From Andrew Duke Cognition Sent Fri, Dec 18th 1998, 16:51
From Andrew Duke Cognition Sent Fri, Dec 18th 1998, 16:51
John Bush wrote: > <snip> regarding American hip-hop producers and their similarities to > electronic stuff. I'm > convinced that if tracks from the latest Busta Rhymes, Timbaland or RZA LPs > (heck, even Jay-Z) were released on some obscure label without vocals, > they'd blow up around here. There's even some good productions on No Limit > Records (maybe one or two per album), with really hot cymbals going > tsss-tsss and those great start-stop bass rhythms. Maybe Wu-Tang is onto > this, since an instrumental version of RZA's album is coming out early next > year...<snip> John: I agree totally. Worked '97 and '98 in a CD store with a mainly mainstream-musiclistening-type clientele. Whenever I could get away with it, I'd sneak in the electronic music I personally dug (to get through the day *and* maybe convert some people :) ), but for the large part I had to play popular stuff. So I played *a lot* of rap, hip hop, r & b. And, like you said, some of the beats were pretty damn intricate, almost drum n bass style (of course, where the boss yelled before about "all that damn electronic music" I had been playiing on the store's system, it was now "play some rock music sometimes, too, will ya?"), and instrumentals on some of it would have have been much better. Yesterday was listening to the local hip hop/R & b show here in Halifax and the DJ played the new TLC (from Atlanta and the Babyface/Jermaine Dupri/Dallas Austin empire). The remix was more IDM than R&B, in fact, as the intro was playing, I was wondering if he had put on the wrong promo. Heavy duty electro style beat with lots of high screeches; of course, then the vocals came in and changed things a bit. It's called "Sister Ho" or something like that. And the DJ even mentioned the Timbaland connection, saying, "nope, that wasn't produced by Timbaland, it was done by Dallas Austin". Floating Aux 88 member BJ is doing hip hop/R & B now, and when I interviewed Lawrence Burden for the Octave One piece, he said Detroit and Atlanta were "working on some things together". Andrew