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Shama "Sak Pase" Joseph is a Grammy Award nominated Haitian-American musical composer and record producer. He is best known for his production on Rihanna's "Man Down", Busta Rhymes "Why Stop Now" featuring Chris Brown, Swizz Beats "Bonkers",Verse Simmons "Boo Thang" featuring Kelly Rowland And is the only producer to have two records on the "Watch The Throne" Album by Jay-Z & Kanye West, "Who Gon Stop me", and "Made in American" featuring Frank Ocean.

Shama “Sak Pase” Joseph of the Jugganauts does something distinctive when he starts making a beat.

He thinks.

The Atlanta-based producer-songwriter-engineer imagines making something striking, something pulled from his expansive musical background. It’s a formula the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, native used to compose Rihanna’s reggae-infused “Man Down” and Watch The Throne’s jarring “Who Gon Stop Me” and soulful “Made In America.” It’s also the schematic that has made Joseph one of music’s most in-demand beatsmiths.

“I visualize music,” says Joseph, who has earned Grammy nominations due to his work on Rihanna’s Loud album, which is up for Album Of The Year, and Watch The Throne’s The Throne, which is in the running for Best Rap Album. “I visualize a performance. I try to envision what each part of a performance would sound like. I think about what sounds I would hear if I were in a stadium and how you would hear those songs being performed. Without knowing it, I make music that’s this gumbo of all these different things I remember from when I was growing up. I listened to so many genres growing up.”

 Biography 

Raised in Florida by hard-working Haitian parents, Joseph listened to the wide range of music his parents enjoyed, from Haiti’s indigenous kompa and zouk musics to reggae, calypso, soca and American soul and R&B. So as his cousins became infatuated with life in the streets, Joseph took piano lessons and fell in love with melody and rhythm. His father also encouraged his musical development by buying him a radio and inserting him as the keyboardist in the family’s church – even though he wasn’t proficient at the time.

As he developed his craft, Joseph spent several years traveling and pursuing educational and professional opportunities, including attending schools in Michigan and Florida and working for an independent music production company in the Los Angeles area. Being flown to LA to make music held special significance for Joseph: it was confirmation and validation that that he could make a living making music. He knew he could do it.

While in Southern California, Joseph and his Jugganauts partner Verse Simmonds connected with Ak’Sent, a female rapper signed to Capitol Records. The pair worked on the majority of her International album, which went gold in Japan. After this success, Joseph and Simmonds moved to Atlanta in 2007. It proved to be beneficial, as the pair started getting a steady stream of writing and production work for a number of emerging acts before Joseph broke through first with Rihanna and then Watch The Throne.

As his workload increased, Joseph began pulling more and more from his major musical inspirations, production mavens such as Quincy Jones, Rick Rubin, Phil Spector and Freddie Mercury. They were all musical giants who created landmark material by bringing the best out of themselves and their collaborators.

“I spend a lot of time in the studio trying to find ways to fuse all these different people,” Joseph says. “I really study other producers and try to bring what music sounds like from a visual aspect.”

Indeed, Joseph’s musical dexterity has enabled him to secure work with a variety of artists, from Verse’s “Boo Thang” with Kelly Roland and Miranda Brooke’s “Hater” to current and forthcoming work with Jay-Z, Kanye West, Busta Rhymes, Chris Brown, Usher, Jeremih, Chrisette Michele, Sean Paul, T.I., Mavado, Maxine Ashley, Parade (a British group a la the Spice Girls) and pop-rock act Matthew Koma, among others.

Though he has become one of music’s most sought-after producers, Joseph knows that his parents’ integrity and high moral standards played a key role in his personal and musical development. Thus, in order to pay homage to both his parents and to his Haitian heritage, Joseph uses the tag “Sak Pase” (Haitian Creole for “What happening?”) as his nickname and as a greeting on his compositions.

Now, after working diligently for more than a decade before getting his big break, Joseph understands the key to his success. “My faith in God and my spiritual upbringing, I hold them as the sole reasons that I’m still doing music,” he says. “They really helped me keep my sanity. Where I’m from, I didn’t have everything that I wanted but I was happy with what I had. That really helped get me to the point where I am. I’m in love with music. I’m in love with the process. I have the desire to make the greatest piece of music possible.”

And that drive helps Shama “Sak Pase” Joseph of the Jugganauts create classic material. One thought at a time.