Larry Smith is Hip-Hop’s Forgotten Architect

DJ Sir Daniel: Greetings

welcome to another episode of Queue Points.

I am DJ

sir Daniel.

And my name is Jay Ray, sometimes known by my government as Johnny Ray

Kornegay, the third and Sir Daniel.

It warms my heart that we're about to have this conversation

because this brother was so,

DJ Sir Daniel: Absolutely.

Because Queue Points podcast is the podcast dropping the needle on black

music history and as Jay Ray kind of foreshadowed, um, tonight's subject

is Um, a name that is not necessarily a household name, but should be.

Um, before people started throwing around the term super producer,

yes.

DJ Sir Daniel: hop is concerned, this gentleman was being that and was,

and actually is the foundation for.

Um, for a record label is a foundation for New Jack Swing.

Mm hmm.

DJ Sir Daniel: a little bit into that.

And also is, um, part of the reason why hip hop, um, earns a lot of

early hip hop groups earn some like major, major platinum hits.

And so we are talking about none other than the pioneer, Mr. Larry Smith.

absolutely.

So I love that we are, um, having this conversation because Larry

Smith was, um, a true musician.

So right near, right now in today's world, when we talk about hip hop producers, for

the most part, we talk about beat makers,

right?

DJ Sir Daniel: Correct.

these are individuals that, you know, they've

mastered the NPC or right now

they're using computers, fruity loops and all of that.

Larry Smith, though, was a musician.

He was a bass player.

He actually cut his teeth playing bass in bands and learned the craft of producing

by just kind of being in the studio and being an individual who was a session

bass player for a lot of musicians.

So this man was committed to musicianship.

And what I also love about him is he was expansive enough that at his, at his

height, Sir Daniel, when we talk about some of the, the songs, they could be

out at the same time in the same year.

And you would kind of not know that they were produced by the

same person, all hip hop, but with like a completely different feel.

But that was because of just kind of his pedigree and how he approached production.

DJ Sir Daniel: Absolutely.

And it should be said, Larry Smith was self taught.

yes,

DJ Sir Daniel: what I understand, he listened to James Brown records

and taught himself how to play the bass, by just plucking along and,

um, playing along with the records.

Um, and to his credit, Um, we, I said in the beginning, the term

super producer got adapted, I would say back in the early 2000s.

you had the, you had the, the onset of like, um, the Neptunes, um, uh, Timbaland,

mm hmm,

DJ Sir Daniel: prior to that Babyface,

hmm,

DJ Sir Daniel: LA,

and Terry Lewis, mm

DJ Sir Daniel: and Terry Lewis, you know, they, and so when we talk about

those people, they had artists that worked underneath them for, you a

majority of their recording life.

hmm,

DJ Sir Daniel: And so I think it's funny that we're, we're talking about Larry

Smith now to your point about people, you know, hopping on their laptop and

creating a beat right then and there, you know, you have people doing MPCs.

Now

mm hmm, mm hmm.

DJ Sir Daniel: is on the laptop now, Jay Ray, I think it's important

that we discuss the importance of an artist or the benefit of an artist

working with a singular Producer.

Yeah, yeah.

Ooh, that whole idea.

Well, there's a couple of things that made records special.

When you are working with a singular producer, it's

like a meeting of the minds.

Now, there are experiences in music history where that does not work out.

Where that meeting of the minds, the minds ain't meeting, right?

DJ Sir Daniel: Yes.

Mm-hmm

But when it does, it's beautiful, right?

So, example.

Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones, right?

We would not have gotten off the wall.

We would not have gotten Thriller if not for the marriage, the musical marriage

of those two folks together, Janet Jackson and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

It

is a match made in heaven and the beauty of Larry Smith.

is because he was a musician, right?

He also had the opportunity to kind of select which rappers.

So when he finally started getting into this hip hop thing, because of course,

as we talked about, he comes from bands late sixties or in the seventies

and then hip hop emerges, right?

As this thing, well, You know, being from a musical background, being from the music

background that he's in, he's like, well, okay, this is a thing that's emerging now.

I'm, I'm producing now.

I have an opportunity to now produce some of these rappers, but he

gets to pick the rappers, right?

DJ Sir Daniel: Right?

perfect example, um, is him working with Houdini.

So of course, Houdini's first record came out, their self titled album.

Um, it's fine.

It's produced in Europe, they're on jive, but they wanted to, Jalil

wanted to work with Larry Smith.

And Larry Smith is like, okay, well, You know, as the story goes, this

is as the history goes, Larry Smith is like, I mean, I heard nothing,

you know, whatever, whatever.

I don't know if it was, was, how was this going to work?

