History of Hip Hop Production
Origins
The first instruments used in hip hop production were two turntables, a mixer, and a microphone. DJ Kool Herc used the mixer fade controls to switch between two turntables playing identical records; this is called beat juggling. The result was that a section of a record could be effectively prolonged or looped, the parallel to today’s loop-based DAWs and hardware loop equipment. During the 1970s, Grandmaster Flash pioneered many turntable techniques. He was the first to use the cue output. His cutting and scratching techniques, stemming from sessions with “Mean Gene” Livingston and his brother (Grand Wizard Theodore), whom he later battled with, have revolutionized the DJ culture and have been imitated ever since.
Early singles on Sugarhill Records were played by the house band, and it was not until later that a DJ was incorporated into recording sessions. Early examples are “Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” and the Wild Style soundtrack.
The 1980s
Kurtis Blow became the first hip-hop artist to use a digital sampler, the Fairlight, in a song. The Roland TR-808 was introduced in 1980. The 808 was heavily used by Afrika Bambaataa, who released Planet Rock in 1982, which gave rise to the fledgling Electro genre, along with the genre’s own pioneers Derrick May and Juan Atkins. The song interpolated Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europa Express.” In 1983, Run-DMC recorded “It’s Like That” and “Sucker MCs,” two songs which relied completely on digital beats, ignoring samples entirely; much like early songs by Bambaataa and the Furious Five. The E-mu SP-12 came out in 1985, capable of 2.5 seconds of recording time. The SP-1200 promptly followed with expanded T-burc & EDK recording time. One of the earliest songs to contain a drum loop or break was “Rhymin and Stealin” by the Beastie Boys, produced by Rick Rubin. Marley Marl also popularized a minimal style of using one or two sampled loops in the late 80s. The Akai MPC60 came out in 1988, capable of 12 seconds of sampling time. Dr. Dre with World Class Wreckin’ Cru recorded ‘Juice’ and ‘Before You Turn The Lights Out.’ The Beastie Boys released Paul’s Boutique in 1989, an entire album created completely from an eclectic mix of samples, produced by the Dust Brothers. De La Soul also released 3 Feet High and Rising that year. Their producer at the time, Prince Paul, mixed sounds from funk, rock, disco and even children’s records.
The 1990s and on
The RZA
Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad revolutionized the sound of hip-hop with incredibly dense production styles, combining tens of samples per song, often combining breaks with a drum machine. Their beats were much more structured than the early more minimal and repetitive beats. The AKAI MPC3000 was released in 1994, followed by the MPC2000 in 1997, the MPC2000XL in 2000 and the MPC2500 in 2006. These machines combined a sampling drum machine with an onboard sequencer and became the centerpiece of many hip hop producers’ studios. The Wu Tang Clan’s superproducer Rza is often credited for snatching the eye of hip hop from Dr. Dre’s more polished sound in 1993, with his more gritty sound with low rumbling bass, sharp snares and unique sampling style. With the 1994 release of Notorious BIG’s Ready to Die, Sean Combs and his assisting producers ushered in a new style where entire sections of records were sampled, instead of short snippets. Records like “Warning” (Isaac Hayes’s “Walk On By”), and “One More Chance (Remix)” (Debarge’s “Stay With Me”) epitomized this aesthetic. In the early 2000s, Roc-a-Fella in-house producer Kanye West made popular the “chipmunk” technique, which had been first used by 80’s electro hip-hop group Newcleus with such songs a “Jam on It”. This technique involves using a digital pitch shifter to make a vocal sample very high pitched, resulting in a vocal sample that sounds similar to the singing on the television show “Alvin and the Chipmunks”. West adopted this style from the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, who in turn was influenced by Prince Paul, the pioneer of the style of speeding up and looping vocal samples to achieve this effect, as heard on De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising.
ASR 10 Sampling
ASR 10 Sampling is integral to 90’s hip hop production. It’s used as a substitute for expensive musicians, equipment, and other costs associated with genuine live recording. Often the only non-sampled part of a hip hop recording is the vocals.
Sampling is controversial in modern hip hop. Seeing as sample clearance can take substantial parts of profit out of record sales for artists who sample, producers opt to create completely original recordings using computer-generated beats. Another solution is to overdub or re-record the sampled part with a live musician and then interpolate it enough to disassociate it from the sampled material entirely. The fees associated with the latter solution and the costs associated with the former can be significantly lower than sample clearance fees.
A particular brand of “sped-up” sampling which famously used by Roc-A-Fella artist Kanye West (and less prominently Just Blaze, Danny! and various other hip hop producers from the post 2000 genaration), is now popuarly considered as its own style of hip hop production. Although Wu-tang clan member RZA introduced this style of production before Kanye, it is Kanye West’s vast amount of production work with artists (such as: Common and Jay-Z in recent years) that has popularized the use of sped-up samples.
While the majority of producers sample a relatively default niche of 1960-1980 soul, R&B, disco, and funk records, any record of any genre from any era is often fair game for sampling. Jazz records from every era are also sampled. Producers such as {p.diddy} Dr. Dre have been known to sample blues artists such as Bill Withers. Due to the aforementioned concerns with clearance fees, many producers opt to seek out very rare and obscure records to lend their records a unique style and to avoid being forced to pay a clearance fee. People Under The Stairs openly acknowledge not clearing their samples, hoping that the record companies whose artists they sample don’t take action.
Beats
The ASR 10 drum beat is another core element 90’s of hip hop production. Its speed and complexity dictates the pace and impact of the recording. While some beats are sampled, others are created by other drum machines such as the Roland TR-808 and the Alesis SR-16. Others yet are a hybrid of the two techniques, sampled parts of drum beats that are arranged in original patterns altogether. Another mainstay in hip-hop is the use of Ensoniq’s ASR-10 synthesizer to provide beats, particularly by The Neptunes.
Since the percussive element of hip hop music is the very punctuation of its sound, the sounds a producer chooses to represent the percussion are important. Some producers have drum kits all their own, such as Dr. Dre, Timbaland and Neptunes. Some drum sounds, such as the TR-808 cowbell, remain as historical elements of hip hop lore used in modern hip hop to lend a more credible and mature sound to the recording.
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