These are drum hits from disks STRAIGHT off of my SP1200. Some of these were used on the "Basement Sessions" LP. I was thinking about throwing together some other drums from my MPC and EPS, but enjoy these SP1200 12bit crunchy drums. Not a TON, but some dope hits.
These are some remixes I did with my SP-1200, Akai DPS12 and the vocal tracks straight off the 12". Most of these beats I did in college, but hadn't figured out what I wanted to do with the beats till I ended up throwing the vocals over them. In all honesty I still want to do something over the beat I used for the Shook Ones remix. In my opinion I think these remixes get the vibe of the original, but there will never be anything that will be better than the original.
Shook Ones
I've always dug this beat... I just think it's COLD!
This was the one remix I did from the jump as a remix. The other ones I just had beats and found vocals that went with the track. This one I thought out. I was thinking that the original was so dope because of the Michael Jackson vocal sample and that a remix would be able to get that feeling if it had that same vibe. Hence the vocal sample I used.
Preview tracks from the Dub Styles project up on the myspace page. (I know it's like abandoned amusement park, but you can check some choice cuts from the project)
This is an ill blog and it just so happens that the "Basement Sessions" LP was thrown up there recently. Check it out and peep the other jems up on the page.
Here's the remaining batch of demos I'm going to put up before I get the comp together. Some of these are skits from my old radio show, ADAT studio demos and ol' school 4-track demos. I've also had Mr. Carlos and Ben Shabaaz give their 2 cents on our old skits. Enjoy.
Elements of Hip Hop (99)
This is the only track I did a rough mix down from an ADAT. There's a version of "From This Moment On" on ADAT, but I don't have access to one, so this is the only thing I've got. This beat was one of the 1st beats I did with my SP1200 and my man Ishmael wanted to get on a track, so we made it happen. I was taking an audio engineering class in college and we rolled up to my school with my SP1200 to get in the lab and throw this down. Ishmael threw down this dope verse, I came up with the hook and wrote my verse, which I ended up using for "World Premier." I remember I did my verse in one take and honestly the track was never finished. Ishmael was on the 1st verse, the 2nd verse was supposed to have both of us on it spitting 8 bars each and then I did the last verse. We only recorded the 1st verse, 3rd verse and the hook, so with the magic of technology I've spliced it together so it's two verses. BLAM! Here's the best part of the track... IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ELEMENTS OF HIP HOP. HAHAHAHA
I got off work and was getting ready for our radio show when Ben and Carlos came up to my window and were like, "Yo, we want to record a skit." I let them in and Ben then tells me he's got this idea for a song for this character he created called "Cheeseburger Deluxe." He had a little yellow paper with just some basic rhymes written and we didn't even plug in the wackass keyboard we used. We actually just held it up to the mic. Mr. Carlos played the keyboard bits and I did the hook/hype man vocals. I think we did it in one take. I think it was one of the funniest things we ever did for our show.
(Ben Shabazz)
It's funny because Cheeseburger Deluxe is actually my crappy impersonation of Agallah's Cookie Monster. I got the name Cheeseburger Deluxe from a line in Sauce Money's Against the Grain, on the Soul in the Hole Soundtrack. That's considered real old school now I think. The Grand Buffet bit I got from remembering some Chinese buffet. It was real spur of the moment when we did it and it was obvious that not too much attention was paid to the lyrics. Spitting out just names of foods was really stupid! Indian rice? The salad bar? I'm not sure what was going on in our heads. Ghetto Superstar with the late ODB was the jam at the time, thus the chorus.
(Mr. Carlos)
Ben had come up with the idea to create songs from the perspective of a fat guy that only wanted to rap about food. The name of the album and title track was "Grand Buffet." I thought that the writing in the last verse in particular was great because it gave me a mental picture of some fat ass making his rounds at the buffet and very excitedly saying the names of the foods he was heaping onto his plate. I contributed by playing a jingle on a shitty little keyboard David had in the house. The finished product was gold and I still believe that we could've made a decent album or EP using this concept.
