Smythe & Company, based in New York, has signed composer Tony Prendatt, who specializes in urban and hip-hop fare. During his 25-year industry tenure, Prendatt has been a composer, engineer, arranger and producer.
Prendatt was the principal engineer on Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which won five Grammys in ’99. Prendatt himself won two Grammys on Miseducation, for album of the year and best R&B album. Because some of the singles were released during ’99, the album is nominated for an additional four Grammys this year. Prendatt is slated to engineer Hill’s second album, which is scheduled to begin recording in March.
Prendatt’s initial collaboration with Hill segued into work for other artists. Following Miseducation, Prendatt engineered the Hill-produced "Do You Like The Way" on Santana’s Supernatural, and "All That I Can Say" on Mary J. Blige’s Mary. Santana’s album, which is nominated for 10 Grammys this year, earned Prendatt an additional Grammy nomination since the record is up for album of the year. Blige’s release clinched four Grammy nominations, including best female R&B vocal performance and best R&B song for "All That I Can Say."
Prendatt also engineered seven songs for Michael Jackson’s forthcoming release. Other recent work includes producing portions of an inspirational music release recorded by Howard Hewett, the former lead singer of R&B group Shalamar.
Throughout his career, Prendatt has engineered for artists including Public Enemy, the Wu-Tang Clan, Limp Bizkit and Curtis Mayfield, and produced albums for Doc Powell and Naughty By Nature. He also engineered the motion picture soundtrack albums for He Got Game and The Players Club.
As a composer, Prendatt has scored the video release Colorz of Rage and the feature film Loving Jezebel, the latter of which will be released by The Shooting Gallery and Universal Pictures later this year. Prendatt produced, engineered and mixed the scores for both projects. He has three film scores lined up this year, though he was not at liberty to discuss the commissions.
Experience
Prendatt said his experience in the music business gave him a compositional flair that agencies were using more and more. "The advertising industry is doing commercials that have the look and feel of record production and music videos," he said. "In order to maintain that authenticity, you’re going to have to work with people who know how to make records … and the hip-hop/ urban feel isn’t going away anytime soon." Prendatt has some ad experience, having scored a Budweiser commercial and two Nintendo spots in the early ’90s.
Prendatt said that urban music was not simply limited to hip-hop but comprised "what you go downtown and hear at [the rock venue] CBGB. Urban music also involves both hetero and gay club music." He added that he could compose in an even broader range of musical genres since, as a film composer, he had written orchestral pieces.
Janis Smythe, president of Smythe & Company, said that Prendatt’s representation evolved out of a friendship and a business philosophy that she shared with him. She described Prendatt as "somebody that you can continually learn from," who would be "an added dimension to this company."
As far as Prendatt’s compositional strengths, Smythe said: "Much of the commercial music out there is geared towards urban music, and he can do any of that stuff, but he can also do jazz [and] romantic pop songs. I don’t think there’s much that he can’t do, but we’re going to try for the urban music for him because that’s where he feels most comfortable."
Prendatt joins a roster of composers that includes Lynn Ahrens, John Van Eps and Peppy Castro. Janis Smythe reps the company nationally.
