Norman Harris and the late Bobby Eli and yeah, definitely so.

Speaker 1: 2:02

So so you know, speaking about the Fuji's, you know they just got named best 100 albums ever made and it came then at top. I'm at number 10 really is that.

Speaker 2: 2:17

Are you telling me Rolling Stone?

Speaker 1: 2:19

yes.

Speaker 2: 2:20

I think miss education was number yeah miss education.

Speaker 1: 2:23

I mean Lauren Hill, yeah, yeah, yeah, how you feel about that well, here's the thing.

Speaker 2: 2:28

There was a lot of pissed off people, but but here's what it is. It's generational, right, because at the end of the day, right, it's like. You know, it's always like the who quadrophenia, which is a great record, don't get run. But it was always like these classic rock bands. And so people like, oh, how could that record be number 10? Well, it's a reader's poll. Okay, it's the people who are active consumers right now and the people who were like, the people who were like who, who think that you know, like that the who should have been number 10 or whoever, right, well, they're not. They're not the majority anymore, right, that's just, that's just a simple fact. And you know, it's funny right around the same time that happened, national Public Radio named her record the second most important record ever made by a female artist number two. This is over, like Billy Holiday. This is over like Carly Simon, like of all these records, right?

Speaker 2: 3:28

right and the number one record, right, is something that's gonna be immovable from because it's National Public Radio and it's it's run by females and everything and so and that's a Joni Mitchell blue and it's funny. I'm a Joni Mitchell fan, don't get me, I'm a massive guy. I love Corten Spark, I like the hissing of some belongs Don Juan's reckless daughter, but I don't get blue. I don't understand why everybody goes apeshit over that record. You know, but, um, but that record was number one because I think, if you're, I think it when you go to uh, I'm gonna say it when you go to a certain type of finishing school, right, if you're a female, right, an all-female finishing school one of the things that they do is that they brainwash you with Joni Mitchell blue. Then when you start your career in National Public Radio broadcast anyhow, yet no, the Miss Education.

Speaker 2: 4:22

I mean, look at that record. That record was really an incredibly important record because, um, you know, I think I think for, especially for a lot of women, because if you talked a lot of women hip-hop artists, you know, right, when that record came out, a lot of them didn't really know their place, they didn't know that like they thought that they had to show their ass to be able to make it. You know, they thought they had to do this. They thought they had to do that.

Speaker 2: 4:48

She gave them another way to look at it and then she comes along and says and provides us like absolute clarity. It's like what are you talking about? You know you're, you're as important she's talking to the listener, whether an artist or whatever. It is like you're as important to end to. You know you need to be important to yourself first. Right if you're not important to yourself. Right, like how you gonna win if you ain't right within right.

Speaker 2: 5:11

And and I Think I think that that record, you know, I mean I've met people who like lot women who say that it's part of their morning routine. Every morning they get up and they put on the miss education on Lauryn Hill, right, All right, and that record it's the biggest selling solo hip-hop album by an artist in the world, globally. And the Fuji score is the biggest selling hip-hop album by a group in the world. And and I feel like there's never gonna be another record like it, because you would have to have a, a particular amalgamation that I don't see happening, and what you had was that you had pros and clefs who were, who were Haitian and who gave the group like this appeal among, like I was just in a lift ride of a guy from French out from Algeria, right, and he knew all about the food for you, everything about the future. They speak it like a sort of up. They were a French colony at one point, right. So anywhere, like you know that, like especially in France and stuff like that in Canada and everything, and then you take, you take, you know her and you look at where she performs, when she tours.

Speaker 2: 6:21

Right, the largest, the largest Heritage hip-hop touring artists in the world is Cypress Hill, because they've been going hard for 30 years. Yes, you know, I, I'll tell you the dedication among these guys I'm gonna get back to the foodies in a minute but when they, when they were shooting there the documentary, and I got an interview for the documentary down in our pressing plant, the guy who was when one of the unit directors for it, he says it's the first time I ever showed up to a set. He goes, and I was early and the artist was there before me, right, because Cypress treated this shit like a business. You know, and they take, you know, and it's like and and everything like, if you look at all like you know they, they, how many shows a year? You think they do Rob, like what Cypress? Easy, they trap. I think they do like I think they do. They do like a hundred and eighty shows a year right.

