Evidence by egotripland.com
Los Angeles
born and bred, emcee/producer Evidence has been a
dogged champion of the boom-bap since back when doing so made you something of
a Westside anomaly. With a resume boasting enviable purist hip-hop credentials
(co-founding member of Dilated Peoples,
possessor of an acclaimed solo career, longtime friend and collaborator with
the likes of the like-minded DJ Premier
and Alchemist etc.) it
should come as little surprise that Ev has outlasted so many of his colleagues
from rap’s late ’90s underground explosion. Or that he was puttin’ in work on Kanye West‘s debut (co-producing The College Dropout‘s “Last Call”) long before
Yeezy was inviting cats to Hawaii, or hanging in Oz with Russell Crowe. With
his latest excellent solo endeavor, Cats & Dogs, dropping September 27th via Rhymesayers it was only
right that we hit up The Weatherman for a list of his favorite sample flips.
The forecast: impassioned sonic insights ’bout to rain on ya. Aight!
EXPERIENCE EVIDENCE’S 10 FAVORITE SAMPLE FLIPS AFTER
THE JUMP…
- The Game ft. Ludacris – “Ya Heard” (2008, Geffen)
Evidence:
“Jam On It” is the song that made me want to be involved in the hip-hop
culture, period. I went to the boardwalk or Santa Monica Pier – too young to
remember which one it was – saw people dancing, doing some other shit on
fuckin’ cardboard or linoleum, a whole crowd of people around it, to that shit.
To “Jam On It” by Newcleus. I made my mom buy me the album, and I swear I never
made it past that song on the album. I never listened to anything else on that
record, I just kept rewinding that song over and over.
So that song is super holy to me, sacred. So the
thought of [a producer] flipping that shit to me is probably like what a lot of
musicians feel like when they hear somebody else flipping their shit. The thought of it is wack: aw,
that shit sucks. But when I heard how Nottz flipped that shit? It fucked my head up. He just sliced it and diced it
and killed it on a whole other level. As a producer the jealousy factor just
shot through the roof. I was like, how did I not think of this? And even if I
did think of it I wouldn’t have been able to do it like that. So just bow down.
- Dilated Peoples – “Worst Comes To Worst” (ABB, 2001)
Evidence: I’m just
gonna with one of our own, fuck it. This loop had been [used] before. If I’m
not mistaken Killer Priest used it. And I know shortly after Ludacris used it.
But I just think the way Alchemist did it just killed everyone with simplicity.
Sometimes you gotta do more, and this is the example of less. He made it a
3-bar loop. So it’s 1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, 3-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4… and with most rap [a
loop is an even number of] bars. The fact that [the beat] turned around in a
weird place and we wrote our raps to it like that made it so that when other
people freestyled to it on the radio they always sounded fucked up to it. Y’all
ain’t even realizing it’s a 3-bar loop, it’s not even a 4-bar loop. You can’t
do a regular rap on “Worst Comes To Worst” that you wrote to something else
because it turns over in a funny place and it ends up sounding weird. Now the
magic of that is [the verse] does end in 12-bars because 3-bars enough times
does equal 12. So you can finish on time, but in the middle it’s fucked up. So
people who never realized that, that’s dope because the beat [still sounds]
seamless. And the people who did realize it I think know the genius of what
[Alchemist] did.
- Kanye West ft. T-Pain – “Good Life” (Roc-A-Fella, 2007)
Evidence: [He used the
vocal portion of "P.Y.T."] and there’s a music chop in there too. It’s
still hard to figure out [exactly what they did with the sample]. And that’s
the beauty of it. He just fuckin’ nailed it, man. There’s a fine line between
keeping it gutter and knowing how to take it over the top. And [Kanye] is one
of those people who I think the blueprint of what he does is so gutter and so
hip-hop and so immersed in him. Yet he’s hung around with a lot of these
polished people so he’s one of the few [producers] who knows how to take a
little fucking chop like that and really take it to the next level.
- Jeru the Damaja – ‘My Mind Spray” (Payday, 1994)
Evidence: “Nautilus”
has been [used many times] before. But at that point the way Premier flipped it
with the drums attached to it – the sound of the knock, Jeru’s rhymes. Ahhh, it
was like fuckin’ perfection to me: whatever pitch he put the loop in, the speed
of the record he chose it to be. Premier’s chops are just gutter. I don’t know…
that shit was like “Beats to the Rhyme” all over again for me. But in a
modified, sophisticated, stand up, straight kind of version, and just really
retarded. “Thunder on your dome with no help from Mad Max/ Lyrics like hype
tattoos go over the dope tracks.” It’s like [Jeru] had no choice but to rhyme
fresh over that. There was no way around it.
