Def Jam's Lenny Santiago Reveals How He Got His First Roc-A-Fella Gig

Lenny Santiago speaks on Damon Dash hooking him up with a job at Roc-A-Fella, reveals his top five producers.

In an interview with Grind Music Radio Lenny Santiago, the vice president of A&R at Def Jam/Roc-A-Fella spoke on how he was able to get his first gig at Roc-A-Fella Records through a chance meeting with Damon Dash.

“Bad Boy wasn’t really on fire when I was there and I wanted to be somewhere from scratch…Dame actually asked me. Dame was like ‘You seem bored. You hitting you’re head on the ceiling with the promo.’ Cause we had did everything like poster boards, all kinds of crazy shit. I was done, I was over with it,” said Santiago. “And he was like ‘what you tryna do?’ and I was like ‘honestly, A&R.’”
Santiago revealed that the day after he spoke with Damon Dash he was at Roc-A-Fella working on Streets Is Watching and in the studio with Memphis Bleek and Jay-Z.

During the radio interview, Grind Music of course asked Santiago what his choices were for his top five producers and he named the following producers: Timbaland, Just Blaze, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Jermaine Dupri, and Kanye West. Although he seemed relatively confident in his choice of producers he did explain that he’ll likely be back with a revised list.

“I gotta come back and give a revised list cause I know I’m missing things. My thing with the producer thing is a producer [is] somebody who can make music, somebody who brings more than just let’s say the production to it as far as the technical track and the beat,” Santiago explained. “They bring the arrangement of it, they bring the idea of it, they bring the concept of the song with it, they bring the hook, they bring the song itself, they bring a movement.”

(hiphopdx)