This was originally the remix/pt. 2 to T.E.C.H. Teken was a popular game at the time so I just kind of named it that for a cool reference. I did this beat on the SU10 and recorded straight to my minidisk in one take to get as crisp of a recording as possible. I'd actually run everything through the 4-track, not record on the 4-track, but have the line output hooked up to the minidisk. Crazy. This beat I TOTALLY remade from scratch on my MPC2000 for the "Basement Sessions" LP as "Everybody Get (live)." Both tracks sound the same, yet are different and stand on there own. (if that makes sense) Unlike T.E.C.H. and Wild Style where I pretty much left the beat as it originally was, this beat totally got the redux for the LP.
I made this beat on my SP1200 and this was the TRACK that I thought was just nuts. The way the drums hit... it was just one of those beats that I thought was SO dope. It was a Friday and I think it was the 1st Friday after we lost our radio show. I hit up my man Corey and picked him up. We went back to my house and we just wrote it out and recorded it within a couple hours. This song was recorded in every format possible. This is the 4 track version. A few months later we went to the studio at the college I was going to and laid it down on ADAT. Later on I did a version on a digital 12 track, but didn't have Corey lay down his vocals. Finally when I was working on "Basement Sessions" we got together and recorded the definitive version of the track. HAHA It took like six or seven years for that track to finally get done, but it was worth it. You can see the potential this track has when hearing the original 4 track version.
We did this skit on the Fourth of July, I think. We wanted to do a parody of Deja Vu, the strip club chain, because we had a friend that had the last name of Vo. We all came through to my house and plotted out the skit. Originally we were going to have a friend of ours have his sister do the voice of the stripper, but the moment we suggested that, he went from a happy go lucky guy, to an "I'm GUNNA beat YO A$$ guy in an instant. HAHAHA I remember we then played it off and were like, "we're just playin'... we think it'd be funny if you did the voice of the stripper instead." In an instant he turned back into mild mannered Murl. (like the Hulk turning back into Bruce Banner) To be honest I think it's funnier that there's a guy's voice trying to sound like a sexy stripper voice. HAHA When we recorded it, I just threw on the record and we basically passed the mic down the line and did it in one or two takes.
Original 4-track version of this track. As you know I also used this verse on the "Elements of Hip Hop" track, but because that track was never really finished I ended up using it for this track and it's always been a dope 1 verse battle style track.
Here's another 3 joints from the vaults. I'm going to put all of these old demos together into a comp for you all to DL, so hold tight.
T.E.C.H. - (98)
This is the original 4-track version of T.E.C.H. You heard a rough version of the beat on one of the SYA demos. It eventually became this track and later on I gave the whole track the redux for the "Basement Sessions" LP. This was back when I went by the name "Chrome." It had nothing to do with being a baller... I just thought it was dope because there were those high quality tapes that had chrome in the magnetic tape. Now I've ran across several Down South rappers with the same name. HAHAHA This track has ALWAYS been the PEAK of my backpacker steeze. T.E.C.H. stands for The Elemental Chemistry of Hip Hop. Yeah... backpacker steeze... but then again I was 18. If I had a time machine I'd go back, slap myself and ask myself why the phawk I gave away my Dre CD.
This was everybody's jammie, "Wild Style." Another track that got the redux for "Basement Sessions." This joint originally had 4 verses... what's up with that?! I rewrote a good portion of the rhymes for "Basement Sessions," but to this day I STILL will flip flop between the original and the new lyrics when trying to do the song. I did this track with my SU10 and recorded it on my Tascam 4-track. After I recorded the track I ended up performing it at the high school talent show and tore the roof off. This track has always got the party movin' and has always been one of my faves.
Before I knew what Skull Snaps "Brand New Day" was I was ALL about Gangstarr's "Take It Personal." I wanted to flip the drums and well... I admit I straight bit the drums off of the Gangstarr record. I was 18 and didn't know anything about all those unsaid rules about beatmaking and djing. I did this with my SU10 and to save time on the sampler I actually, put a loop together with all the samples, recorded it to tape and then RE-sampled into the SU10 so I could double my sampling time. It also gave the track an extra gritty sound to it. The rhymes are on just some, backpack, kill wack emcees, top 40 music is bullish. HAHA
