Russell Elevado

We started our first sessions there at the end of 1996. We were there early. At the beginning of 1997, we pretty much booked Studio A for the entire year. There was no mixing. It was just straight jamming and recording for a whole year. There was tons of recording happening. We went through 200 reels of tape that year. I think we came to Electric Lady at the right time. They had their regular clients that had been coming there for years, but there wasn’t any hustle and bustle going on until after we started working there. Everybody started visiting us at the studio. People were starting to hear what we were working on. We had major stars coming in like Mariah Carey, Lauryn Hill, Q-Tip, Eric Clapton, Chris Rock, Rick Rubin, and not to mention all the amazing people and musicians who were involved in making Voodoo.

Questlove

Every day was a new adventure. For instance, Pino would say, “OK. I’m here for two weeks. Let’s make use of it.” The same thing when Charlie Hunter came on board. He had three weeks to spare, then he would go on the road. I had the same thing, but I didn’t want to miss any of the magic. Sometimes I would go home and then D would call me and say, “Yo. You have to listen to what Charlie and I did last night.” He would play me something, and I would be seething with jealousy because I wasn’t there for the magic. I knew instantly that whatever album we were making was going to be a historical moment. I knew it instantly. I didn’t want to miss anything, even if it meant that I had to set up shop in the same studio, and that’s what I ended up doing.

Bilal

I had a sleeping bag there because I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to live there.

Questlove

When D did his vocals, he liked to be alone and secluded. A majority of Voodoo was done on two-inch tape. With Pro Tools, he could spend nine hours on vocals. On two-inch tape, the songs would go on for like four days with all these intricate bobs and weaves of vocal parts. So on days where he devoted himself to vocals, I’d run back to Philly to record with The Roots. After a while, that got tiring. Suddenly, we started using Studio B at Electric Lady. D’Angelo’s day would start at six o’clock in the evening. He would call a session for two o’clock, but we knew that meant either six or seven in the evening. Having set up shop in Studio A, I decided to take advantage of the situation because by this point, everybody was starting to get a whiff of the aroma that was coming out of 52 W. 8th St.

I’ll say that activity at Electric Lady went full throttle in early 1998. By early 1998, a typical day in Electric Lady and this is from the D’Angelo point of view, at six in the evening, D’Angelo would arrive at the studio, and usually he was coming from the gym. If you remember, he was severely cut and in shape. It was first time I heard about the nine carb diet. If you walked into the break room, there were twenty pieces of turkey bacon and a bunch of lettuce. That was D’Angelo’s snack. I would set up shop there. There was a TV and a VCR inside of the break room. Before YouTube, I was YouTube. I was the one going to Europe and Asia, and I would come back with the largest Kipling bags stuffed with 40 to 50 VHS tapes of every Prince concert, Soul Train episode, every Michael Jackson concert, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye concert.