via Sha // MTV:
Last year, Jonsin smashed the game with two of the biggest songs of 2008: Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop” and T.I.’s “Whatever You Like.”
Jonsin started out in the music game in the ’80s in Miami during the Luther Campbell era.
“I was playing everything, infusing hip-hop with rock and roll,” he said. “Miami bass music, disco music, R&B. I would even play a cappella slow jams over bass beats or rock the drum machine under the a cappella while I was playing.”
He made a few electronica albums under various stage names (Jim Jonsin is actually not his given name either). He always wanted to produce hip-hop, but with the Miami bass sound so dominant in his hometown, he couldn’t find an end — until the music shifted. His breakthrough year was 2004, when he produced “Dammit Man” for Pitbull and “Let’s Go” for Trick Daddy. Jamie Foxx’s “Unpredictable” was one of the big hits he enjoyed the following year. From there, he’s been laying them down for the likes of Twista, Bow Wow and Omarion, Beyoncé, Fat Joe and Danity Kane.
“The one thing I think is wack,” he said of his industry gripes, “I can deliver you a record in January of last year, and you hear the record now, and you’re like, ‘Oh, my God. That’s that fire.’ That’s the same sh– from last year. We got old records in the catalog being sold. But that’s just how it goes when you’re hot.”
“The label got their own ideas of what they wanted,” Jonsin said of the album delay for B.o.B, a.k.a. Bobby Ray, whom he signed. “We just did this joint venture with T.I. So you got Atlantic, Grand Hustle and Rebel Rock. My thing with Bob from the beginning was, ‘Find what you want to do. Whatever it is, I’ll help you.’ Throughout all this, he’s been growing and finding out what he loves most. He’s finding himself listening to more Coldplay and things like that. So he’s influenced by that. So we go in the studio and said, ‘What’s the first thing that comes to mind?’ And we did it. And we just did three songs. They’re like pop/rock/hip-hop. Fun and exciting. Summertime jams.”
Previously: Twista – She Got It (prod. Jim Jonsin) | Video: Young Dro & B.o.B. w/ Jim Jonsin In The Studio
