You’re either going to love or hate these offerings. I don’t anticipate indifference.
In the last six months, I’ve been listening to a lot of a breaks. If you know anything about hip-hop’s history, you know that its musical roots lie in DJs creating musical backing by using two copies of a record to repeat a short musical passage over and over. In time, samplers were used to create loops. The heart of hip-hop’s music continues to center on the use of samples.
The term “break” comes from the technique in pop music production to briefly pause the main musical expression for an interlude. Sometimes all the instruments drop out except for the percussion. Sometimes it might be a riff with just bass and piano or a burst of horns. The musical phrase needs to be spare in construction to more easily facilitate its manipulation in hip-hop production.
DJs and producers have been taking part in “crate digging” for years, seeking out rare records to sample. While the cognoscenti always prefer the original versions (on vinyl), there have been collections over the years, such as the famous Ultimate Breaks and Beats series. Part of the value for me of listening to these records is to appreciate the craft in sampling. There is, I feel, a prejudice against the use of sampling, that it’s either lazy or outright thievery. Although the producers want to hide their sources, it can be illuminating to go back to the originals.
Here’s where it gets geeky. Some producers have created lengthy medleys of songs, short snippets patched together. Here are two of them. You’ll either listen to them all the way through, recognizing hip-hop songs that utilize these samples, or you’ll duck out after a minute or so.
Kon and Amir (a.k.a. Christian Kon Taylor and Amir Abdullah) have been releasing the On Track series since 1997 and have just released Volume 6. The Aphilliates‘ Don Cannon and Jaycee joined with “The Record King” Gene Brown to create the mixtape Sample Clearance, which uses more than 150 songs. Here is one track from each work.
Kon and Amir – Disc Two, Track Two — BUY
Don Cannon, Jaycee & Gene Brown – Session One — BUY
Tags: Kon and Amir, Don Cannon Jaycee & Gene Brown, breaks, hip-hop, MP3s
One Response
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trev Says:
wicked. very insightful, i buy a lot of these records too, the producer series ones and all that, thanks for the mp3’s.