- The Beatnuts – “Watch Out Now” (Relativity, 1999)
Evidence: That shit is
just so kooky to me. But then with the drums and the way they freaked it – and
then Psycho Les wildin’ out, dumbin’ and Juju with the more straight flow… I
don’t know. That shit was like a perfect rap song. It sits up there with all
the good ones. It’s just timeless. Jennifer Lopez fuckin’ jacked it too. [laughs]
- A Tribe Called Quest – “Lyrics To Go” (Jive, 1993)
Evidence: After seeing
that Tribe Called Quest documentary, that shit fucked me up. [In the film] not
only does Q-Tip show where he took [the Minnie Riperton sample] from, they show
you the performance of her singing it. (That was really clever editing by
whoever did that part in the movie.) Then they show you how he took that piece
[of the song] and looped it. It’s basically her singing this super high note.
And he just copped that one piece. So that little high string sound that’s
throughout the whole song – that’s not a string. I always that it was a string.
It’s her voice. It’s like a continual sound throughout the whole shit. I love
tracks like that – that always have some sort of string drama throughout the
whole shit. That’s why I love Premier’s stuff so much. And that shit is just
magic. Q-Tip is one of the best producers ever in the history in hip-hop. It
just got masked by [the credits always] saying “Produced by A Tribe Called
Quest.” I really thought other people were doing a lot of it, Ali Shaheed was
doing it. Maybe he was. But watching the movie you find out that Q-Tip did most
of that shit. He’s gotta be one of the best ever.
- EPMD – “You Gots to Chill” (Fresh, 1988)
Evidence: “More Bounce
to the Motherfuckin’ Ounce.” That was just the best [flip] to me out of
everyone who did it. I don’t know what was going on. It’s very simple. It could
have been the combination of the rhymes, the mix, or whatever magic dust was
sprinkled on the reel to reel, I don’t know. But it’s just like that shit just
plays and plays and plays to me. And I didn’t grow up on Parliament-Funkadelic.
I didn’t grow up on Roger. I didn’t grow up on a lot of that stuff. It wasn’t
like in my genetic code. I found it later. Forgive me for saying it because I
was young – but that’s how I kinda like got introduced to that shit – through
the samples. I mean in ’88 I was fuckin’ eleven. [EPMD] being from the fuckin’
East rapping over that shit – that was big in the West. Throw that on, you
rock.
- Brand Nubian – “Slow Down” (Elektra, 1990)
Evidence: That was one
of the first times I remember someone taking a sample and rapping around the
words of it. “What I am is what I am/ Well, what you are is a stunt, man/
You’re on a hunt…” They weren’t just using it, they were working around it. And
for that [Edie Brickell] song to be so big and for them to just flip it like it
wasn’t shit – basically that was what hip-hop was. You find the fuckin’ break
you like and you spin the good part back and forth on two records and the party
rocks. And that’s what they were doin’. They found some shit that was popular,
put it on two turntables so to speak [metaphorically], and took the shit back
and forth. Even though there was an actual beat made that’s what it represented
to me.
- Jay-Z – “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” (Roc-A-Fella, 1998)
Evidence: Talk about
[making] something out of nothin’. It’s some Annie
shit. Put drums to Annie and hip-hop
comes alive. And then you put Jay-Z on top of it and it’s just a wrap. DJs
always make the best beats because they understand the rhythm, what moves
people and how drums affect certain settings. 45 King knew where to put the
drums, and where not to. Those blank spaces are everything. He could have
easily put a double time hi-hat to that shit, and synths, and ill bass, and
went battle crazy and it would have been a whole different animal. Instead it’s
made by somebody who’s from the essence of what the shit was created on and
knew how not to overcook a meal. Even though I know the track wasn’t originally
intended for Jay-Z (it’s a Kid Capri record or whatever), he could have went
back and dressed it up. It’s hard when you hear that Jay-Z is taking your song
to not instinctively want it to do
more. It’s like human nature. “I gotta put a crash on here. Maybe we should
have a live guitar player come play…” It’s like you hear Jay-Z, you think more,
more. It takes somebody with discipline, understanding and all that shit to
say, “Nah, this is how I’m cooking this meal. You fuck with it or you don’t.
- Shyne ft. Barringto Levy – “Bad Boyz” (Bad Boy, 2000)
Evidence: That’s the
perfect hip-hop beat. Ain’t fuck shit wrong with that. Nothin’. That beat is
fuckin’ perfect. I remember Babu showing me the loop. I didn’t even know what
it is. He was like, “That’s Grace Jones flipped.” I was like, “Oh, you fuckin’
kiddin’ me.” When I heard it – [the thing that stood out was] the bass, the way
the bass is placed. I can’t say much more about it. Bass has always been my
weak trait for beats. I normally have other people play it and I chop it up the
way I like it. I envy [the bass on this track]. I envy it. In the same way I
envy “The Benjamins” I envy it. I’m jealous. Why is it the perfect hip-hop
beat? If it was food it would be a dish that’s raw but seared. [laughs] I don’t need meatloaf. I need sushi
with a flame on it.
Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?y8l6c66o2fkn1k3
No comments:
Post a Comment