Rashida Jones, Sunny Levine Talk Nineties Nostalgia, Breezy New Single
Producer Sunny Levine comes from one of the most famous musical families. His grandfather, Quincy Jones, worked with legends like Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, and his father, Stewart Levine, produced albums for Simply Red, B.B. King and Minnie Riperton. Sunny’s own résumé is also pretty stacked: The producer has worked with Pete Yorn, Scarlett Johansson and Lenka, to name a few.
On his latest album, Volume 1, Levine — working under the alias Boss Selection — fuses the old with the new, collaborating with artists such as Orelia, Brenda Russell and James Gadson, as well as another famous member of his family: his aunt Rashida Jones. Jones not only shows off her vocal chops on the smooth single “Flip and Rewind” but also co-directed the Nineties-inspired music video with writing partner Will McCormack.
Jones and Levine interviewed each other for Rolling Stone about music, family and the special day they spent shooting the fun, throwback clip together.
Rashida Jones: Sunny let’s start with some basics for the people who don’t know you as well as I do. What is your name?
Sunny Levine: My name is Sunny Levine, you know what I mean?
RJ: And you are a musician …
SL: I am a musician. I am a record producer, songwriter, sometimes a singer and now I’ve done this Boss Selection record where I’m trying to take all of those things and combine it with the fact that I like working with people that I dig, and you are one of them.
RJ: Thank you. That is very nice. My opinion is that you like to create a vibe …
SL: I like to create a vibe in totality, and I love working with people. I didn’t want to wait for the phone to ring to get work or to get hired to produce someone’s record that I lik,e so rather than doing that, this is me reaching out to people that I love to work with and just doing a song with them. For the most part, it was pretty casual. Everybody just came in, and we knocked out a song together, wrote it, made a track, sang on it, and I would sit there and tinker with it and make it a little bit better. Then I’d check with each person, and that is my favorite thing to do. If I could do that every day with a different person, I would be the happiest man ever.
RJ: Well, you can, and you have! For now.
SL: Yeah, so my happiness is so reachable.