Whatever, whatever.

But of course, Larry Smith comes on board and produces their

monster of a second album, Escape.

It's all him.

And so that beauty of Working with one person who gets you,

who's crafting a sound for you.

DJ Sir Daniel: Mm-hmm

It cannot be beat.

And it's something that we should do more of today.

I think.

DJ Sir Daniel: I agree.

Um, I'm going to piggyback on everything that you said and

say that for upcoming artists,

if you can, would implore you to, to go that route to find, to marry

somebody musically as a producer and work on creating eight.

excuse me, a sound for you, for yourself, for your career, because not only will

you, um, do you increase the likelihood of creating hits, but likJay Rayry

said, you will create your own sound.

And, but the beauty about that is even though you've created your

own sound as an artist, what that relationship helps to do is to create,

is to strengthen you as an artist,

Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel: once you, when you work with somebody, day in and day out.

You become, you become a studio rat, as they say.

You become, you develop a work ethic.

You develop, it makes you a better artist.

And so what that then does, when you're ready to branch out and to

work with other people, to work with other producers, you know, What works

for you, you know, what effect works best on your vocals, you know, uh, I

don't like that snare is too sharp.

I need a flatter snare.

You know, those are the things that you're able to do.

So that's just the benefit of, I believe, of working with a

producer for a long period of time and creating a sound together.

Unfortunately, we don't hear a lot of that much anymore.

There are a few, there are a few people that have relationships

like, you know, Kendrick is really,

hmm.

DJ Sir Daniel: really created something special with mustard.

hmm.

DJ Sir Daniel: And, um, you know, so on and so forth for a lot of people today.

Mm

DJ Sir Daniel: So I think that we have to keep that in mind.

And we see that we have Larry Smith as a pillar.

Even though we don't, he's not a household name, but he is a pillar.

He is a prime example what having a signature sound can do.

Because to your, to your point, Jay Ray, Smith, not only worked

with Houdini, but he worked with

hmm.

simultaneously.

DJ Sir Daniel: And gave them both very different sounds.

Run DMC squarely had that rock and roll

Mm hmm.

DJ Sir Daniel: Um, you know, it kind of gave them a little headbanger feel to it.

Whereas Houdini was definitely smoothed out R& B. And, um, in my

opinion, like I mentioned earlier, Larry Smith was like the, the pioneer

or predecessor of, um, Jack Swing.

Yeah, so it's interesting that you, you mentioned that, that, that

hard rock edge, because that's one of the things, and Larry talks about this,

there's a written interview with him, it's available on Medium, and he talks

about the fact of, um, Run D. M. C., they were nervous about that whole rock,

like the, the guitars thing, right?

But also, to that point of the smoothed out of the Houdini piece of the whole

thing, he also referenced the fact that, listen, Run D. M. C. couldn't have done

what, couldn't have did what Houdini did.

They weren't gonna be smooth like that.

So the sound that they had was, was for them, Houdini wasn't going to be

able to do what Run DMC was doing.

So they had their own sound that did that, but I, and I think as we get into

this, I think we need to mention some of the songs because it's going to be crazy.

This is why Larry Smith is foundational.

King of Rock,

DJ Sir Daniel: Mm hmm.

Sucker MCs.

Freaks come out at night.

Um, uh, uh,

big mouth,

uh, funky beat friends.

DJ Sir Daniel: Let's not forget, um, these are the breaks.

these

are the Curtis Blow.

He was Curtis Blow's dude.

You know what I mean?

So, and, uh, So when we, when we talk about Def Jam, right?

So this is all pre Def Jam stuff we're talking about, right?

Rick Rubin gets a lot of credit for like, you know, the sound that he

pioneered when Def Jam happened, right?

Alongside Russell, um, uh, Russell Simmons, but it was Russell and Larry

at first that was creating these sounds.

So it's really, Larry Smith is a. Pioneer.

DJ Sir Daniel: Absolutely.

One of my favorite facts about, um, when we were researching this topic

knowing that Crush Groove actually stands for, uh, Curtis And Rush, because

they, they're all running in the crew.

Curtis Blow, Russell Simmons, who, Russell Simmons, Russell Simmons, who is, um,

Oh, yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel: Rush,

Right.

DJ Sir Daniel: where we get Rush management.

And then of course, um, he founds, um, Def Jam.

But we're talking about, uh, Larry Smith.

broker relationships with a lot of these, well, we, um, a lot of these foundational

independent hip hop labels like Profile

Yes.

