HIP-HOP ACADEMICS
Feb 1, 2005 12:00 PM, Ken Micallef
For Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop (Wesleyan University Press), Tufts University lecturer and freelance writer Joseph G. Schloss interviews hip-hop artists both known and unknown. And it's perhaps the first book ever to cover the philosophical, ethical and professional standards and practices of contemporary hip-hop. Although the book initially reads like an academic paper written by an outsider covering the scene with an “I will believe anything” attitude, Schloss soon proves himself to be a diligent and careful journalist. He uncovers little-known facts about popular songs (such as a Little Feat sample in A Tribe Called Quest's “Bonita Applebum”) and the historical practices and conventions that lie beneath the songs' surfaces. Schloss' grasp of African-American music history is far reaching, and his work in the trenches is equally impressive. He covers the spectrum, interviewing well-known artists such as Prince Paul and crate-digging specialists Jake One and Mr. Supreme.
Chapters include “Live Instrumentation Versus Hip-Hop Purism,” “Sampling Ethics,” “Materials and Inspiration: Digging in the Crates” and “Aesthetics of Hip-Hop Composition.” Schloss goes deep into his subjects, from addressing the validity of sampling breaks records and other artists' works to illustrating the largely unspoken set of rules (“Sampling Ethics”) that all hip-hop artists supposedly obey if they want to be accepted within the community. Schloss doesn't cover the nuts and bolts of hip-hop construction on a purely technical level, comparing, for instance, the dense collages of Public Enemy to the sparser productions of De La Soul, but Making Beats is an endlessly enjoyable read. For anyone who wonders what the DJ on the street thinks of RZA's groove conception or when the quantizing function first appeared on a drum machine (Roger Linn's Linn LM-1), Making Beats is an inexhaustible find.
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