Jonathan Rotem

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Jonathan "J.R." Rotem is an American record producer. He was born in South Africa to Jewish parents in 1975. From a young age he wanted to be a musician and started playing the piano at a very young age. Jonathan's parents quickly saw that he was talented and supported him in his dream of becoming a musician. He played classical music until junior high school when he became fascinated by Hip hop music.

He has produced tracks for artists and groups such as The Game, Destiny's Child, Britney Spears, Snoop Dogg, Ashley Tisdale and Rihanna among others. He has also sold a beat to none other than Dr. Dre who is also a producer. He currently resides in Los Angeles where he creates most of his music.

In 2006, Rotem started his own record label, Beluga Heights, along with manager Zach Katz. Sean Kingston, a young Miami-based rapper, is their first signing. Rotem and Katz also started a publishing company under the Beluga Heights umbrella, signing "SOS" co-writer Evan "Kidd" Bogart. In December of 2006, Rotem was romantically linked with pop icon Britney Spears.

[edit] Early life

As a youngster, J.R.'s parents insisted that his musical interest be honed in a strict, disciplined way. This meant hours of private piano sessions daily where he developed a passion for classical music. On the contemporary front, he found artists like The Beatles, Sting and Abba inspiring, but at a very young age, when he first heard Run DMC's "Raising Hell" album, he became mesmerized by hip hop. But while he loved what he heard musically, he never thought hip hop would become a way of life for him.

After graduating from Campolindo High School in Moraga, California, J.R. entered the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston where he majored in piano performance with aspirations of scoring films professionally. However, it was only the release of two seminal CD's - Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" and Snoop Dogg's "Doggystyle" - that unleashed J.R.'s inspiration to undertake music production.

As an accomplished and well-versed jazz pianist, J.R. recognized the jazz influences of the samples used in these two hip hop masterpieces, but did not instantly recognize the samples themselves because he was never exposed to the music of Funkadelic, Parliament, James Brown and other 70's Rock/Soul pioneers whose music was now weaving the evolving soundtrack of hip hop.

However, he did recognize how the music made people feel and react. In fact, J.R. analogizes the cross over of hip hop to the mainstream in the same way jazz must have felt to the earlier generation of mainstream youths: "I started using the hot hip hop beats of the day in my jazz sets and bought some studio equipment to make beats with." With his passion for hip hop and a new home studio, J.R. combined the discipline honed from years of formal study into making beats.

J.R.'s first big break came when a CD of his beats landed in the hands of veteran Bay Area producers who planned on using J.R.'s talents for an upcoming En Vogue album. Eventually though, this CD ended up with producer Dwayne Wiggins of Tony, Toni, Tone' fame who thought the beats better suited Beyonce and Destiny's Child. When the song "Fancy" made it on to the "Survivor" CD and a second song "My Song" ended up on a special issue Destiny's Child CD entitled "Love Destiny." J.R.'s second break came when Dr. Dre heard one of the songs J.R. had produced and demanded the song.

In the year that followed, J.R. produced deep album cuts on over 100 records for A-listers like 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, The Game, Fabolous, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Mobb Deep, Lil' Kim, The Game, Dr. Dre, Mya, Young Buck, Obie Trice, Foxy Brown, Busta Rhymes, Trick Daddy, Tre Songz, Talib Kweli, and Lil' Flip, to name a few.