DJ Sir Daniel: um,

of course we got, um, did we say select a lot of these different labels that

really became homes for a lot of artists.

early hip hop artists, including the Fat Boys um, uh, artists of that ilk.

so it's so important to be in, labels wouldn't have those, wouldn't have

those relationships with hip hop artists unless they were provided

with quality sound, with quality records that the streets were buying.

And if we're going to talk about There's always one really important record.

So Jerry, you know, we recently had a string of bad weather

and you know who I kept thinking about, especially on the snow days,

I kept thinking about parents.

I can't imagine being a parent and having to come up with things like

to occupy your children's time.

And, but at the same time, they're missing school.

So you want it to be a productive time as well.

Luckily, luckily for all our parents out there, We have a

great friend by the name of Penny.

I'm talking about what's popping Penny, the fantastic children's show.

And it is now available on YouTube.

J Ray, their first animated episode is coming out this spring of 2025.

Speaker 2 00:13:23

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peace,

peace.

DJ Sir Daniel: When we discuss the the history of a lot of people of a lot of

these artists There's like one record that stands out that kind of starts

things off and is a launching pad an important record that we want you all to

know about audience Is a record called

Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel: and the record is, um, by a band called Orange Crush and

Orange Crush a, it's a hodgepodge, but it's like the dopest lineup

because you're like, Oh, they're in

Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel: So the subject of our discussion, Larry Smith

is part of the band, Davey DMX.

Davey DMX, if you, if you've ever heard One for the

How about Two for the

DJ Sir Daniel: it's because of Davey DMX.

That was one of his records and he was one of the sought after

DJs slash producers in the day.

Kenny Keys,

Mm hmm.

DJ Sir Daniel: Gass.

Now this, okay, I'm going to say this name first and then we'll get to this other

Yes!

DJ Sir Daniel: think this is really important.

Ron Griffin, turns out to be.

Rakim's older brother is also in this

Really important.

Mm

DJ Sir Daniel: important.

We also have Eddie Cologne and Pumpkin.

But y'all, are you ready for this?

hmm.

Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

On vocals.

DJ Sir Daniel: all vocals, the lady that you all hear saying, I

want action, is none other than Def Jam's first lady, Allison

Smith, excuse me, Allison Williams.

V. Williams.

DJ Sir Daniel: Allison, the Williams, uh, Jay Ray and I were on phone the

other night and Alison Williams does not get dues, the propers that she deserves

because we, when we thought about it, what, what's, what's Alison Williams title

Allison Williams, for real y'all, for real.

I'm not gonna hold you.

I'm not going to hold you.

She's the orig She's the original queen of hip hop soul.

I'm just

saying!

DJ Sir Daniel: it,

I'm just saying, can

DJ Sir Daniel: that there and let y'all fight about that.

Argue with your mammy.

Don't argue with us.

But Alison, Alison Williams is the original queen of hip hop soul.

So as a matter of fact, While we're going to, we're

can we do one more thing?

One more thing.

So if you ever wonder who's doing the vocals, we're playing basketball.

That is also Alison

Williams.

I'm just saying original queen of hip hop soul.

That's all I'm saying.

DJ Sir Daniel: original queen of features on hip hop

Right.

DJ Sir Daniel: Just saying, we're just saying.

So of course we're going to have to do an Alison Williams

Yes, yes,

DJ Sir Daniel: to, we've

we got it.

We got to reach out to her too.

Like she is doing her big one, you know, like on her jazz bag.

Alison Williams is doing her jazz bag.

Now it's a whole thing.

That voice is still pristine.

DJ Sir Daniel: Absolutely.

Mm hmm.

DJ Sir Daniel: So yeah.

So shout out to Alison Williams, but

Yeah,

DJ Sir Daniel: action, um, I was listening to it, getting ready for the show.

And I was like, Oh, we all know that breakbeat.

we all know that breakbeat.

We all know it.

DJ Sir Daniel: And we all know when you hear, Some people think I'm

Yep,

DJ Sir Daniel: hear that, you have to listen to Action because that is exactly

where they got whole, the whole vibe for that record from Michelle Leigh's Nasty.

That's Action right there by Orange Crush.

A very, very important hip hop record.

Along with, um, We Can't.

Go on without mentioning Jimmy Spicer.

yes.

Oh, yes.

Uh huh

DJ Sir Daniel: y'all, and of course, the um, the dub not the double

dutch is it the double dutch bunch?

I

No, no,

DJ Sir Daniel: the bubble bunch.

The da,

da da

yes, this is, uh,

DJ Sir Daniel: that's, yeah, that's Larry Smith as well.

so many joints.

So of course we just talked about action, which, like I said, we all

know when you listen to it, as soon as it comes on, you will be like,

Oh, everybody is wrapped on this.

Like everybody has wrapped on this same thing with sucker MCs.

