Browsing Category
Front Page
Excerpts From The BeatTips Manual: How DJ Premier Sees Himself As a Producer
"I’m always a consumer first. Then I’m a DJ. Then I’m a producer. And then I’m
an artist!"
Why the GOATS Were Young: Age, Poetry, and Lyricism In Hip Hop/Rap Music
Comparative analysis in hip hop/rap music is always a tricky endeavor. Taking different rappers and…
BeatTips Certified: Grafh, Mike & Keyz, Jason Martin – “Concrete Jungle”…
Call it a product, a brand, or a sound, the best thing that any artist can offer is their own unique…
How Many Drum Sounds Are Enough?
The number of drum sounds that a beatmaker (producer) should have is debatable. There are some who…
BeatTips List of Sample-Based Songs to Study: Madvillain – “Fancy Clown”
I’m a strong advocate for MusicStudy. In my book The BeatTips Manual, I describe the importance of…
The Main Ingredients of A Successful Loop
The success of a loop depends on a number of things but mainly: The chop (truncation) of the sound, the…
The Music Industry’s Policy On Sample Clearance Is Prior Restraint, and the RIAA Must End It
With regards to sampling, the Constitution already protects our right to the freedom of speech. The…
Dope Sample Flips: Mobb Deep – “Trife Life” (1995) (prod. by Havoc) and Norman…
A sample flip doesn’t just refer to the technical changes made to made to a sample, like chops and…
DJ Clark Kent on Beats, Creativity, and the Big Smoke Screen in Music
20 years ago, I interviewed legendary Brooklyn DJ/Producer DJ Clark Kent. Sadly, today, October 26,…
Post-Disco: Uptown Meets Downtown — Hip Hop, Punk, and the Art World
Whenever the connection between hip hop and punk is mentioned, the assumption is that we’re talking…