During his lengthy career engineering and recording songs for MCs like Black Thought of The Roots, Fat Joe, Royce da 5’9”, and Wu-Tang Clan, Spent D’nero has always helped artists achieve the best possible sound with his professionalism and meticulous attention to detail. It has been an interesting ride to say the least, with the many hours spent behind the boards at both Goblin Music Studios and Sound Clash Recordings giving him enough experiences to fill a book.

Among all of the memorable studio sessions, however, the time his late friend and collaborator Sean Price gave him some sage advice stands out as especially unforgettable. It was a moment early in his career that taught Spent how toappropriately conduct business with friends, a skill that has served him well ever since. “Sean Price is one of the dudes that taught me how to make money,” he says. “I had a thing like, ‘Ah, don’t worry about it, you’re one of my favorite rappers.’”

Price took note of his willingness to do time-consuming work for free and immediately called him on it. “He asked me one question. He said, “When you mix a record, you got all this nice equipment here. Does this shit run on air?’”

“I said ‘No.’”

“He said, ‘Exactly. So why am I not gonna give you money? Take this money, let’s go.’”

From that day forward, Spent approached his studio duties with a new sense of business savvy. But even after many years of consistent studio work and a list of credits that would make many other engineers green with envy, he found himself in a creative rut recently. “Honestly, I’ve been doing this for so long, I’m almost not entertained by it anymore,” he admits. “It started turning more into a job. I wanted to look forward to working on records and I don’t get a lot of that anymore.”

As the dreary weather of December 2017 started to approach, Spent realized he had to get away from New York City and hit the reset button. “I don’t want to say I was having super troubling times, but at that point in December I was a little down and out,” he says. “Just with lack of work and people not doing the right thing when it comes to honoring working with them. I honestly went to Florida to get my mind right. I just wanted a few days out there with my family.”  

As Spent enjoyed his time away from New York, he received a phone call from his old friend and acquaintance Roget Romain. When Roget asked for his opinion on a new artist named Kameechi and sought his availability to mix some of his material, he didn’t necessarily expect to be wowed at first. “I’m accustomed to everybody trying to hand me something, like ‘Hey man, can you hear my stuff,’” he says.  “A lot of that just goes right out the window for me.” Little did Spent realize that this phone call would provide the vital shot of creative adrenaline he was desperately seeking.

When Roget sent him the files for Kameechi’s Superiors-produced song “16 Diamonds”, Spent knew it wasn’t run of the mill material right away. “He sent me the record and I was like, “This kid is freaking talented bro. Super talented. Where’d you find this kid!?’”

Just as many people in the industry have recognized the potential of Kameechi’s Hot 97 top ten single “16 Diamonds”, Spent also knew it was a hit straight away because of the way it imprinted itself in his memory. “I remember playing the record once or twice and by the second or third time I played it, I’d memorized most of it,” he says. “So I knew it was stickin’”

In addition to the catchiness of “16 Diamonds”, Spent was also blown away by Kameechi’s versatility. “You think you know an angle and then you hear what the kid’s got and you say, ‘Oh shit, okay,’” he says. “He just spews out hits—it’s not even a joke bro. I can say it until I’m blue in the face.”

Spent also appreciates that Kameechi isn’t easy to categorize. “When I listen to music, it’s kind of like I break it down in my head,” he says. “I’m such a critical listener that sometimes it’s a pain because I can’t just sit there and enjoy music. With Kameechi, he has his own formula. I can’t put him in a category, from his creativity, the melodies he chooses, and the topics he picks.”

Once Spent heard “16 Diamonds” he was eager to put in work on some of Kameechi’s other songs. Before long he was providing a keen ear on records like “Chemical High”, demonstrating the same detail-oriented hyperfocus Kameechi is known for. “When I really like something man, I’ll sit there for hours and hours. It’s never done to me, I was always want to perfect it,” he says. “I put a lot of time into things that I really believe in.” This sounds like an ideal fit for Kameechi, who will often listen to a song over 100 times before singing off on the final product.

In addition to his fierce dedication to getting the right mix, flexibility and open-mindness have also been major keys to success throughout Spent’s career. “I don’t really have an A to Z process,” he says. “There are fundamentals, but there aren’t rules. If I sat here and showed you everything about dynamics, equalization, and reverb, at the end of it I’m going to contradict myself and tell you, ‘All right, forget everything I said and do it how you want.’ Because that’s the creativity part of it.”

This flexibility and aversion to following one strict format helps Spent evolve and adapt as necessary to each artist he works with. “I want to create a range of frequencies instead of pulling out just one,” he tells me. “To be honest, I don’t have a formula. When I listen to a record, I try to keep it as natural as possible. My job, the way I look at it, is more like troubleshooting as opposed to creating on it.”

Despite his insistence in not overstepping creative boundaries and putting too much of his stamp on other people’s music, Spent can’t help but feel inspired to learn some new tricks after working on Kameechi’s singles. “To me it was like a gift,” he says. “It’s got me in the zone. I even learned some new techniques of mixing.”

More than simply being in the zone again, working with Kameechi has also given Spent that renewed sense of inspiration he was searching for when he hopped on a Miami-bound plane in December. “It literally makes me feel brand new,” he says. “A whole nother page turned. And the best part is I just didn’t expect it.”

Though the chance to work with Kameechi was unexpected, it looks like “Chemical High” was just the beginning of a long and fruitful creative partnership. With Spent overseeing mixing duties on several other Kameechi tracks, he is now eager to get more in-studio sessions with Kameechi so their creative process can further evolve. For the time being, Spent remains grateful that walking into the studio is once again a labor of love instead of a chore.

Written by Gino Sorcinelli

Gino Sorcinelli is a copywriter and freelance journalist who specializes in engaging, narrative non-fiction stories about the creative process and inspiration behind specific albums and songs. A former DJ and lifelong music enthusiastic, much of his writing focuses on rap and other sample-based music. He has bylines in Cuepoint, HipHopDX, Still Crew, Passion of the Weiss, Samplified, and Trackd. Check out his Micro-Chop publication to learn more about Gino and his work.