Like.

If, at, there was a point in time, um, and there's a, a brother who, um, did,

he's the hip hop historian, we'll make sure that we link his video, cause

he does, he does a whole hour and 20 minute Larry Smith retrospective.

DJ Sir Daniel: Mm hmm.

He talked about in that video that there was a point in time back in

New York, cause he grew up in that, in that era, that there was not going to be

any freestyling unless people was rhyming over Sucka MCs, like that was just kind of

the beat that people use to freestyle on.

So, and everybody was using it, right?

So foundational.

Records all created by this brother who Sir Daniel for all intents and

purposes, burned really bright, was hot and chose to walk away, like chose

to walk away in the late eighties.

So we're talking like 89,

DJ Sir Daniel: Mm hmm.

just when hip hop is becoming a commercial for.

Phenomenon, he chooses to walk away in that, in that moment.

And it's like, you know what I've done all I'm going to do in this genre at

this time, he goes on to, you know, just kind of do other things still in

me, still a musician, still doing all of that, but walks away from hip hop.

So, and in fact, sir, Daniel, I think that's one of the reasons why people

don't remember him as much is because.

He stepped away at a point when, before we started having these

con these kinds of conversations.

DJ Sir Daniel: before we started having super producers

Mm-hmm . Right?

DJ Sir Daniel: you know, right when we started on who Herbie Lovebug was.

And then, know, and, and to, to wrap up the conversation, um, I think it's

important that people know that part of his Larry Smith's legacy is that

every super producer that you know of today counts Larry Smith as their

Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel: producer.

Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel: Larry Smith has also went also produced records for

Mm hmm

DJ Sir Daniel: And

millie jackson

DJ Sir Daniel: of all people.

I

millie jackson

DJ Sir Daniel: Well, listen, quiet as cat, Millie Jackson is often, um, touted as the

first, um, woman, woman rapper, female MC,

Absolutely.

DJ Sir Daniel: she didn't mind.

She, her breakdowns are legendary as far as like talking and narrating on a song.

Mm hmm.

DJ Sir Daniel: yeah, definitely Millie Jackson.

But yeah, Larry Smith, um, Jay Ray in closing, what do you think is

the Oh, what's the last, I guess, legacy thing that we want to leave

with people about Larry Smith?

Um, I think It's kind of Larry's commitment to musicianship, period.

I think it's really important.

So, um, In the, in the interview, which we will, like I said, we

will make sure that we link.

Larry talks about, um, he's asked about sampling and one of the things that,

that encouraged him to walk away was just kind of hip hop was really changing.

Right.

DJ Sir Daniel: Um,

that the bomb squad, you know, came in and just kind

of kicked in the door and it was just like a whole other sound.

Um, And, and at the same time, he was committed to not sampling, right?

He was committed to crafting sounds, creating sounds, um, and hip hop almost

kind of moved, you know, while, while, uh, you know, we've, we're saying that,

you know, he walked away, also hip hop kind of walked away from, you know,

the kind of work that he was doing.

What's crazy is I do think that Chad and Pharrell kind of picked up

that mantle in the nineties and kind of like, ushered, ushered it back.

But I think that big thing is just kind of his, his commitment to musicianship,

I think is really important to remember.

And, um, man, I think that is it.

I think it's important that we lift up these artists that at a time when

hip hop was brand spanking new, was also trying to innovate and Larry

Smith was definitely innovating.

What about you?

DJ Sir Daniel: I think you, you wrapped it up in a very, very pretty bowl.

I would, um, ask people, ask our listeners to go back and listen

a lot of those records and just and luxuriate in the pre sampling,

Yes.

DJ Sir Daniel: slickness of, of it all.

The big beats, the, the, the, the, the, um, synthesizers that are

still mimicked to this day, the melodies that you cannot stop.

If, as soon as you hear Friends, You automatically hear the melody

Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel: You can't not hear it.

You can't five minutes of funk.

Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel: songs are embedded in our collective psyche.

And we have Larry Smith to thank for that.

So, um, thank you for joining us.

And as we.

Salute, Larry Smith, one of the founding fathers of hip hop production.

Yes,

DJ Sir Daniel: Jay Ray, please let the people know how they can continue

to, um, to support us as we take Queue Points on further into 2025.

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We love y'all.

DJ Sir Daniel: That's right.

And as I always say at the end of every episode in this life, you have a choice.

You can either pick up the needle or you can let the record play.

I'm DJ Sir Daniel,

Jay Ray y'all.

DJ Sir Daniel: and this has been Queue Points podcast, dropping

the needle on black music history.

We will see you.

On the next go round, peace.

y'all.