Though Mohyeldin's journalistic reputation continues to grow - born in Egypt, raised in Michigan, started as a gofer for NBC News, reared as a producer at CNN, first appeared on-camera for Al Jazeera in 2006 - his is hardly a household name, not in America at least.
I could not see myself going back into the studio without Tommy Dowd, our beloved producer who passed away in 2002. Then in 2009, Michael Lehman, my manager, really pushed me to meet with T Bone Burnett. I ended up meeting with T Bone in Memphis, and we hit it off right away; I knew he was a guy I could work with.
If you're working with a producer like Rick Rubin or whatever, you sing each line probably 30 different ways. Each time, they're like, 'Can you try it this way? Can you try it that way?' That's each line in the song, for each song.
We can be in the studio with the hottest producer, but we might not be able to create any magic! It's not about the hottest. It's about who we feel we have that connection with, and that's who we're going to be working with.
I wound up getting pulled into being a consultant on the Lifetime drama 'For the People.' The executive producer said, 'I want you to write scripts.' We sold pilots to a bunch of different networks.
All the skills of housewifery are the ones I'm using as a producer.
I'm a producer first, and I know music, so I can jump on any song, whether it's pop or urban, without changing me. Whatever I do, I'm gonna make it classic.
There was a time when I was offered two episodes of 'Alias,' that show with Jennifer Garner which J.J. Abrams did back before he became the mega producer and super successful director. I instead decided I wanted to play this family guy on a short-lived UPN 'Second Time Around.' It starred Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker.
