Michelle Shaprow is indisputable proof that the future of dance music is in good hands. The 24 year-old vocalist, producer and songwriter has written two musicals, a commercial for Coca-Cola, worked with dance music legend King Britt, and been featured on notable compilations from Norman Jay, Ministry of Sound, and Om Records. She is currently working on her first full-length album in between doing media production for VH-1 and contemplating the roles of consonance and dissonance in music perception.
Emmerald: Let's start with a big question—who is Michelle Shaprow?
Michelle Shaprow: That is a big question. I've been writing ever since I was young and I started producing in eighth grade when I wrote a musical. It was a dance/pop musical version of "The Hobbit." I wrote another musical during my senior year of high school for "Rumplestilskin." It was a new take on "Rumplestilskin"— a darker, more twisted take. Then sometime in college I started doing music for Warner Brothers which is how I hooked-up with King Britt. We've continued to do music and we've put out a couple of singles. We're doing an album now, and I'm also doing a bunch of tracks for other people like Rich Medina, Satoshi Tomiie and Mr. Easy. I don't really try to stick with one type of genre. I just do a bunch of different types of things.
Emmerald: Were you trained musically?
Michelle Shaprow: I was trained in classical music and jazz. I played piano. And then I got my Ensoniq keyboard and started producing, basically just arranging the tracks on the keyboard. Now I work with a Triton, ProTools and Logic.
Emmerald: Now, you work with VH1, right?
Michelle Shaprow: Right. I'm really interested in television. I just did a Coke commercial and I produce tracks for VH1. I've done spots like the Billboard theme music, and HIV public service announcement, and spots for the show "Strip Search." So, I do music and television; I really want to be involved in different forms of media.
Emmerald: When VH1 comes to you and says, "I want you to do this spot for 'Strip Search'," do they give you a musical idea or is that something you do from scratch?
Michelle Shaprow: We choose the track and the bites, write-up the script, direct the VO and put everything together to advertise the show. At VH-1 it's very music driven, so we always do tracks first and then video. The video's cut in to the music and the bite.
Emmerald: How much freedom do you have with choosing the music?
Michelle Shaprow: It depends. We can basically choose whatever we want, as long as it's on our list. From there, we can choose the music we like.
Emmerald: How did you make your initial connection with Warner Brothers?
Michelle Shaprow: I heard Esthero a couple of times and I loved her voice. I looked on the internet and found out who her manager was. I mean, at first, I was calling record labels, but every label doesn't accept unsolicited materials. Since Zack, Esthero's manager, was in Canada, he was very open-minded. He told me to send my stuff on, so I did. He played it for David Kahne at Warner Brothers and David loved it. So then I started working with Warner Brothers a little bit. When they hired a new president, a lot of people I signed on with left, so they weren't really moving my projects forward and I asked to leave and do some stuff on my own.
Emmerald: And how was King Britt involved, or was he?
Michelle Shaprow: It was Zack's idea to have King remix one of my songs and to have me live in Philadelphia for a year to get me into the Philly music scene. That's where I met Rich and King. King's been my most consistent supporter in the music scene; he's been like a big advocate of what I'm doing.
