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Laying Down Quality Beats

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By REBEKAH CHRYSLER DOUGHTY, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 17, 2007

Updated: 10/15/2007 08:33 pm

FOREST HILLS - Anwar Joemmankhan drives a Ford Crown Victoria, has a 9-year-old son and lives in the Brandon suburbs.

Aside from the signature dreadlocks he's been growing since age 11, he appears nothing more than an average Joe. But he's not.

Joemmankhan, 29, spends his days creating beats and mixing and mastering music and his nights marketing some of the most notable local rappers - Chill the Million Dollar Man, Dream, Velventure, Southern Governors, B. Phatz and Redrum - at nightspots such as Club Fuel, Sky and Club Manilla.

Occasionally he'll get a 3 a.m. wake-up call from an Artist and Repertoire representative asking to use his studio because a famous artist is in town and needs to lay down a track or two. Such has been his life since Joemmankhan was 19.

'Personally, I didn't realize or understand what he was getting himself into,' Rosaly Watson, Joemmankhan's mother, said of her son starting a business instead of finishing at the University of South Florida. 'But he's always been motivated, and I've always encouraged him. What else can you do when a kid makes up his mind?'

Joemmankhan opened Dimensional Sound Productions on North Florida Avenue in 1997. He started with an analog mixing board, a digital hard-drive recorder and a digital multitrack machine. Since then he has added wood floors, display cases for his artists' CDs and $15,000 in upgraded equipment

'He molded me. He showed me exactly what it takes,' said rapper Sean Gates, Joemmankhan's label partner on Survival Records. 'Anwar has always put out quality - everything is so consistent and crisp. He says he has room to grow, but I don't think so. I think he's perfected his craft.'

Joemmankhan offers recording, mixing and editing services to amateur and professional musicians of all types.

'We're not exclusive here,' Joemmankhan said during a June recording session with Gates. The two were putting the finishing touches on 'I'm On It,' a song with a fun club feel on Gates' upcoming album. 'We're versatile. We cater to everybody.'

Joemmankhan began dabbling in music as a fifth-grader at Buckhorn Elementary School. He would serve as the disc jockey at friends' parties and record raps in his bedroom. He began creating his own beats in eighth grade and started thinking about making a living in music.

Joemmankhan spent his early years as a studio owner reading a lot of books and making business contacts. His clientele has since grown to 700-plus. He has no formal training, but several of his regulars call him an engineer extraordinaire.

'We keep each other on our toes,' Gates said. 'Everyone is so cutthroat in this business. You have to make sure to stick with someone you can trust.'

Joemmankhan's own music has taken a backseat to recording the music of others.

This is the biggest buzz Gates has generated since the two started working together in 2000, and the two are attempting to ride the wave. They have come to the point where Joemmankhan will put together a series of original beats and Gates will fall in love with 95 percent of them.

'He knows me so well,' said Gates, a Moss Point, Miss., native who spent eight years in the Air Force and now is married and a father to 2-year-old Melaki.

'He was just what I needed in a producer. Our relationship is bigger than the music.'

The two have spent years creating a name for Gates and the studio, but will concentrate on other artists if this album doesn't bring national recognition.

Gates, 30, said he is no longer about the image of hip hop and would prefer to focus on the business side, molding his younger brother into a successful rapper and helping Joemmankhan with the studio.

'If I'm going to go out, I'm going to do it on this album,' Gates said. 'I give them me - fans are getting the full gumbo, not just the sausage. There's chicken and crab in there, too.'

Regardless of what happens to Gates' album, Dimensional Sound will remain a Tampa staple for aspiring rap, hip-hop, reggae and R&B artists.

'I have fun doing what I do,' Joemmankhan said. 'When I do four or five sessions in one day, then it's work.'

Reporter Rebekah Chrysler Doughty can be reached at rdoughty@tampatrib.com or (813) 865-1508.

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