Instrumental Education – Lesson 1: Production Basics

Instrumental hip hop albums are becoming more common with each year that passes, but the majority of fans don’t quite understand instrumental hip hop, which is very reasonable because history has taught us that hip hop music is generally made up of beats AND rhymes. Through a series of posts, I’m going to attempt to get the visitors of The Hip Hop Post up to speed on instrumental hip hop. But, before I get into trying to explain what makes an instrumental hip hop album good and throwing out recommendations, I think it’s important to provide a better understanding of hip hop production in general.

Most hip hop production is based around sampling. A good producer will take a sample and make it his own. My personal favorite usage of a sample is in El-P’s production for the Cannibal Ox song “Pigeon” which samples “Portrait of Tracy” by Jaco Pastorius. The original Jaco Pastorius song is interpreted as a love song for his first wife. El-P re-interprets the sample as part of the back drop perfectly complementing “Pigeon” which is a metaphorical song about trying to escape inner city gang culture. The magnitude of the emotion of the original song remains, but it’s taken in a different direction.

Cannibal Ox – Pigeon

Jaco Pastorius – Portrait of Tracy

An example of bad sampling is MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” which just loops the Rick James “Super Freak” sample and makes almost no attempt to turn the sample into something other than what it originally was. Much of the production from Puff Daddy and The Hitmen in the late 90’s was also guilty of this practice.

MC Hammer – U Can’t Touch This

Rick James – Super Freak

Crate digging is very important in hip hop production. Finding the perfect sample is just as important as how you use the sample. Many times the perfect sample will come from a rare record or from a point in a song that would normally be overlooked. As an example of this, I’ll use DJ Premier’s beat for “Mass Appeal” by Gang Starr which samples “Horizon Drive” by Vic Juris. I haven’t met many people that don’t love that beat. If you’ve never heard the origin of the sample used in “Mass Appeal”, I guarantee you’ll appreciate DJ Premier’s production on the song even more after hearing where the sample was pulled from. The sample in “Horizon Drive” comes in at 3:33 but I suggest listening to the whole song or at least 30 second before and 30 second after that point to truly understand how difficult it would have been to pick out that sample.

Gang Starr – Mass Appeal

Vic Juris – Horizon Drive

Another VERY important aspect of hip hop production is the drums. Drum patterns can come from a variety of sources. They can come from a real drum set, sampled drums, software generated drum sequences, but most commonly they come from a drum machine such as an MPC, SP-1200, SR-16, etc. This video of Anticon producer Jel using an MPC2000XL will explain how to use a drum machine properly better than I can.

Jel using an MPC2000XL

The final product of a beat sets the tone for a song. Depending on how the beat was constructed, the mood generated by a song can be completely different. For example, the song “Stone Garden” by The Psycho Realm, originally produced by Jacken, has a very dark tone. The Pete Rock remix used the same vocals, but the tone is very different, almost to the point where the song appears to have a different meaning.

Psycho Realm – Stone Garden (Original)

Psycho Realm – Stone Garden (Pete Rock Remix)

Hopefully this provided you with a little bit of insight and a greater appreciation for the production side of hip hop. The process of creating a hip hop beat is very complex. In my upcoming posts, I’ll introduce some of my favorite instrumental hip hop producers and albums, and I’ll attempt to show that the lack of an emcee doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. It actually opens things up for the producer to explore and do more creative things with their music.