Chucky Thompson’s Impact on Hip Hop and RnB
Chucky Thompson is a Washington RnB and Hip-Hop producer born on July 12, 1968, to Carl and Charlotte Thompson. In an interview, Thompson said that his mother was one of the people that recognized his natural musical ability at an early age. While many top songwriters and producers have the power to influence many people, only a few can solitarily change the direction of a genre like Thompson has done. He got his start playing for Chuck Brow’s renowned go-go band, The Soul Searchers, before he landed a role as part of Bad Boy Entertainment’s in-house producers known as “The Hitmen.”
Thompson started playing Go-Go, a locally popular music style of live funk with loping, slow grooves. In the 20s, he often returned to his roots, producing for Rare Essence and Chuck Brown that fused the classic Go-Go sounds with hip hop. In his 20s, Thompson helped forge the RnB and hip-hop sound of the 1990s. He showed his creativity and versatility with this work on Notorious B.I.G.’s debut album, “Ready to Die, and Ms. Blige’s second album, “My Life,” both of which were released in 1994. The following year, Thompson produced almost all the tracks on Faith Evans’s debut album, “Faith,” which was also another hit.
Thompson was working for Bad Boy Entertainment, the label Sean Combs known as “Puffy Daddy” when it was founded in 1993. In many ways, he was the producer’s producer. Thompson was the type of producer who was well-known best among other musicians and other producers’ fans who read liner notes. When Combs became one of the most famous hip-hop artists/producers, Thompson was one of the prominent members of his production team that helped the record label ascend to industry dominance. But he continued to produce for a range of music artists after the group was dissolved. Unlike other music producers in those years, he resisted categorization, which was deliberate.
Over the years, he still produces for a broad range of artists, including Usher. He was a multi-instrumentalist that could play over eight musical instruments. He often adds piano, trombone, or guitar to the tracks he produces. His skills in playing different instruments helped shape his budding talent for music production. He started looking at the Billboard Top 10 charts to deconstruct the ranking songs compositions to understand what makes them unique.
Thompson has used his vision and talent to change the course of RnB and Hip Hop music, which has propelled the careers of some of the best artists today. When working on Nas track “One Mic” in 200, Thompson flipped a guitar over and taped it on its back to generate a particular effect. He started the song with a moody groove sound while Nas was rapping above a whisper and the intensity of his voice rises steadily throughout each of the verses. Thompson music mirrors Nas with police car sirens and crashing drums until the fever breaks and the return of the even-tempered groove.
As a GRAMMY Award-nominated multi-platinum producer, Thompson has been the driving force behind many hit songs such as the Mary J Blige’s – Every day it Rains, Notorious B.I.G. – Big Poppa, A Story To Tell, One More Chance, Dead Wrong, Shyne – Bonnie and Shyne, Total – Can’t You See, No One Else, Gina Thompson – Things You Do Remix, Raheem DeVaughn – Woman, Faith Evan’s – Mesmerized, Jennifer Lopez – Feeling so Good and a lot more. No one would have thought a kid from the streets of Washington would have ended up with Billboard chart-toppers and gold and platinum records.
Pulling RnB grooves from hip-hop sounds and melodies being more beat-oriented, he decided to fuse the two to create his distinctive style of production – a sound that hadn’t been heard before. He was contracted to do a track and half for Mary J Blige’s project. But fortunately, he eventually produced all but 2 for her critically acclaimed release “My Life.” The project was nominated for Grammy, making the breakout album for Mary J Blige. She sold over 3 million units, and the project still stands as a bible for RnB and hip-hop.
Through Blige, Thompson met Faith Evans, who started as a background singer. He produced and wrote songs for her self-titled debut album “Faith,” which include mega-hits that went platinum, such as “Soon As I Get Home” and “You Used To Love Me.” He also produced the Crazy Sexy Cool project for T.L.C., which won a GRAMMY Award for Best R&B Album.
Perhaps what made him so special to his contemporaries was how he paved his success forward. Thompson became a mentor to audio engineer Gimel Keaton and Grammy-winning producer Rich Harrison. He also reconnected with Kirk Fraser, his former interns, to produce original music for the Tuskegee Airmen documentary on History Channel. He also created a mentorship program with Mario Winans for aspiring young producers. He created the program because he wanted the youths to understand the game before getting into it.
While grateful for all the things he has achieved, He said he had a great career because he was in the right places at the right time and offered the right amount of energy. Thompson wanted to be celebrated and remembered as a music producer who took pride in sharing his creativity and talent with other people while always looking for new ways to be innovative.
During an interview, Thompson once said his mind is always on the record, explaining how he could provide a broad range of musical influences to the global hits he helped create for top artists like Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, and Nas. For most tracks that he produced, he usually draws on the soul records or his time in Chuck’s Go-Go band as he sought to understand the singer’s vision or perhaps take them in a whole different direction.
References:
- https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-08-15/chucky-thompson-producer-bad-boy-mary-j-blige-notorious-big
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/chucky-thompson-producer-obituary-death-b1900669.html