hip hop Archives - Trip Gunn

Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic”

This week, I have been listening to Dr. Dre’s debut album “The Chronic” from 1992. Dr. Dre released this album during my sophomore year of high school. I didn’t pay much attention to hip hop, but I did hear “Nuthin’ But a G Thang.” The album’s icon cover stood more familiar to me than that hit song. Dr. Dre was born as Andre Young in Compton, CA, birthplace of the Bloods, rival gang of the Crips. The Los Angeles riots in response to the Rodney King beating extended to Compton a couple of months before the recording of “The Chronic.” He worked as a club DJ using the nickname of basketball hero Julius Erving, “Dr. J”. In the 1986, he joined N.W.A. as rapper Dr. Dre. The group fell apart in 1991 over business disputes and some famous drama with Eazy-E.

Lil Ghetto Boy

The middle of the album features smooth G-funk track “Lil Ghetto Boy.” Dr. Dre and crew built the song primary on samples from “Little Ghetto Boy” by Donny Hathaway. They layered these with samples from Gil-Scott Heron and George McCrae. A drum machine adds percussive punch. Snoop Dogg and Dre trade verses, with Snoop providing the first and third, and Dre on the second. Snoop’s cousin “Dat Nigga” Daz Dillinger provides the backing vocals.

The song presents stories of young street gangsters, told through a series of couplets. The verses are not all the same length, but with fw exception each pair of lines rhyme. Most of the rhymes are straight, but there are some slant rhymes like “life” and “fight” or “quicker” with “nigga.”

The chorus comes straight from the original song by Donny Hathaway. This happens on a few tracks on the album. I immediately recognized this on “Let Me Ride” and “The Roach” as these songs are directly based on Parliament tracks, “Mothership Connection” and “P. Funk.” I believe they unashamedly based their rap songs on these originals for an audience who knew the source material.

High Powered

Track “High Powered” opens with a spoken request for “Give me some of that ol’ gangta shit, you know what I’m sayin’, something I can just kick back, smoke a fat ass joint to.” Then the music comes in, slow and grooving, with a characteristic high-frequency synth line. I think they synth may be an original line played by Colin Wolfe. They track also has beats sampled from “Buffalo Gals” by former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren. The detailed request continues for the first full minute. Then Dre begins rapping slow, tough, and methodic. My favorite line is “Haven’t you ever heard of a killa? I drop bombs like Hiroshima.” At the word “killa”, the music is interrupted by a strong booming explosion sound effect. It’s very effect.

Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang

The hit from the album, “Nuthin’ But a G Thing,” borrows its main groove and iconic synth line from “I Wanna Do Something Freaky To You” by Leon Haywood. The song serves as a form of mission statement for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg as rap artists. The mix references to their working relationship, about their marijuana use, street and gangster business, but most importantly their musical project. There is a sense of urgency, even with the laid-back beat, that they need to do what they are doing. Not only do they need to make the music, but we need to hear it.

Snoop stands out as an superior rap vocalist on this album. He mixes rap with occasional slips into restrained melodic singing. His style is decidedly smooth and cool. This doesn’t mean he’s slow. Snoops jumps into bits of triplet-hopping beats at times that feel like tape machine flying forward. Dr. Dre is also a very skilled rapper, deserving of the praise, but he lacks the Snoop’s strength of style.

As with most tracks on this album, the lyrics are series of couplets combining straight rhymes with slant rhymes. Each of these lines contain internal rhymes and a skilled use of consonance and assonance.

Well, I’m peepin’ and I’m creepin’ and I’m creepin’
But I damn near got caught ‘cause my beeper kept beepin’
Now it’s time for me to make my impression felt
So sit back, relax, and strap on your seat belt
You never been on a ride like this befo’
With a producer who can rap and control the maestro
At the same time with the dope rhyme that I kick
You know and I know, I flow some old funky shit
To add to my collection, the selection symbolizes dope
Take a toke, but don’t choke
If you do, you’ll have no clue
On what me and my homie Snoop Dogg came to do

Wu-Tang Clan’s “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)”

This week, I’ve been listening to the Wu-Tang Clan’s debut album “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)” from 1993. I was completely unaware of the Wu-Tang Clan until around 1997; even then, I didn’t actually hear any of their stuff until very recently. This week introduced me to their ground-breaking variety of East Cost hardcore hip hop. In the 90s, a East Coast vs. West Coast rivalry in hip hop made mainstream news. Wu-Tang’s raw beat-driven music contrasted with the more melodic West Coast style of the time. While still prone to braggadocio, their lyrics were darker; less triumphant and more ambitious. The clan was not small. On this album, Wu-Tang Clan consisted of vocalist Inspectah Deck, vocalist GZA, vocalist Masta Killa, vocalist Raekwon, vocalist U-God, vocalist and producer Method Man, vocalist and producer Ol’ Dirty Bastard, vocalist, producer, and arranger RZA, vocalist and producer GhostfaceKillah, and turntablist 4th Disciple.

