Camara Kambon

Camara Kambon is an American film composer, songwriter, pianist, music producer and educator.

Camara Kambon grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Starting at the age of 4, Kambon developed an interest in piano, composing his first original riffs at age 6. At 10, Kambon received the Jacques Kahn scholarship to attend the Peabody Preparatory School of the Johns Hopkins University, to study jazz, classical piano, and musicianship.

Later at 14, he performed with jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. In the same year, he met Bill Cosby collaborator, Stu Gardner, which led to an interest in composing for TV and film.

In the fall of 1991, Kambon received a Jesse Stone scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he majored in film scoring and music production & engineering. In 1993, he composed the scores for Dancing: New Worlds, New Forms and Malcolm X: Make it Plain. In 1995, Kambon premiered his commissioned piece, Korikabaya, with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

After graduating from Berklee in 1995, Kambon moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a composer. In the following year, he became the youngest composer to win a national Emmy award for scoring the HBO film, Sonny Liston: The Mysterious Life and Death of a Champion. In the same year, Kambon was hired to work with rapper and record producer Dr. Dre as his keyboardist, music director and orchestrator in residence for all recordings of his company, Aftermath Entertainment. He contributed to songs including Dr. Dre's Still D.R.E, Forgot About Dre, Xxxplosive, and The Next Episode, Eminem’s My Name Is and Guilty Conscious; Snoop Dogg’s B**** Please. In addition, he co-wrote Mary J. Blige’s Family Affair, which became the singer’s first song to top the Billboard Hot 100.

Kambon has worked with several directors and producers, including Oliver Stone, Tyler Perry, Mara Brock Akil, F. Gary Gray, John Singleton, Reggie Rock Bythewood, Rick Famuyima, LeVar Burton, Orlando Bagwell, and Macky Alston. Kambon holds a master's degree in transpersonal psychology from Atlantic University. In addition, he educates young composers and songwriters while performing as a jazz pianist.

Awards

1995: Emmy Award for scoring the HBO film Sonny Liston: The Mysterious Life and Death of a Champion.
1997: Emmy nomination for scoring the HBO documentary, Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?.
1997: BMI Film/TV Award for scoring Sonny Liston: The Mysterious Life and Death of a Champion.
2001: Grammy nomination for co-writing Mary J. Blige’s song Family Affair.
2001: Grammy nomination for his keyboard work on Nelly Furtado’s album Whoa, Nelly!.
2002: Grammy nomination for his keyboard work on Eve’s album Scorpion.
2002: Emmy nomination for scoring the HBO documentary A City on Fire: The Story of the ’68 Detroit Tigers.
2003: BMI Pop Award for co-writing Mary J. Blige’s song Family Affair.