Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Val Anthony Ronald Lawrence |
Born | Dominica | November 14, 1965
Origin | New York City, U.S. |
Genres | Hip hop, R&B |
Occupation(s) | Record producer, filmmaker |
Website | thisisron |
Val Anthony Ronald Lawrence (born November 14, 1965), known professionally as Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence, is an American record producer. [1]
Lawrence was born on the island of Dominica. In 1970, his family immigrated to the United States, [2] settling in East Elmhurst, Queens, in New York City. [3] After high school, he attended Howard University.
In college he met Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, [4] and formed the rap duo Two Kings in a Cipher, which released the album From Pyramids to Projects. [5] Later, the duo joined the Bad Boy Entertainment production team called "The Hitmen", with fellow Howard University alumnus Sean "Diddy" Combs. [6]
The Hit Men produced numerous rap [7] [8] and R&B [9] hits of prominent radio play. He is best known for the singles "Hypnotize" [10] by The Notorious B.I.G, "Been Around The World" by Sean "Diddy" Combs, [11] "Where I'm From" [12] by Jay-Z, [13] "Money, Power, Respect" by The Lox, [14] the Grammy-nominated "Love Like This" [15] as well as "All Night Long" [15] by Faith Evans, [16] "Phenomenon" by LL Cool J, "You Should Be Mine" [17] by Brian McKnight, "Can't Let Her Go" [18] by Boyz II Men, "Cold Rock a Party" remix [19] by MC Lyte, and "The Theme (It's Party Time)" [20] by Tracey Lee. He produced the song "Wonderful" for Aretha Franklin [21] for her album So Damn Happy. [22] On June 23, 1998, Lawrence received a Governors Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences on. [23]
Lawrence created the hip-hop source score of Spike Lee's film Bamboozled , [24] [25] and appearing in it as a musical engineer. He produced the theme song " A Woman Like Me", by Beyoncé, for the Pink Panther soundtrack. Lawrence himself later studied film at the New York Film Academy and created the short film Founding Fathers, [26] a documentary on hip hop's birth and evolution.
In 2014, Lawrence started a film production company Spotlyte Media. [24] In 2015, he produced and edited the short film Above the Sun. [24] [27] In 2016, he wrote, directed and produced the short film, Angel of Light [28] and the documentary Commutation for Guy Fisher. [29] In 2017, he produced, directed and edited the documentary Rap Dimension, [24] [2] and Rolling Stone published Jay-Z's 50 greatest songs with Lawrence's production [30] coming at number one.
In 2018, he produced and edited the webisode series "Diary of a Music Producer". [31] In 2019, Lawrence published his autobiography [32] titled Where I'm From, a book about his life story growing up in East Elmhurst, his experience at Howard University and creating hits for various musicians. He also appeared in the Netflix series, Hip-Hop Evolution , season 3 [33] episode 2 which is titled Life After Death, [34] covers a segment on Sean "Diddy" Combs and The Hitmen.
With Two Kings in a Cipher
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