TEAM DEDE

Team DEDE is the lead Production team for the music division of Do Em Dirty Entertainment (aka DEDE). While appreciating all genres, Team DEDE mainly composes Hip-Hop and R&B music. Influences include fellow producers The Neptunes, Timbaland, Kanye, Dr. Dre, Andre 3000, Scott Storch and 40, among others. They are also very influenced by older music including Classical, Motown, Rock, Reggae, Pop and probably a lot of other stuff they can’t think of right now.

Team DEDE began working with local music artists in early 2010 and now have a roster for DEDE Records that includes TL, Ariginal and Qedj.

Watch out for big things coming from Team DEDE in 2010 and beyond

The team is made up of two people: Nash Collins and Rich Smith (aka Maurice). The two met while in high school through some friends and a mutual appreciation for basketball. It wasn’t until both were in their early 20’s did they start hanging out and exchanging music.

Let’s describe the musical background of each before meeting:

Growing up in a musical family, Maurice was introduced to several different types of music from an early age. Some of his favorites included The Jackson 5, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Prince. Maurice was known to play the drums on pots and pans in his mother’s kitchen. This later transformed into a love for Hip-Hop and R&B music as those genres grew during his teenage years.

For music, Nash was more influenced by his peer groups growing up than his family. His first favorite bands were punk rock/grunge style groups like Green Day, Nirvana, Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots. His parents also listened to The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and, the band he was named after, Crosby, Stills & Nash. He was also exposed to classical piano music in 2nd grade when his teacher played it all day in class believing it helped the children learn better. He later got into Hard Rock and Heavy Metal in high school listening to bands like Metallica, AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne. This is when Nash began playing guitar, but later dropped it as he lost interest.

The summer of 2003 was the real start of Team DEDE, though neither of them knew it at the time. The summer days mostly consisted of playing basketball every afternoon at Meder Street Park near UC Santa Cruz and listening to songs produced by The Neptunes and Timbaland. Nash didn’t really like Rap music much before hearing these producers, but grew to love the genre from that point on.

After that Nash moved out of town for several years to attend school in San Diego and later work in Huntington Beach. It was when Nash moved back to Santa Cruz in the Summer of 2009 that the duo really started working hard on producing music. Using programs like Pro Tools and Reason, the guys are able to produce, record and mix tracks using their own computers at home or in the studio.

We don't play live. We just compose, record and mix the music. But we do organize live shows for artists on our label that perform songs that include our beats.

Our influences include fellow producers The Neptunes, Timbaland, Kanye, Dr. Dre, Andre 3000, Scott Storch and 40, among others. They are also very influenced by older music including Classical, Motown, Rock, Reggae, Pop and probably a lot of other stuff they can’t think of right now.