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Pharrell Williams · S2 E1
Future Recording Studios
Walking into Teddy Riley's world as teenagers
4338 Virginia Beach Boulevard, 1992. Two teenagers walk into a $3 million recording studio built by the man who invented New Jack Swing.
Guy, Groove Me (1988). Teddy Riley's own group. The track that defined New Jack Swing and turned Riley into the most in-demand producer in America. This is the sound Pharrell heard when he first entered Future Recording Studios.
Future Recording Studios
Teddy Riley builds a 72-track recording facility in Virginia Beach after fleeing the chaos of Harlem. An Akai MPC-60 in every room, an SSL console, and enough gear to rival anything in New York. The studio sits directly across the parking lot from Princess Anne High School.
TAP TO REVEAL: How did Pharrell get into Teddy Riley's studio?
“When I walked in there, it was like walking into the Starship Enterprise. I had never seen anything like it.”
— Pharrell Williams on visiting Future Recording Studios
Future Recording Studios, Virginia Beach
Teddy Riley's $3 million studio complex on Virginia Beach Boulevard. The building where Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo went from high school kids to professional producers.
How much did Teddy Riley spend building Future Recording Studios in Virginia Beach?
Tonight's the Night. BLACKstreet
The first official Neptunes production credit, released on BLACKstreet's 1993 debut album. Teddy Riley let two teenagers produce a track for his own group. The sound is raw and the arrangement is simple, but the credit is real: Produced by The Neptunes.
They are inside the building and they have Teddy Riley's attention. But one album track does not make a career. Next: the years of apprenticeship nobody talks about.
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