Hip Hop Lesson, Part 1
So I've been feeling an urge for about a week now to put together some of my thoughts on how hip hop music works, in a technical, production sense. I'm starting today and this will be something I occasionally assemble for my LiveJournal. They'll be short form essays with accompanying music, some created by me and some clips of classic hip hop songs.
I am not actually a good hip hop producer, and most of the words I use to describe this stuff are my own private vocabulary, but I like to think the actual concepts transfer to good hip hop. This will be pretty basic stuff, if I knew anything more than the basics I'd be a professional hip hop producer.
LESSON 1: BEAT PHASE
What I mean by beat phase is how synchronized the rapping is to the beat. Let's start with one of my favorite verses ever, Guru's verse on Gang Starr's "Dwyck" featuring Nice & Smooth. Here's the 'pella:
Isn't that great? I love the part toward the end, "Lemonade was a popular drink and it still is / I get more props and stunts than Bruce Willis." Now, Guru is a very distinctive, weird rapper. He's probably one of the most monotone MCs in the history of hip hop, but he writes great verses and has fantastic flow. But that's neither here nor there.
What I want to talk about is how the rapping is phased with the beat. What I'm doing here is taking the opening break from the Skull Snaps song "It's a New Day," which is one of the most famous drum breaks of all time, and syncing up the vocals so Guru raps pretty much on time with the beat. (Incidentally, this is also the drum break used in the album version of "Dwyck.")
So if you listen you can hear "I chant / EENie, meenie, minie, moe / I wreck a mic like a pimp pimps hos / Here's how it goes ..." The beginning of each line is right on time with the initial kick drum of the pattern. It's kind of what we expect from hip hop, right? Dudes rapping on the beat.
But listen to what happens when you lag the vocals behind the beat just a little bit.
It sounds a little bit lazy, loose, laid back. When I listen to the precise version, I imagine this fierce rapper coming on stage, gripping the mic in hand like a pistol, and spitting his verse like a machine. When I listen to the delayed version, I imagine the rapper kicking back in the studio, maybe with a beer or some weed in hand, literally leaning back in his chair and spitting his verse for a bunch of friends who're cheering him on.
Both of these are valid sensations to conjur in the mind of a listener, I'm just pointing out how a few milliseconds of delay on a vocal can cause a completely different effect.
Listen to what DJ Premier does on the album version of the song (skip to 1:40 in the video to hit Guru's verse). It's somewhere between our precise version and our lazy version. Which makes sense, this is a party anthem so you want it to be a little laid back, but they do reign it somewhat more than my admittedly exaggerated delay.
But listen to Guru's verse closely and you'll hear that he's kind of going in and out of phase. When he pops in on the "eenie meenie" line at the beginning he's right on time. But then by the time he gets "I'll shake this, you'll take this, I'm kinda fiendish" he's totally lagging the beat. But then, appropriately, as he gets to "Premier's got more beats than barns got hay" he's back on time again.
So anyway, it's interesting to me that in the studio, a rapper could be rapping totally on time, and then the producer could make the decision after the fact to lag it a little bit if they want some of that laid back vibe. That's beat phase for ya.
I am not actually a good hip hop producer, and most of the words I use to describe this stuff are my own private vocabulary, but I like to think the actual concepts transfer to good hip hop. This will be pretty basic stuff, if I knew anything more than the basics I'd be a professional hip hop producer.
LESSON 1: BEAT PHASE
What I mean by beat phase is how synchronized the rapping is to the beat. Let's start with one of my favorite verses ever, Guru's verse on Gang Starr's "Dwyck" featuring Nice & Smooth. Here's the 'pella:
Isn't that great? I love the part toward the end, "Lemonade was a popular drink and it still is / I get more props and stunts than Bruce Willis." Now, Guru is a very distinctive, weird rapper. He's probably one of the most monotone MCs in the history of hip hop, but he writes great verses and has fantastic flow. But that's neither here nor there.
What I want to talk about is how the rapping is phased with the beat. What I'm doing here is taking the opening break from the Skull Snaps song "It's a New Day," which is one of the most famous drum breaks of all time, and syncing up the vocals so Guru raps pretty much on time with the beat. (Incidentally, this is also the drum break used in the album version of "Dwyck.")
So if you listen you can hear "I chant / EENie, meenie, minie, moe / I wreck a mic like a pimp pimps hos / Here's how it goes ..." The beginning of each line is right on time with the initial kick drum of the pattern. It's kind of what we expect from hip hop, right? Dudes rapping on the beat.
But listen to what happens when you lag the vocals behind the beat just a little bit.
It sounds a little bit lazy, loose, laid back. When I listen to the precise version, I imagine this fierce rapper coming on stage, gripping the mic in hand like a pistol, and spitting his verse like a machine. When I listen to the delayed version, I imagine the rapper kicking back in the studio, maybe with a beer or some weed in hand, literally leaning back in his chair and spitting his verse for a bunch of friends who're cheering him on.
Both of these are valid sensations to conjur in the mind of a listener, I'm just pointing out how a few milliseconds of delay on a vocal can cause a completely different effect.
Listen to what DJ Premier does on the album version of the song (skip to 1:40 in the video to hit Guru's verse). It's somewhere between our precise version and our lazy version. Which makes sense, this is a party anthem so you want it to be a little laid back, but they do reign it somewhat more than my admittedly exaggerated delay.
But listen to Guru's verse closely and you'll hear that he's kind of going in and out of phase. When he pops in on the "eenie meenie" line at the beginning he's right on time. But then by the time he gets "I'll shake this, you'll take this, I'm kinda fiendish" he's totally lagging the beat. But then, appropriately, as he gets to "Premier's got more beats than barns got hay" he's back on time again.
So anyway, it's interesting to me that in the studio, a rapper could be rapping totally on time, and then the producer could make the decision after the fact to lag it a little bit if they want some of that laid back vibe. That's beat phase for ya.