Cheryl ‘Salt’ James and Chuck D Bring Hip-Hop History to Guild of Music Supervisors Conference

As Southern California braced for its first tropical storm in 84 years, Salt-N-Pepa’s Cheryl “Salt” James made history as the first female keynoter at the Guild of Music Supervisors’ (GMS) ninth annual State of Music in Media Conference (Aug. 19). Her invigorating speech fittingly kicked off the daylong event at The Los Angeles Film School in Hollywood.

In addition to a suite of panels celebrating the 50^th anniversary of hip-hop, the conference schedule — a collaboration between GMS and L.A. Film School — was packed with sessions ranging from “Music Clearance 101” and “The Global Craft of Music Supervision: We Are Worldwide!” to “AI and the Art of Music Supervision: Finding Harmony in the Age of Automation” and “The Ethics of Music Supervising Projects That Tell Diverse Stories.” Among the host of industry participants and guests: rap pioneer/Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, Joel C. High of Creative Control Entertainment (a GMS founder and its outgoing president), Stax Records icon/Songwriter Hall of Famer David Porter, Format Entertainment’s Julia Michels, producer Steve Schnur (Star Wars Jedi: Survivor), Singularity Songs founder/president Andre Marsh and Cue the Creatives founder Qiana Conley Akinro.

Just before the keynote speech, the ongoing challenges facing music supervisors during the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike were addressed by incoming GMS president Lindsay Wolfington and High. Speaking to the attendees, the pair referenced a page in the conference booklet featuring a list of resources for strike-impacted workers. The intro to the page said in part, “Music supervisors do not have a union and the AMPTP and Netflix continue to refuse to recognize a Music Supervisior union. We continue in our fight … and GMS fully supports this mission.”

It was also announced that Heather Guibert is the GMS board’s new vp.

Here are a few more highlights from GMS’ 2023 State of Music in Media Conference:

‘The Showstopper’

Walking onstage to rousing applause, James riffed on a phrase from the Salt-N-Pepa classic “Shoop” (“Here I go, here I go …”) then asked the audience a question. “Can we not call me the keynote speaker?” said a smiling James. “That makes me nervous. I just came here to talk to you.”

And that she did, taking the audience back to her growing up on Motown and jazz in Brooklyn. Then she heard The Sugarhill Gang on the radio in 1979. Before segueing into an impromptu audience rap-along to that group’s “Rapper’s Delight,” James said, “I fell in love even more [with the fledgling genre]. There was something about it that just grabbed me deep in my heart.”

After sharing milestones that the Grammy Award-winning group has achieved during its barrier-breaking 38-year career, starting with 1986 debut single “The Showstopper,” James noted, “I remember the question journalists used to ask in the beginning, ‘Will hip-hop last?’ Now we’re here 50 years later, growing from a novelty genre into a whole entire culture. Hip-hop started a whole movement from fashion, movies, politics and beyond to becoming the music of a generation. I would go so far as to say it’s actually shaping generations.”

Drawing a through line between hip-hop’s evolution and that of music supervision, James concluded her keynote by adding, “I know we all can relate to having good intentions and then possibly becoming jaded in our different vocations or callings. But when something is our calling and it gets hard, we have to just put one foot in front of the other and keep going because this is what we’re called to do.”

The Next 50 

“The Global Impact of Hip-Hop: Passing the Torch for the Next 50 Years” was the first in the day’s quartet of sessions dedicated to the genre and the fact — as noted in the conference booklet — that “hip-hop has proven itself to be a soundscape for any genre of music and can be used to tell any story.” Kobalt Music Publishing’s senior vp of global creative Chris Lakey moderated this panel, orchestrating a conversation between artist Igmar Thomas, Peermusic Publishing vp of A&R Tuff Morgan, En Homage artist/producer Camille “Ill Camille” Davis and artist/educator Medusa aka The Gangsta Goddess.

Lakey questioned the panelists on a variety of subjects from their first inkling of hip-hop’s international reach beyond its Bronx birth to trends/hybrid sounds they’re seeing on the horizon. Asked to share some of the hottest areas they’re most excited about in terms of hip-hop’s evolving sound, the panelists shouted out locales such as Ghana, Nigeria, Johannesburg, London, Mexico City and Jamaica. “Every single piece of music that’s out today has undertones of hip-hop,” said Morgan. “It’s influenced every genre at this point.”

