J.R. Rotem: Pimpin' Ain't Easy
Jonathan “J.R.” Rotem is holding court at his Beluga Heights studio in West Hollywood, California. The music producer is wearing enormous silver Elvis sunglasses and a diamond–encrusted keyboard around his neck; his hair glistens like a bird in an oil spill. To the audience clustered around his couch — his manager Zach Katz, two cameramen filming a reality–show pilot, Denaun Porter of hip–hop group D12 — Rotem offers a series of impromptu non sequiturs: “I have a fear of germs”; “I don’t invest in real estate, I invest in jewelry”; “I’m a Leo, a lion”; “I’ve seen Zoolander 100 times”; and, finally, “I fucked Britney wheelbarrow style. Just kidding.” He waits a beat. “It was tractor style.”You may recall Rotem’s in real estate, I invest in jewelry”; “I’m a Leo, a lion”; “I’ve seen Zoolander 100 times”; and, finally, “I fucked Britney wheelbarrow style. Just kidding.” He waits a beat. “It was tractor style.”You may recall Rotem’s name and/or hair from the gossip blogs. Back in December, five weeks after Spears sent Kevin Federline packing from Malibu to the Valley, sandwiched somewhere in the midst of her cataclysmic mental mudslide — between paparazzi shots of her bald beaver and her nude noggin — grainy footage appeared of the postpartum pop star climbing onto Rotem’s lap, cigarette in hand, leaning in for a kiss. They had been working together on her next record and capped the night with the Cameron Diaz chick flick The Holiday — and some curbside canoodling.
Back at Beluga Heights, Rotem’s old friend Porter presses him for salacious details about that night. “How did you do that?” the rapper asks, slapping his thigh in disbelief. “I heard she’s on the wild side. Is that true?” The cameramen exchange excited glances. Whether out of respect for Spears or concern for his career, Rotem clams up. His right foot twitches; his knuckles whiten on the arm of the leather couch. An awkward silence creeps in. “We were working in the studio together,” Rotem replies flatly, trying to bring the conversation to a halt. He ventures something about a sampling machine. But Porter just ignores him: “You are a hound dog!” he shouts. “I remember when he get no pussy. Now he getting all kind of pussy. I was watching E! and I saw this nigga walk in, and I was like — That’s J.R.!”
J.R. Rotem is a multiplatinum music producer. It says so on his MySpace page, and it’s true. It also says that he’s from Beverly Hills, which is not exactly true. He’s an Israeli born in South Africa, raised first in Toronto and then in an affluent Bay Area suburb. He lives in an apartment building in the neighborhood known as Wilshire Corridor — but Beverly Hills, the leafy enclave of the rich and famous, isn’t far away. His studio and record label are both named Beluga Heights, a fictitious place that conjures up champagne wishes and caviar dreams. His look — which recalls that of Scott Storch, the other Jewish hip–hop production macher — belies his accomplished background as a classical and jazz pianist. “He’s a musical genius and one of the biggest music producers in Hollywood,” says Heroes cutie Hayden Panettiere, whose debut CD, coming in August, will feature a handful of Rotem–produced tracks. “He’s very fun, very smart and a genuine, nice guy. Not a horrible idiot.”
“He is the best up–and–coming producer in the music industry,” says The Game, who, when faced with making his second record, Doctor’s Advocate, without his trusted father figure Dr. Dre, sought Rotem’s services. “I call him the white Dr. Dre because when it seemed like I couldn’t finish the record unless I had Dre beats, J.R. stepped up to the plate and gave me the dopest tracks.”
After spending five years quietly earning credibility in the hip–hop arena by making beats for, among others, The Game, 50 Cent, Fabolous, Snoop Dogg, G–Unit, Destiny’s Child, Rick Ross, Lil’ Kim and Dr. Dre, the 31–year–old Rotem is this moment’s go–to guy for hit–hungry pop stars. His career turning point was “S.O.S.,” the “Tainted Love”–sampling track he’d been trying to sell for three years, before it was eventually recorded by Rihanna in 2006 — and became a worldwide hit that reached the top of six Billboard charts.
Today, urban music and Top 40 pop are as inseparable as ever, and Rotem’s beats strike a precise, gaudy compromise between the two. He offers R&B singers like Rihanna a chance to cross over to mainstream audiences, invoking and updating ’80s dance–floor jams for the Pro Tools age; and he offers pop blondes like Ashley Tisdale and Paris Hilton sinewy, pulsating tracks steeped in shiny synthesizer sounds and spiked with hip–hop swagger. There’s something Bruckheimerian about his production: It’s big, busy and — in a Where have I heard this before? sense — generic.
His date book shows that Britney isn’t the only one hoping for a Rotem–produced smash: The Veronicas and Christina Milian are coming by for sessions. A meeting with Jessica Simpson has been postponed (according to Rotem, his lothario reputation has made new beau John Mayer a bit nervous). No matter, he has some finishing touches to put on tracks for Sean Kingston, the 17–year–old Jamaican rapper who is Rotem’s first signing to Beluga Heights; he needs to tighten up a track for J. Lo; and Busta Rhymes has been asking to stop by. He describes the TV pilot he’s filming as a brand–building tool. “People all know the women, the jewelry, the cars, all of which I have,” he tells the cameras at one point. “But I want to show the blood, sweat and the tears, the stress and the rejection. I want people to know the different sides to me. I’ve always been a dick, but I’ve had to be nice to get where I am; now I want to be me. The real me.”
In the pursuit of the “real” J.R. Rotem, it’s easy to get tripped up in the look — which he calls “half Guido, half wigger” — and the painfully unfunny bada–bing one–liners. Driving home from the studio one night in his Maserati Quattroporte, he explains that this is all merely a persona, one he created in an attempt to assimilate into the hip–hop demimonde. He compares himself to a method actor or a Donnie Brasco — an undercover cop who goes native. “When I first got in, I was like, I’ll let my music do the talking. But it became apparent that it’s important how I sell myself. My family brought me up to think that bragging was classless and repugnant. But if you don’t talk big, you don’t win.”
It’s this persona that has made some people initially wonder who, exactly, this clown thinks he is. That was the reaction of newcomer Lucy Walsh (daughter of Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh) when her Island Records A&R rep Rob Stevenson introduced her to Rotem. “When she first met him, she was like, ‘Who are you having me work with?’” remembers Stevenson. “But after 20 minutes of explaining to him what we wanted, he started writing a song that separates her from the pack. In this business you get flash, but often nothing underneath. J.R. has substance.”
