EARLY YEARS
Doug E Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew “The Show”
The song for the fellow Harlemite is one of Teddy’s least-known production credits, and the track Andre Harrell once deemed the official beginning of New Jack Swing.
Kool Moe D “Wild Wild West”
Another Harlem connection, and another of the lesser mentioned Teddy tracks. But you can hear the early trademarks of Teddy’s style in here.
Keith Sweat “I Want Her”
When fellow Harlem native Sweat (yes, Keith Sweat is his actual government name) got his deal, he came and found Riley to work with him on the album.
“When I came up with [the song], I didn’t know what I was doing, I just knew that it would be very interesting to see people dance to it. And it would be very exciting seeing them really get down, just doing what they want. That’s what New Jack Swing did to people. You didn’t have a certain dance you wanted to do. You just did what came to your mind because of the rhythm of the music.”
Keith Sweat “Make it Last Forever”
Riley: The first song we did was “Make It Last Forever.” It was [that song] and he was like, “Yeah, I like that. This is what I would do on it.”
Sweat: A lot of the pre-production was done at Teddy’s house in St. Nick, the projects. So we already had the pre-production done and going in the studio, we already knew what we was going to do. So we would go ahead and lay the tracks down. I was like, “Yo it would be kind of dope to put a female on this joint.” So I sung the whole song first and then came up with the idea to go put a female on the joint. After Ted heard what I did, he was like, “That’s incredible.”
Keith Sweat “Something Just Ain’t Right” & “Right and a Wrong Way”
“When (Make it Last Forever) dropped, people went crazy. It was climbing up the charts, flew off the shelves, and DJs were playing two, three cuts off the album. It was one of those things that you could only dream about. This was my first album and it sold four million albums, that’s unheard of for a new artist. Being unknown, from Harlem, from Grant Projects [Laughs]. That was unheard of. Right there in itself speaks volumes.” — Sweat
Johnny Kemp x “Just Got Paid”
Kemp also ran in the same performing circles as Riley and Sweat uptown. The eternal party jam was written for the Make It Last Forever album, but the album had already gone through final mastering before they completed the song.
Bobby Brown x “My Prerogative”
Many think that Riley produced the majority of the Don’t Be Cruel album, but in fact he only produced this track. (LA Reid and Babyface, who laid the foundations for New Jack Swing along with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, produced all the other album singles).
“He didn’t want to sing it the way I suggested and walked out of the studio. Louil Silas Jr. [former promotion executive at MCA Records], God bless, said, ‘Man, if you don’t get back in that studio, listen to the man and sing that song …’ It was some major come-to-Jesus talk. Bobby came back to the studio and sang the record. But he still had to put his two cents in there: ‘If it doesn’t go right this way, we’re going to do it my way.’ I’m like, ‘OK.’ And it wound up going my way. He gave me five and walked out. After that, Bobby and I became really good friends.” — Riley to Billboard
TODAY “Him or Me” + “Girl I Got My Eyez on You”
As much as I love Wreckx n Effect “New Jack Swing” and have recited those lyrics a gajillion times, including Teddy listing out the groups he works with, of which Today is third on the list (“I got Keith Sweat, Heavy D, TODAY, Moe D…”) I always forget to include Today in the Teddy convo. But Bub and Today also get unfairly left out of the New Jack Swing convo – and they have JAMS. I might need to start a Respect Big Bub campaign.