It's late in the afternoon on a recent Sunday and Ra Scion (of Common Market fame) and I are finishing up a session with DJ Phinisey at his East Tacoma studio, Remedy Recordings. As he is putting his jacket on, Scion inquires about a song of mine, "I Know Better," that I sent him last summer, casually saying how much he had been impressed by the beat. I crack a smile, knowing full well what is about to occur. Scion is about to be let in on Tacoma hip-hop's best kept secret. I inform him the producer and singer on that song is no other than Phinisey, the man who had just engineered our session. Scion looks over at Phinisey, raising his eyebrows and giving a nod of acknowledgement.

"Word?" he asks.

"It's true," Phinisey says with quiet confidence. "You trying to hear a couple more (beats)?" he asks.

Phinisey opens a folder, adjusts his monitors and makes his first selection. A Timbaland-style original synth, accompanied by 808 kick drums fills the air and Scion's eyes begin to widen. After about 35 seconds Phinisey plays another beat, this one, built on top of an Etta James sample, sounds like vintage Just Blaze with Jake One percussion. Scion grins, takes his jacket back off, sits down on the studio couch and says, "OK, I see we might be here a while."

Over the next 45 minutes, Phinisey plays more than 30 beats for Scion, who gives me a look after each one that says, "Who the fuck is this kid and why doesn't everyone know who he is?"

Flash back to 2008. After a decorated adolescence of vocal performances, including an appearance in the Tacoma Opera and international tours with prestigious youth choirs, and after seriously considering attending Juilliard, Phinisey enrolled at Pacific Lutheran University with a full ride scholarship to study vocal performance.

He enjoyed his courses at PLU, but during that year, in the confines of his dorm room, he began to tinker with a new microphone, keyboard and pro tools, and he discovered his true passion - musical engineering and production.

It didn't take long for Phinisey to realize he knew what he wanted to study, and it wasn't fine arts. "I started listening to music differently and gaining a lot of respect for production," Phinisey explains. "I never lost my respect for the arts, but I became really fascinated by the recording process."

To the dismay of many of his instructors, Phinisey decided to leave PLU and attend the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Science in Tempe, Ariz., one the most prestigious audio engineering schools in the country.

After a year of rigorous training in both studio and live sound recording, Phinisey returned to Tacoma in 2009. While living in a trailer next to his parents' home, he began building Remedy Recordings, now one of Tacoma's premier recording studios.

Ordinarily, after attending a school like the Conservatory, a young engineer will intern at an established studio, a stop Phinisey had no interest in making. "I knew starting my own studio would be a challenge," he confesses, "but I wanted to be my own boss and business right away."

As a producer Phinisey uses his sense of hip-hop style and natural musical ability to create instrumentals that combine the raw energy and flair of popular hip-hop beats with the musical credibility of the symphonies he used to sing with. "I want to be known as a true producer and not just a beat maker," he explains.

Currently, more than a dozen local emcees and handful more from Seattle frequent Remedy Recordings and Phinisey hopes the list will continue to grow. His production is beginning to be sought after by emcees throughout the Northwest, as well as in New York City and Atlanta.

In the next few years Phinisey plans to expand his services to include publishing, CD duplication and marketing. But for now he is focused on perfecting his current pursuits and ensuring that the music that leaves Remedy Recordings is of as high a quality as any other studio in the region. "I think the best way to expand is to do the best work possible for my current clients," he says.

This time last year Phinisey's client list consisted of two of his good friends. Now it's a who's who list of Tacoma hip-hop artists. Who all will be on it this time next year is anyone's guess, but Phinisey's talent is continuously less a of secret and more of a burgeoning staple of local hip-hop music.