Meet The Producer Who Is Changing The Future Of The Industry Amidst COVID-19
Grammy-Nominated and NAACP Award-Winning Producer Emile Ghantous is no stranger to making hits. As the mastermind behind award-winning tracks by names ranging from Chris Brown to Snoop Dogg, Prince Royce to Pitbull, and legends such as Charlie Wilson – Ghantous does not shy away from a challenge. And so when he was tasked with producing a 15-person global hit virtually, he rose to the occasion. And the results may be changing the industry as a whole.
Emile Ghantous recently teamed with internet ultra-sensation, Now United, to produce their most recent hit, “By My Side”, which resulted in a total knockout, garnering an impressive 330K streams and 3.7M video views in under one week. Although these numbers are remarkable, it’s the way in which “By My Side” was created that is catching the attention of industry professionals, sparking conversations and molding expectations of just where the industry is headed in years to come.
Amidst the Stay At Home restrictions due to COVID-19, the “By My Side” producer found a way to create this track, consisting of the vocals of 15 individual members, all from different parts of the world, via separate iPhone voicenotes sent to him via text. Ghantous then took the low-res recordings and worked tirelessly on engineering them to sound like a high-budget, in-studio, collaborative piece.
“I took the recordings and moved everything around manually until they lined up in Logic, and started equalizing and creating vocal chains for each singer according to the room they recorded in. Some lines were even split into 5 tracks to get all the tones to match,” explains Ghantous.
And hundreds of thousands of streams later, the song has proven to be a major hit, and the industry is taking notes on the new production style. With COVID-19 showing no signs of letting up on Stay At Home restrictions, this production style has started a trend. With “By My Side” proving to be such a major success, Ghantous is now working on a number of other songs for Now United and other artists.
It’s an understatement to say the world is facing some difficult times right now. In the music industry, artists are feeling the effects no matter what capacity they part-take in it. The traditional processes of music-making are being challenged, and activities such as record-producing, which, from the beginning of time, have depended heavily on studio sessions with hundred-thousand-dollar technology, are threatening artist’s livelihoods and futures. But as they say, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”. And Ghantous proved once again, he is as tough as a veteran Hollywood producer comes.
“I didn’t want to let physical boundaries stop us from creating something we love. In this industry, you have to adapt to survive. We took what we were given and made something great of it. It was tricky but we made it work,” says Ghantous. “You have to find a way to get things done. I believe there should never be an excuse for why you can’t get things done, and if you are waiting for someone else to do them for you, then you will most likely be waiting for a long time. You should NEVER have any excuses. Technology should be your best friend, and if you want to take this business seriously, you need to put in the work.”
Rather than letting this put a halt on the hits, he once again proves why he has risen to success time and time again in an ever-changing industry; by adapting to the circumstances, using some creativity, and lots of hard work. Thanks to this work ethic, artists will continue to work, listeners will continue to hear the songs they love, and hopefully people will remain hopeful for better times to come.
IG: @emileghantous
FB: @emile.ghantous
