LargeUp Interview: At the Instrument Zoo with Salaam Remi

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August 27, 2012


salaam-remi-daison-osbourne

LU: What are you doing next? I heard you are directing a documentary…

SR: I have several documentaries coming out on different subjects. We still have another six videos from [Spragga Benz’s] Shotta Culture, that’s coming out. [Shottas director] Cess Silvera did five or six of them. We did videos for most of the album. And then we have the Shotta Culture documentary which is a full, 90-minute story documenting  Spragga’s life, his son being killed and the events after, up to now. Cess started it but my partner Fatima Curry ended up directing it.

LU: Do you have a cut of that yet?

SR: Yeah but we’re still deciding how we want to, not even end it, cause it doesn’t have an ending, because the case, the police pretty much got off, the jury never had a chance to deliberate. At his son’s murder trial they just made them watch the trial and the judge let them off, and that leads to other suspicions, Spragga staying out of Jamaica… It’s got a little controversy on it. But it’s also Spragga’s real life. You star in a movie, and your kid’s in the movie and then he gets murdered, and your like this is kind of weird, and then people are let off without even questioning it. It has some real tension. It’s the reality of the Shottas movie we’re showing.

I’m scoring movies and TV shows. I just finished scoring Sparkle. I’m the composer. I didn’t do the songs on that, I just strictly did the score, and that score was a big step for me. It’s a major motion picture where I’m doing my Quincy Jones, Hans Zmmer on. I also did a TV show called Being Mary Jane starring Gabrielle Union, I scored and supervised that. It’s actually BET’s first show on a level like an HBO show or a movie. G.E.D. is done, I scored and executive produced that. Cess directed that, and it stars Lunch Money. We’re looking for the right distribution, cause it is a certain type of movie. It’s a hood movie,  like a Friday meets something else..

LU: What about the “ass movie” I’m hearing about.

SR: We’re doing a documentary on butts. My production company Remi-Fa that’s producing it, and my partner Fatima is directing it.

LU: Tell me about that.

SR: I don’t want to go too deep into it now, but it is a documentary on the history of butts, from Africa to people being in love with it, to the sad tragedy of how people are going to the extent of getting shots and killing themselves to now have an ass and it’s not even a real ass. It’s doing more damage then good. Everyone can relate cause everyone’s got an ass and they have a feeling about their ass.