Easy Mo Bee (born Osten Harvey, Jr. December 8, 1965 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York) is Grammy-winning hip hop/R&B record producer, most notable for his affiliation with Bad Boy Records in its early years and his heavy production involvement in The Notorious B.I.G.'s acclaimed debut Ready to Die.Contents [hide] 1 Biography 1.1 Early years 1.2 With Sean Combs and Bad Boy 1.3 After Bad Boy 2 Affiliations 3 Production technique 4 External links
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early years
In high school, Harvey donned his Mo Bee moniker and started a group named "Rappin' is Fundamental" among some classmates. One of its members played one of Easy Mo Bee's beat tapes for his classmate, the Brooklyn rapper who would become known as Big Daddy Kane. Impressed, Kane had Easy produce two tracks on the rapper's album It's a Big Daddy Thing and netted him production on many of Kane's future releases.
Afterward, Easy produced the lion's share of Words from the Genius, the debut album of GZA from what would become the Wu-Tang Clan. Easy Mo Bee also produced Miles Davis' final studio album, 1992's Doo-Bop, which won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance.
[edit] With Sean Combs and Bad Boy
In the early 1990s, he linked up with Bad Boy Entertainment and became their main staff producer, crafting most of the tracks for its first release, Craig Mack's Project: Funk Da World and the label's first major hit, "Flava in Ya Ear." He also produced "Party and Bullshit" for The Notorious B.I.G, the rapper's first single.
Subsequently he produced for both Tupac Shakur and Biggie. He is one of the few producers to have worked with both of them, most notably on the song "Running from the Police" (from the album One Million Strong), recorded in the same session by Tupac, B.I.G., Dramacydal and the Live Squad's Stretch. After producing with Shakur, then based in New York, on the rapper's Me Against the World--including two cut songs, a version of "So Many Tears" and the song "God Bless the Dead" (later found on Greatest Hits), both featuring Stretch--Mo Bee started on Biggie's Ready To Die. His production on both spawned hits and critical acclaim; he continued producing for Biggie on the rapper's second album. Bad Boy CEO Puff Daddy eventually asked to manage Mo Bee and for the producer to join his Hitmen production team; he declined, and Puff severed their ties. Mo Bee also produced the driving hit for Busta Rhymes's The Coming, the song "Everything Remains Raw."
[edit] After Bad Boy
Easy stayed close with Big and they recorded tracks, including a song for his third album Born Again called Dead Wrong. After the rapper was killed, however, the album version that appeared was remixed without credit to Easy. Puff stopped bringing him in on label projects, and over the course of future releases has remixed more of Mo Bee's material without giving the producer credit, such as Flava in Ya Ear, remixed by Puffy on the Bad Boy 10th Anniversary album, and Runnin, remixed by Eminem on the Tupac: Resurrection (Original Soundtrack). Mo Bee also has a label, Easy Mo Records, which has yet to see a release. In 2000, he put out an album called Now or Never: Oddysey 2000, featuring east coast staples Busta Rhymes, Raekwon, Prodigy, Heltah Skeltah, Kool G. Rap, and Sauce Money, along with Goodie Mob and Kurupt.
Recently, Easy was tapped for the Wu-Tang's 2007 group album 8 Diagrams, co-producing a track with RZA called "Take it Back." He produced the introduction to Termanology's debut album, and Cormega has worked with him for the rapper's upcoming Born & Raised[1]. After an announcement that he would handle the scoring for Biggie biopic Notorious, the score was handled without him; this has led to speculation that Diddy is keeping him distanced from the industry.[2] Lately, he has been working with a female Brooklyn rapper named Honey, a soul singer named Miss Quick on Platinum Ice Records, and R&B artist Noelle on Easy Mo Records.
[edit] Affiliations
Over the course of his career, Mo Bee has worked almost exclusively with New York artists within the genre of Hip-Hop. Aside from his former close ties with Big Daddy Kane and The Notorious B.I.G., Easy has also worked with NY rappers Afu Ra (on Life Force Radio), Mos Def (on The New Danger) and Blaq Poet of Screwball (on his solo album, Rewind <<< Deja Screw); the last project came through DJ Premier, also a former Biggie affiliate.
Easy Mo Bee has also had loose ties with members of the Wu-Tang Clan since their pre-group days, having produced RZA's first-ever single "Ooh, We Love You Rakeem" under the name Prince Rakeem; roughly half of GZA's debut album Words From the Genius under the moniker The Genius, and a collaboration between Biggie and Method Man on Big's debut album. In recent years, Easy has also worked with non hip-hop artists such as Alicia Keys, for whom he produced a cover of Gladys Knight & the Pips' 1971 hit "If I Were Your Woman".
[edit] Production technique
Mo Bee has been acclaimed for his bass-heavy style and jazzy influence. In an interview with allhiphop.com, Mo Bee stated that for collaborations, he looks for a soulful, emotional artist.
At times Mo Bee has branched out more with his sound, as on the smooth, poppish "I Love the Dough" by Biggie, sampling René & Angela's "I Love You More". He also turned to trippy rock for inspiration on Mos Def's "Zimzallabim".
