G Koop
| G Koop | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Robert Mandell |
| Genres | Hip hop, Rap, Soul |
| Occupation(s) | Record producer, Songwriter, Musician |
| Instruments | Piano, Guitar, Bass, Drums |
| Years active | 2002-present |
| Associated acts | Migos, DJ Khaled, Funkadelic, Nelly, The Game |
Robert Mandell, known by his stage name G Koop, is a Grammy-nominated instrumentalist and producer.
G Koop is originally from Boston. His father had a large collection of albums, and his mother contends that G Koop's first word was "doobie," interpreted as a request for The Doobie Brothers to be played. His first job was at a record store. As a young child, he learned to play a number of instruments, including guitar, bass, piano, and drums.
G Koop graduated from Berklee College of Music. While there, he studied music theory and performance. G Koop plays some of these instruments in his own studio while making his samples. Also while at Berklee, G Koop met Graham Richards and Anthony Caruso. The three have had an ongoing collaboration dubbed "G Koop and O-Man" since then.
G Koop moved to California in 2002 and formed a jazz band, "The People's Quintet," with drummer Donald "Duck" Bailey. Unable to find work for the group, G Koop instead began working with music production software, such as Pro Tools and Reason.
He has been called a specialist in "replaying samples", in which an original sample is reinterpreted and recreated in the studio. The resulting track is a new interpretation that is no longer under the original's copyright, but it still retains the original's character. Producers can use the new work in their own songs without having to pay the fees required to sample the original track.
G Koop first produced for the bay area hip-hop group Foreign Legion. The group's MC, Prozack Turner, introduced him to producer Jake One, who in turn employed G Koop as a piano teacher. The two worked together on Jake's 2008 album, White Van Music, with G Koop performing instruments. He also worked on Jake's 2009 collaboration with Freeway, The Stimulus Package. The two also partnered together on Drake's "Furthest Thing" for his 2013 Nothing was the Same album. Jake One found the original sample for "Furthest Thing" from a 1990s live gospel album that Gene Brown, a record collector, recommended to him. However, the rights owners to the song requested high fees. Instead, Jake One asked G Koop to make an interpolation of the sample to avoid publishing issues. G Koop played all the instruments—guitar, piano, organ, drums, and bass—in his studio. The album's main producer, Noah "40" Shebib, recorded the vocals for the track with a choir in Toronto.
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