Superstar producer Sam-E Lee Jones has gone from producing in his room as a teenager to producing award-winning music for some of Namibia’s top musicians.
He chats to ‘The Tribe’ about his journey to the top and what makes him tick …
A lot of people don’t know that you’ve been producing ever since your days on UNAM campus. What did you start with, what were the tools that you had at the time?
I’ve actually been producing since I was thirteen. I had a computer that my Mom got me. It had about 13 gigs or odd and a hard drive, that’s about it, with fruity loops, and I started producing … So every day after school I’d go home, work on music and that’s about it.
It feels like, people feel like Gazza owned you, like you can only produce for Gazza and might never be able to produce for anybody or else. Tell us about that?
I feel like I do my like some of my best work with Gazza.
If you played soccer, wouldn’t you want to play with Merci or want to play with Ronaldo? If you played basketball, wouldn’t you want to play with Lebron? So it’s about pairing yourself up with the best of the best. At this stage in my life it’s just I want to work with people that inspire me.
I don’t want to just make a hot song, I want to make something that lasts.
Did you ever think that you’d produce an EP, that you’d put work out there, that you might want to sing and write your own songs?
Not really. Like it was one of those things like as a kid you just think about it and it would be nice.
You know I used to be at home with my little brother and then we’d recite songs and pretend that we have a band and stuff like that.
So it was one of those things, but I think that one thing is just following, wherever your curiosity takes you, go that way.
What to you makes a great collaboration?
Truth. Be true to yourself, make sure that if you like the song I’m sure other people will like the song and you need to feed off good energy.
It needs to come from a real place, don’t try and fake it because it won’t be real and people will understand that it’s not real. You know you don’t want to make plastic bubble gum songs.
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