Four time Grammy award winning Engineer and producer Russell Elevado was born in the Philippines and in 1972 his family immigrated to New York City at the age of five. He started his studio career in 1986 interning at Shakedown Studios in NYC owned by producer Arthur Baker. Elevado's career has spawned 50 full albums from the over 100 albums in his discography.

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  He’s widely recognized for the sound he created for D’Angelo’s “Voodoo” album which he recorded and mixed and earned him a Grammy Award for “Best R&B Album” in 2000. His use of vintage recording equipment and analog tape gave the album an “old school” sound but with a modern twist inspired by hip hop production and sampling. in 2009, he was nominated for Best Engineered Album (non classical) for his recording of Al Green’s “Lay it Down". in 2015 he won another Grammy for "Best R&B Album" as Engineer/mixer for D'Angelo's "Black Messiah" album, the long awaited follow up to Voodoo. in 2020 Elevado won a Grammy in the Best World Music category for mixing Angelique Kidjo's "Celia" album. and the same year he also received a nomination as producer/Engineer/mixer for the band Lettuce in the Best Jazz instrumental album category. in 2022 he won a fourth Grammy for Album of the Year for his work on Jon Batiste's multi winning grammy album "We Are". he also recorded and mixed "Cry" which won for Best American Roots performance and Best American Roots song.

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  His work with Questlove, the Roots and Common is also very notable, pushing the limits of organic hip hop with creative mixing resulting in a new sound for hip hop. and jazz legend Roy Hargrove's jazz/funk albums as The RH Factor produced by Elevado again benefitted from his sonic aesthietics, using the studio and equipment as his artist's tools.

 

he's worked with some of the most popular and influential artists and producers of his era like Alicia Keys (Elevado mixed her hugely successful debut single “Fallen”), Jay Z, Rick Rubin, Tony Visconti, Mark Ronson, Erykah Badu and J Dilla to name a few.

What sets him apart from his peers is his commitment to analog. He’s been quoted in many interviews about his dissatisfaction with the digital recording medium and the way it has changed the industry and the creative process of artists and production. Elevado doesn’t use any plug-ins (digital effects and processing) and uses analog equipment exclusively for processing. His dedication to analog has defined his career attracting a wide range of artists from different genres.