TURBULENT WATERS
Apr 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Tamara Warren
The loop echoes through the house, wafting from the furnished basement studio to the first-floor foyer. It's a dirty beat, foreboding and gritty. Upstairs, platinum records and a personalized, signed photo of 50 Cent hang on white walls. The home and the beat belong to Denaun Porter, who first gained fame as a member of platinum-selling group D12. Both a producer and an MC, he's evolving as an industry force behind the board. Porter, who has long contributed to Dr. Dre's storied vault and Eminem's arsenal, is branching out as executive producer of Pharaohe Monch's new album and taking on the weight of an expanded roll on the upcoming D12 record due for release later this year. Fans know him as Kon Artis his MC identity but under Mr. Porter, his production name, he is upping his game.
In the basement of this quiet, unassuming suburban street, 20 miles northwest of Motown, a piece of Detroit hip-hop history takes shape D12's next record, the first album made without a cornerstone of its group, Deshaun Proof Holden, who was killed during a bar fight in April 2006. Here in Porter's studio, it's the winter season, the beginning of a new year, and the music goes on. But it's been a roller-coaster year for Detroit hip-hop and those who live by its code, starting with the death of one of Porter's early mentors last year, J Dilla.
Over the past several years, Porter has developed into one of hip-hop's well-versed producers, an understudy to Dr. Dre and J Dilla. From Eminem to Dilla to Dr. Dre, I got the best teachers you can have, he says.
STEERING THE SHIP
Today, Porter is diligently at work with Guilty Simpson, a Detroit MC signed to Stones Throw Records and a longtime D12 contributor. As Porter levels out the beat, Simpson furiously writes to Porter's loop. I made a beat two, three weeks ago on an MPC4000 and used a Minimoog. It's an irritating sound with some hard-ass drums, and I heard his voice over it, Porter explains.
But Simpson's voice requires dynamic guidance to keep up the intrigue throughout a song. What I have to watch for with him is that he has a monotone voice, like Ice Cube. If you start low [dynamically], you can get higher, instead of starting high, he says. You hold back.
Porter doesn't use layering as a dynamic tool for Simpson, though. I don't have to have Guilty do five vocals, he says. He got a strong-ass voice, so it sits right in the middle. [Instead], I've got to get him to inflate certain words differently. If you've got a straight line, people want to hear the inflection in the song, especially if your mood is changing. So by the time he gets to the punch line, the things leading up to the punch line don't get boring.
At the helm of his self-described sonic spaceship, Porter sits behind the controls facing Guilty, and two Macintosh screens stare back at him with Pro Tools 7 and Scribble and Plogue Bidule soft synths. I wanted it to look like you're flying a ship, he says. I turn to the left front, and it's the screen and Pro Tools. Then right in front of me is my drum machine and the keyboards to the right. On the left is the sampler and turntable. If you're standing in a certain place, the south is always behind you; it's the ground root. The north is where you're going. That's the energy, that's the focus.
LEARNING CURVE
Satisfied with the beat's basic structure, Porter leaves Simpson to brainstorm and climbs the stairs, filling up the corner of the white L-shaped leather couch. Porter is a big man, but he is soft-spoken and reflective, and he articulates his thoughts with deliberate and studied measure. He fingers a tattoo on his right forearm, a look of bewilderment on his face. He explains how yesterday the tattoo, which has been on his arm for years, flared up. It was the birthday of Bugz, the first member of D12 to lose his life just before the group broke out with Eminem and became superstars in 1999, changing all of their lives.
Porter was already a skilled producer when the group found fame, always tinkering with technology. I used to break TVs and put them back together. He began producing almost 10 years ago: The first piece of gear I worked off was an ASR-10 rackmount. I was working at Mo Master's Studio. He would leave the room and let me figure it out on my own. I learned to do that until I understood the actual sampling and MIDI.
Influenced by his surroundings, Porter gravitated toward the Hip Hop Shop, a Detroit record store owned by designer Maurice Malone where hip-hop luminaries set the standard J Dilla, Slum Village and the open-mic host Proof. Here, Porter honed his lyrical skills but also developed his ear for production. I started with Proof and then Eminem, he remembers. He would show me the syllables, and when it came to putting beats together, I showed him shit. I would ride beats differently than he did. I was like, You rap too fast. Slow down. When I started producing for him, I said, I'm going to give you some beats that are not regular shit.
In the tradition of Detroit producers, lack of gear sharpened his focus. When I made a beat, I had to make the drums all the way through. I was like a one-man band. I knew sampling was shameless in the Hip Hop Shop. Everybody was chopping. You had to make that chop perfect every bar. But I never use timing to this day. I use a sequencer to keep the loop. And I don't time snares, I don't time hi-hats, I don't quantize.
A distinct style is crucial to Porter. You don't want to sound like your teachers; then they're not going to be interested, he says. If I hear something that sounds like the same thing I did before, I just scratch that because I think that's unfair to my brain, so I've got to interpret that every time.
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