Hilliard-bred music producer nominated for several Grammys

Music producer Angel Lopez will be returning home from Los Angeles this weekend for a celebration at Natalie's Grandview.

The Hilliard native has won a Grammy for his work with Ye, formerly Kanye West, and is up for several more Grammys this year for his work with rapper Jack Harlow.

Lopez will discuss his craft and receive honors from the Columbus Music Commission at its first-annual “Jingle Mingle” on Dec. 19. The Jingle Mingle is the culmination of this year's series of “Music Mondays,” which bring local and national music professionals together with aspiring local musicians and producers.

The event is already fully booked, but a video will be available to view on the Columbus Music Commission's website (musiccolumbus.com) starting in mid-January.

Lopez, 33, has been living in Los Angeles officially for four years now, though he's been hanging out there for longer.

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“I was pretty much in Airbnbs and hotels before that,” he said, speaking by phone from Los Angeles.

He grew up making beats on whatever surfaces he could find, including tables at school. Though he played guitar in middle school, he didn't see himself becoming a musician.

“I knew that I didn't have that strength. But I had the strength of getting the best out of artists. I learned how to refine the process and what the producer actually does in a room.”

Timbaland gave Angel Lopez his big break

After years eking out a living as a producer in Columbus, working out of a laundry room in the one-bedroom apartment where he and his wife lived in Galloway, he got a break when his music was discovered by rapper and music producer Timbaland.

“He took me under his wing," Lopez said.

"He told me, 'I'm going to teach you how to do this.' For a while, when I would go to sessions, I wouldn't even be able to add anything. He would just have me set up in a corner. I would see the way he moved and what he did and how he got the results he was getting. That's what helped me."

Lopez said he noticed how Timbaland waited for the right moment to make the right suggestion.

"I just started homing in on that skill set," Lopez said. "You have to learn where to chime in and where to wait.”

The strategy of using patience and learning to read the room has paid off for him.

Angel Lopez worked with Ye and Jack Harlow

In 2021, he got producing credit for Ye's “Jesus Is King,” which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian album.

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Then, Lopez met Jack Harlow through Timbaland.

“We had a lot in common," Lopez said. "We love soccer, we're from the Midwest, we grew up on the same music. We just tucked down, and for a whole year, we were in the room, sometimes 12 or 14 hours, five days in the week. It was hard. But we made the music we wanted to make.”

Lopez will be working with Harlow again next year, but before that, he has been putting the final touches on Jennifer Lopez's upcoming album, “This Is Me ... Now.”

“Working with her, that was a full-circle moment for me,” Lopez said. “I remember walking around in sixth grade, trying to be cool, saying, 'Yeah, Jennifer Lopez, that's my aunt.' Some people would actually believe me.”

Lopez is guest of honor for Columbus Music Commission's first-annual the Jingle Mingle

Bruce Garfield, the executive director of the Columbus Music Commission, chose Lopez as guest of honor for the Jingle Mingle.

“Mark Abrams, a producer and engineer connected with Vaughan Studios, who has served as a mentor for our programs, told me about Angel,” Garfield said. “I knew his name, but I didn't know he grew up here. For all the success he's had, he's so Columbus-centric. He's humble, he's articulate and thankful for anything he has. You don't always meet people like that.”

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Lopez was eager to participate.

“This whole thing with Bruce and what he's doing in the city is something I've always dreamed of,” Lopez said. “The idea of making Columbus a music city. Coming up, I didn't have those opportunities. The fact that there's infrastructure now to help people is really moving. So, when Bruce called me up, I said, 'Absolutely.' I've always wanted to bring something back home.”

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Music Commission to honor producer Angel Lopez from Hilliard