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MUSIC WORLD MOURNS TOM COYNE

Tom Coyne, one of the most revered and respected mastering engineers in the business, has died. He was 62.

Coyne was best known for his prolific era working at the Hit Factory and later Sterling Sound, where he spent years polishing some of the greatest hip-hop and R&B records of the 1990s, including that of A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Too $hort, Sade, R. Kelly, Aaliyah, Common, D'Angelo, The Roots and many more.

He took home several Grammys working on Adele's 21 and 25, as well as Taylor Swift's 1989. His fingerprints are also on an array of #1 singles, including Mark Ronson f/Bruno Mars' massive "Uptown Funk," as well as hits performed by the likes of Justin Bieber and Sam Smith.

Recording Academy chief Neil Portnow issued the following statement:

Tom Coyne was a universally respected mastering engineer and was considered one of the most influential and trusted ears in music. His expertise brought an important finishing touch to the works of many icons such as Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, The Weeknd, and many others throughout his career. His mastering contributions earned him a total of 18 GRAMMY® Award nominations, six GRAMMY Awards—including back to back Album Of The Year wins for Taylor Swift's 1989 and Adele's 25—and a Latin GRAMMY Award for Marc Anthony’s Record Of The Year-winning “Vivir Mi Vida.” Our creative community has lost one of its giants. He will be greatly missed.

Several artists have taken to Twitter to mourn his loss, led by a heartfelt tribute from The Roots' Questlove:

Man this hurts. The only dude I let master all of my product #TomCoyne passed away today. Coming to his mastering studio was always my fav part of making records. He was so patient w me ESPECIALLY the way the I get down with sequencing and segue timing on albums. He knew I placed songs in rhythm like they were being spun at a club so damn near every Roots album would take an unusual 40 hour process. Not to mention all of those album intros listen to #ThingsFallApart's "Act Won" intro w MoBettaBlues dialogue---it was his idea to match the Roots commentary w Denzel/Spikes dialogue "if we had to depend on black people to eat we would starve to death/everybody wake up" "you see everybody but our people/ghead w yourself" "it incenses me/BDAHADAHDADHADA!!!!!"---he suggested it would be cool if you guys had sound bites from your own work that mirrored what the dialogue was saying. But man ALL my records and Common's albums and D'angleo----matter of fact I forgot we used Tom because he friggin did all the classic records. His ears were bar none THE BEST. All of #KoolAndTheGang's post Ladies Night albums, #BillyOcean's Suddenly album. #Whodini's Escape & the 1st #FatBoys lp. #SexPackets by #DigitalUnderground. #BDP's #Edutaiment & #SexAndViolence all the #DeLa classics all the #Tribe classics #93ToInfinity #Reachin #WolfInSheepsClothing #BlowoutComb #ReturnToThe36Chambers #LiquidSwords #OnlyBuilt4CubanLinx (his stories from this mastering session about them acting out THE ENTIRE Killer movie will be the GREATEST studio story I've ever heard) #MrSmith #ItWasWritten #Embrya #12Play #LoveDeluxe #MamasGun Brittany Robyn Beyonce 1Direction, Maroon5, Macklemore & Ryan, Pink, Mary J, Ronson, Taylor Swift---I forgot even Hamilton!!! This guy was the pair of ears we trusted to bring the music to you. Much love to his family and his children. For friggin at least 20 albums I've driven you crazy & learned so much about how people hear music (tip: most of the time we'd use a cheap clock radio speaker because if it sounds great on Horrible equipment then imagine how it bumps elsewhere!) thank you for all the lessons you've taught me Tom Coyne!!!! Music Will Never Be The Same Again.

A post shared by Questlove Gomez (@questlove) on

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