Speaker 1: 7:19

For all y'all that's watching man, we got Robin White in the building. Robin White and definitely so, so.

Speaker 2: 7:26

But back back, back to back to her, back to back to miss El, it's that she um the, the amount of, of Anguish that was put upon not just her but myself, when, in when, making that record, because Sony wanted, you know, look, wyclef made a solo record, right, right, nobody batted an eye, right? I remember taking the, the first four song for five songs I took of of Wyclef's record, because originally it was supposed to be a traditional Haitian record, right, then a prize.

Speaker 2: 8:05

What's that the prize put out a solo yeah probably price had record when it went platinum, but anyhow, so, so. So. So, wyclef, we're in Haiti and we had this idea we're gonna do a record of traditional Haitian music. You know, just sort of like fun, right. And then starting the record and getting into it, it started to sound like a real front line release, something. It would be on rough house, right. So we didn't even have a budget approved for it, right from Sony, like nothing, and and so the records, like we're making the record and I'm, I'm paying for it, you know, out of my pocket.

Speaker 2: 8:41

And he called Wyclef, calls me up on a Monday night and said that I'm going into the studio on Thursday and I need to do the sing, like I am hiring an orchestra, right, and and I was like well, we don't have the budget preview yet, yeah, but you know it's, it's I got get to start its schedule, bob, a lot. So it's like $80,000, right, so I gave me $80,000. And then on Tuesday I went and had a meeting with the president of Columbia, columbia records, and I am, I am. We listened to five of the songs from Wyclef's record and he was like indifferent, he liked, didn't really even give a shit, and he gave me the CD back. You know you're, you know you know you get somebody's CD yeah let's check this out they hand it back to you.

Speaker 2: 9:32

That's not a good sign, right, right, and he said something about like it sounds like vacation music, right, so, but the thing is they, whether he'd like the record or not, they let Y clef make this record unfettered. No, nothing, they had nothing to say about it. So he just went made and did it same thing, same thing with prance, right. But when she went to make a record it was like whoa Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We gotta talk who's gonna produce it? And we want tone and poke, we want puffy, we want Tim, we want this way. When they want, they went down the entire list, right?

Speaker 1: 10:09

Why do?

Speaker 2: 10:10

you think that was so. She was a woman. That's why, let's face it, and who was like really the first woman Producer to come in to his on her own and he'd be able to call her own shots, right and be able, like you know, kind of be who she was? Anything Missy Elliott, right prior to that, prior to that right, and hip-hop music who, right? And the thing is and here's the other thing too it's that there's a lot of, there's a lot of misconceptions out there about about what a you know what, like a lot of these producers do and and what they, what they really mean to the project. Because what a lot of hip-hop producers do and I'm not gonna mention any names, but we all know who a lot of the big artists are, you know, and I'll say is, with the exception, kanye Cuz I, because he does his own shit. I know that.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Talk about the beats in the can. I'm talking about the fact that that there's a lot of these, there's a lot of these folks out there who who have these, who have these big names as producers, when the truth is, they do very little actual producing. You know they have, like you know they have a squad of little beat makers that come in. They do this now as it from an executive production standpoint. They're there and they, you know, they they kind of, I guess, have a say in the molding of the actual sound.

Speaker 2: 11:28

But the thing is, here's, I always say right, you know, unless it's a type of thing where it's like like an R&B pop element to it, you can't an hour a hip-hop record right, because either is an art, is it is an artist. You either got it or you don't, right, and and you know, um, I Think, like you know, historically we've been most successful as a company with artists that were self-contained Artists, who knew how they wanted to be perceived by the audience, how they wanted to be presented and how they, you know, like like that whole thing. So, making the Miss Education record, they basically, they basically, like you know, fucked with the budgets and like all this. They just made it really hard, right, right. And so then then, when finally the records done and and with there was, there was like some music was played and and somebody called me up from Sony and I was in Bath, england, at three in the morning and they said we think the records very, very, very, very mediocre, wow, and I was like what?