Beat Haiku: “War Of The Pride”
January 22, 2011
“War Of The Pride”
War of the Hearts Bass
Pads made of “Stronger Than Pride”
End of “Pretty wings”
In my rather pedestrian way I’ve explained what comprises the instrumental below. There are some other elements sprinkled throughout but I only had 17 syllables. If you’re new to this blog this is definitely not the first time I’ve been inspired by Sade or Maxwell so take the time to check out the others if you can.
Also, you have to have the Maxwell album to hear the part I sampled in “Pretty Wings” because it cuts off in the video and is rarely played on the air.
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Bloggin 4 Beatz: This One Is For The Birds
January 2, 2011
Happy 2011! My first beat of the year (and in a very long time) comes courtesy of the Menahan Street Band, who many know because of how Sean C & LV flipped them for Jay-Z’s “Roc Boys.” The album Make The Road By Walking is really good and is great for just listening as well as sampling purposes.
My beat is made up of parts from two tracks “The Birds” and “Going The Distance.”
I could kind of hear Method Man over this one. Has a little menace to it.
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A Message To All The Wanna Be DJ’S! [Animated Cartoon]
December 12, 2010
DJ Stickem is behind this hilarious PSA to all wannabe DJs. This little sh*t is calling himself a DJ because his mother bought them Serato, though they’ve never touched a piece of vinyl or own any music.
I dedicate this to my man DJ OhSoKool who probably ghostwrote the script.
“I want to take my turntables and smash them into your laptop, then take your Serato box and shove it into your mother’s a$$ for having such spoiled offspring..”
Bloggin 4 Beatz: Here Comes The Lord Vader
November 29, 2010
The first time I played Star Wars The Force Unleashed I thought, “damn that Emporer’s theme would be a dope beat.” However, the first time I tried to work with Vader’s theme music it I kept it just as is overlaying some drums. I didn’t like it. I just stashed the break in folder and figured inspiration would return.
Last week I reconnected with Lord Have Mercy after several years thanks to King Karnov and the whole “lord” thing was rattling around in my head. When I finally sat down to make a beat Thanksgiving night (first time in a minute) I remembered the Lord Vader sample and decided to try something different. I reversed it, changed the pitch and made it an angry swarm of bees drunk on power.
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Sometimes the sample doesn’t have to SOUND like the sample, but knowing me I’ll be trying something more traditional yet again. I’ll keep you all posted.
Common F/ Talib Kweli & Marvin Gaye “The Light” (Remix)
September 29, 2010
Over the weekend I was out driving and Jill Scott’s “He Loves Me (Lizel In E Flat) came on the radio and the intro kept playing over in my head for the rest of the day. This happens to me about several times a day but I usually forget by the time I get home. This loop was stubborn though.
When I finally got home to the comp I clipped it off the end in Audition, ran it through the Fruity slicer, quantized it and chopped it. I played around with some drums and liked the way the Barry White kick and snare sounded but I wanted to play with the pattern some more. So I exported all of the parts using Slicex and placed them in the “pads” of the FPC to make a more unique pattern.
After that I made about 5 more different segments with various chops and drums and stashed them until I was ready to sequence. After playing the beat for about ten minutes I pitched up the sample and added some filters to differentiate it from Jill’s composition a little bit. Then I started hearing voices on the beat, so I went through my acapellas and Common’s “The Light” seemed to go with the whole thing so I matched two verses up to the beat and left it alone.
A few days later I came back to it and decided it needed a hook so I went hunting in my acapellas for someone professing their love to their woman and found the Marvin Gaye acapella to “Too Busy Thinking About My Baby.” I chopped it up and isolated the pieces I wanted to use to create a phrase and that became my hook.
From there the song felt short so I added Talib’s verse from “Hot Thing” (which was a pain in the ass to match up until I realized the acapella was fubar.) And that was it. I’ll dub this one the “Heaven On Earth” remix.
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Bloggin 4 Beats: The Beat With No Name
September 14, 2010
I’m in a Fantasy Football league right now (lost my first week by 4 points. Sucks.) But anyway…one of the team names is “No Clever Team Name.” I thought it was a place holder until they came up with something like the rest of us lemmings intent on fashioning something intimidating or boastful. But nope, they’re rocking into week two with that same name. I guess it “be like that some times.”
This beat didn’t invoke a name when I made it, I can’t remember what I sampled…so I just labeled it Nodfactor2010. Maybe after I slap an acapella over it I’ll be inspired to some clever nomenclature, but for now just enjoy.
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Mos Def Meets The Jetsons On “Mathematics” Remix
August 7, 2010
A few weeks ago I posted two versions of a beat using the Jetsons theme music as a sample. As I do with most of my beats I test them out with an acapella to see how they sound and I really liked how Mos sounded over this particular flip so I whipped this up real quick.
Crazy thing indeed.
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REWIND: JLBeezy’s Beat Tape (Nothing To Lose)
July 16, 2010
(ED NOTE: I’m on vacay in Cancun with the fam so no new beats this week, but there will be more soon, promise!)
Inspiration comes in various forms. Sometimes it’s a swift kick in the pants from one of your peoples and other times it’s more subtle. Recently I’ve been running a blitzkrieg of interviews for the site and a common thread that seems to be coming up is not holding on to shit.
Sean C & LV said everything “must go” in 2010. DJ Babu told me that he’s putting out his Beat Tape Vol 2 because he got tired of sitting on all of these beats he made and even Donwill of Tanya Morgan, who most people don’t now makes beats, admitted that he’d be putting out a tape for his friends finally.
With that said I haven’t updated the blog section with any new beats in a minute so I’ve decided to take the first step in letting it all go:good, bad and ugly. I can use the feedback. For the most part my beats have a very loyal audience of 1 but I have nothing to lose by posting them here. (CLICK HERE FOR MY LAZY TRACKLISTING)
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Also, don’t forget to submit your beats to our Hydrosonics mixtape ([email protected]). We’ve been catching some heat in the inbox so keep them coming!
Bloggin 4 Beats: Hey, Hey, Hey!
June 22, 2010
For the next installment of my “2nd Childhood” beat series I present my flip of the Fat Albert Theme song with a little help from the late great Jimmy Hendrix. (Yes, I know those are the “Scenario” drums but I gotta give credit where it’s due.)
It was hard to divorce myself from the previous uses of the Fat Albert sample by Timbaland and others but I think I managed to give it my own style.
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Bloggin 4 Beats: The Jetsons
June 15, 2010
“2nd Childhood” Beat series
We had Scooby Doo, Pacman and The Superfriends. Guess Who’s next?
Craig Mack, Pharoahe Monch and countless other MCs have referenced The Jetsons in one rhyme or another, so it was only right that I tinker with some of those futuristic sounds for a beat. Rather than going right after the theme song I just took the doorbell and freaked it. I was actually inspired because somebody on the Long Island Railroad had it as a ring tone. True story.
After tinkering with the bell I stripped everything away and messed with parts of the actual theme song towards the end. So listen through for the beat change and tell me what you think!
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UPDATE: After riding around with the beat for a day I stripped away the first half and just fell in love with the second half. Let me know what you think of the dirty version:
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