Medusa and Davis also advocated for more female presence in the hip-hop arena. “I definitely want there to be more reverence for female producers and MCs,” said Davis. “I want more women to experiment with the music. There are women that I revere, the same way that I revere [late hip-hop producer] J Dilla, who are constantly making music but you don’t hear about them. I would like more women to make DJ and MC collectives. I just want more of that energy where we take more ownership, and autonomy over the sound, the brand, the look; you feel us and see us in everything. I want more women in hip-hop to put their flag down.”

Rounding out the day’s quartet of hip-hop sessions: “Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World” featuring Channel Zero.net co-founders Chuck D and Lorrie Boula with Human Worldwide’s Carol Dunn as moderator; “The Origins of Hip-Hop” featuring James, Berklee College of Music’s John Paul McGee, artist/Likwit Radio’s King T, Salamani Music’s Amani “Burt Blackarach” Smith and composer Jae Deal; and “The Golden Age of Hip-Hop: A Cultural Phenomena” with moderator/Moonbaby Media’s Angela “Moonbaby” Jollivette, television host/activist Ananda Lewis, veteran A&R executive Dante Ross, Universal Hip-Hop Museum OM/curator SenYon Kelly, DJESQ’s Paul Stewart and Rich + Tone Productions’ Rich & Tone Talauega.

Close-Up on Daisy Jones

One of the afternoon’s popular offerings was the session spotlighting the hit television series Daisy Jones & the Six, adapted from Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel of the same name about a ‘70s band. The session centered on what’s involved in “preparing for successful on-camera performances” as outlined in the conference program. Moderator/music supervisor Amanda Krieg Thomas of Yay Team Inc. was joined by Daisy Jones’ music supervisor Frankie Pine of Whirly Girl Music and Lauren Neustadter, president of film & TV for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company. Among the show’s nine 2023 Emmy Awards nominations are nods for outstanding limited or anthology series, outstanding music supervision and outstanding sound mixing.

Neustadter spoke first about the show’s origin and the challenge of doing on-camera performances. “My husband read the book and created the show. But we had no idea really of how to do a project that was music driven in the way that this is. But we also knew that we had carte blanche from Taylor. She said, ‘I’m excited for you guys to work with experts in the music field to actually bring the soundtrack and the different albums in the book to life on screen.” 

So the next move was to bring in showrunner Will Graham. “We chose him for a bunch of reasons,” said Neustadter. “But one of them was he had worked on Mozart in the Jungle, so he knew how to do a show that had a huge music component. And the first person that Will introduced us to was Frankie.”

Picking up the story, Pine said, “The first thing that I did was put together a list of executive music producers that I thought would be right for the time period; to be able to give us that ‘70s vibe, but also not pigeonhole us too much into that world where these songs [can] kind of live outside of the ‘70s. After reading the book, the one thing I wanted … was for this to feel organic and real. I wanted everybody that watched it to think literally in their minds, ‘This band was in the ‘70s? I swear I missed this band.’”

Pine also shared a major lesson from her experience. “The sooner you can get [started] with an on-camera project the better. Because that gives you all kinds of time to curate and work not only on the music but to also take your time in assembling the right music team and giving your actors [enough] time. That really is the key to a successful run.”

Hired in March 2019, Pine initially wanted to spend four months with the actors. Then she and Neustadter received an unexpected extension when their April 2020 shoot start was delayed by the pandemic. So music lessons were done instead over Zoom. In addition to explaining the genesis of the on-camera performances in two show clips that were shown, Pine and Neustadter touched on several other topics such as Pine collaborating in the casting and writing process as well, mic tips and why trust is an important factor.

“What we witnessed was these actors becoming musicians and these musicians becoming a band,” said Neustadter. “It was totally awesome.” She also noted that Pine will be working with Hello Sunshine on two more productions, one of which is Run, Rose, Run. Starring Dolly Parton, the upcoming show is an adaption of the same-titled book by Parton and James Patterson. Parton also released a companion album to the book in 2022.