Words by Jesse Serwer—

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the death of one of the modern era’s greatest recording artists, Amy Winehouse. As we pointed out in the story we published two days later, “Amy In The Sun,” beyond the vintage soul and jazz she was known for, Amy was also greatly inspired by reggae and Caribbean culture in general, an influence that manifested in a number of great but often overlooked records. As it happens, we just sat down with Salaam Remi, the producer behind many of those records and Amy’s closest musical collaborator, at his Miami studio just the other day (Look out for our full feature on Salaam coming soon). Naturally, Amy came up and, in light of today’s anniversary, we thought it was only appropriate to share that part of the interview here.