Producer Spotlight: 9th Wonder

http://www.myspace.com/9thwondermusic

Patrick Douthit (born 01.15.75), better known as 9th Wonder is a hip hop producer from Winston-Salem/Raleigh, North Carolina.

In the mid-1990s, 9th Wonder was a DJ at the radio at North Carolina Central University while attending school there. He was doing production work for local artists with his keyboards. By his senior year, he was introduced to a relatively new music DAW production software called Fruity Loops (now FL Studio) by a friend who was also a producer. Around the same time, he met two younger schoolmates Phonte and Big Pooh, who were local emcees in the Durham area and joined to become the group known as Little Brother. He then began DJ'ing for them at shows and produced a number of their beats on underground records during the rest of the 1990s.

As an up-and-coming producer, he released a remix album of Nas' 2002 album God's Son entitled God's Stepson. This album began what is now a regular trend of remixing whole albums. 9th Wonder has a smooth and soulful production style that relies on samples from artists such as Al Green and Curtis Mayfield. He attributes the bass lines that he uses in production to DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and J. Dilla, while he claims to have learned "moans" from RZA.

With the help of filmmaker Tee Smith and sound engineer Young Guru, 9th Wonder landed a coveted production credit on Jay Z's then highly-anticipated The Black Album. The producer continued to produce for Little Brother and many other hip hop artists/groups, including Jean Grae and Murs. 9th Wonder has also produced for more widely known artists such as Mary J. Blige, Destiny's Child, Erykah Badu, De La Soul, Mos Def, Memphis Bleek, Buckshot, Black Moon, Sean Price, The Game, Ludacris, and Lloyd Banks.

And I will leave you with the playlist below.