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Looking for the Perfect Beat
By David Dodson
During the late sixties and early seventies, budget cuts eliminated music
programs in NYC public schools and a generation of youth grew up in a striving pop culture
without any music education. As a result, some of the musically inclined turned to what
they had to make music and what they had were their parent's old records. Anointed
“DJs,” these musicians searched through hundreds of records for the perfect
break or short instrumental portion of a song often with a rhythmic focus. Using their
instruments - two turntables and a makeshift fading device - DJs extended a thirty-second
break into grooves that people loved to dance to. If DJs were good, they never missed a
beat and to the listener, brand new songs were born. This was the hip-hop of old and at
the center of it was the DJ.
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The first industry-released hip-hop record "Rapper's
Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang (sans DJ) has been praised the world over for its
creative use of the Chic song “Good Times.” However, “Rapper's
Delight” paled in comparison to what DJs were doing at the time to make beats. Where
DJs used small portions of songs to piece together new songs to which MCs rapped,
“Rapper's Delight” merely featured three MCs rapping over the “Good
Times” instrumental. Notwithstanding “Rapper’s Delight,” DJs served as
intermediaries between rappers and record executives early on.
Over time, DJs began using drum machines. With machines like the Roland TR808, DJs created
their own drumbeats that when combined with their choice cuts from a few records laid a
foundation for the MC's rap, creating musical masterpieces. However, another technological
innovation simultaneously solidified hip-hop’s place in the music industry and
removed the spotlight from DJs.
Roger Linn's sampling drum machine, the Linn 9000, revolutionized the concept of making
music. Created for musicians to sample or record small portions of their own drumbeats and
play them on a drum machine, the Linn 9000’s use expanded in the hands of DJs. DJs
used the machine’s memory to sample more than drum sounds and formalized hip-hop
music as a recorded process. With the sampling drum machine, the hip-hop producer (no
longer necessarily a DJ) could sample and loop breaks from records and add their own
sounds to the mix, creating fuller songs.
Sampling technology and its usage went virtually unchallenged until lawsuits in the
90’s against De La Soul, Biz Markie and others concluded that sampling another
artist’s music without consent was copyright infringement. As a result, producers
were required to get permission from the artists they sampled. Since the necessary
consents came with a price, the practice of sampling evolved.
In the early days of the DJ, a big part of the breaks game was finding that record that no
other DJ had, that the people hadn’t heard yet and that kept folks dancing. The
options were endless, but only diligent search turned up true treasures. Although the
search for the perfect beat wasn’t a rule, it was the foundation upon which many DJs
created, even with the introduction of the sampler. Because of sample usage fees, two
things happened: 1) well-financed producers could purchase samples that almost guaranteed
hit songs and 2) producers unable or unwilling to pay fees stopped sampling all together.
In the midst of all of this flux, new sampling technology emerged that further complicated
matters.
Early sampling machines could only sample for short periods of time - two maybe three
seconds. As such, producers used small pieces of a song. Because of this limited capacity,
producers had to be creative when using samples to make them uniquely theirs. Current
sample machines can hold several minutes of sampled sounds. As a result, producers shifted
their attention from creatively using samples to finding the most creative sound to
sample. In the pop world, the word “creative” translates to the tune most likely
to be a hit. During the late nineties, this was the trend (and in many respects the
standard) of hit making. If you were willing to pay, you could buy the rights to sample an
old hit and make it your new hit.
Dr. Dre elaborated on this hit-making formula in 1992 with his classic album The Chronic.
To avoid legal precedents, Dre enlisted in-studio musicians to perform his desired music.
He then sampled their recorded performances and added his production touches to the mix.
Termed an “interpolation,” Dr. Dre’s initiative revolutionized the concept
of hip-hop production, showing other producers that hip-hop could be done without
traditional samples from previously released albums. Interpolation expanded with the
advent of digital technology like the Korg Trinity series that boasts hundreds of digital
instruments. However, this practice also led to less creativity as ideas repeated
themselves. With all this technology, producers still ended up using the same sounds.
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Technology has made beat making accessible
to almost anyone and increased competition among hip-hop producers. Currently, the hip-hop
market is waiting for that new sound to change things and all producers think they have
it. No one really knows what the next sound is going to be and in this environment, anyone
could create it. This will make producers work harder and ultimately more creatively. As
long as producers compete rather than duplicate each other, hip-hop will survive and
continue to give people what they want. M
February 2001
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