I ‘m not a rapper and I’m not equipped to discuss hip hop even though I do enjoy listening to it. I don’t expect to draw much from this album for my own music; However, I do believe that exposure to a great variety of art enriches one’s own work. In addition, I just really like listening to music and hearing new things. Each week, I listen to an album considered to be one of the greatest, because there must be something there worth learning from.

Bring Da Ruckus

After some sampling from kung-fu movies with a little bit of booming bass, the percussion and vocals begin. The first lines open the album appropriately, repeating “Bring the motherfucking ruckus.” This serves as the chorus between verses. Across the verses, we hear multiple vocalists rapping

. Throughout this album, the percussion beats right in the front right behind the vocals. It is the most important part of the accompaniment; the other musical elements provide more of an atmosphere than a more traditional purpose. Most of the music comes from samples of “Synthetic Substitution” by Melvin Bliss. The percussion is a mix of the drums of that song plus a drums-only “CB#5” from the “Funky Drummer vol. 1” collection made specifically for DJs and rap artists.

Wu-Tang work primarily with one or two bar looped samples to provide support for their vocals. Generally speaking, we don’t have chord progressions to speak of. That’s not the point. They’ve built a dark musical atmosphere with a heavy beat to support the rap vocals.

Most of the lines are rhyming couplets, though they are not strict about rhyming every line. The Wu-Tang Clan proves to be clever in their use of slant rhyme. We see not just the ends of lines rhyming, but plenty of assonance and internal rhymes. These lyrics combine wordplay and cultural references with rhythm. For example the lines “Redrum, I verbally assault with the tongue; Murder one, my style shot ya knot like a stun-gun.” The lines end with the rhyming “tongue” and “stun-gun”, but these also rhyme with “Redrum” and “Murder one”, shot rhymes with knot as well as the earlier :assault.” “Redrum” is a reference to Stephen King’s “The Shining” where it is “Murder” spelled backwards. These lines are tightly packed, appropriate for a song that largely brags about their ability to do so.

I rip it hardcore like porno-flick bitches
I roll with groups of ghetto bastards with biscuits
Check it, my method on the microphone’s banging
Wu-Tang slang’ll leave your headpiece hanging
Bust this, I’m kicking like Seagal, Out For Justice
The roughness, yes, the rudeness, ruckus
Redrum, I verbally assault with the tongue
Murder one, my style shot ya knot like a stun-gun

Can It Be All So Simple

“Can It Be All So Simple” opens with a the group reminiscing vaguely about the past which leads into samples of “The Way We Were” by Gladys Knight & The Pips. They combine music samples from different parts of the song with mild use of a drum machine. The result reminds me of Portishead, whose debut album “Dummy” came out a year later.

Raekwon starts by reminiscing the past, but also talking about how difficult it was. He describes how they had to turn to violence, because it was required of their situation. Ghostface Killah then describes their dream successful life. The chorus is a list of dedications, which makes use of anaphora, which is a poetic technique of starting a series of lines with the same word or phrase. In this case, “Dedicated to the..” starts each line of the chorus, interspersed with a manipulated sample of Gladys Knight, “Can it be that it was all so simple then?” Anaphora gives lines an automatic sense of rhythm, creating a catchy hook that can draw first-time listeners in.

Dedicated to the winners and the losers
Dedicated to all Jeeps and Land Cruisers
Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Dedicated to the 5’s, 850i’s
Dedicated to niggas who do drive-by’s
Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Dedicated to the Lexus and the Ac’s
Dedicated to MPV’s: phat!

C.R.E.A.M.

Perhaps my favorite track on the album, “C.R.E.A.M.” bemoans the influence of money’s importance in a Capitalist society. In particular, they focus on the people on the streets; Inspectah Deck tells his story as a young man returning to society after spending teen years in jail for selling drugs. He went to jail for a crime committed to make ends me, and comes out to see that money continues to cause problems for those around him. It’s the struggles of the have-nots in a society rules by the haves.

Method Man delivers the great hook of this song, the chorus. It consists of an acronym and a rhythmic repetitive phrase. As is often the case in a well-written song, the verses tell a story and the chorus delivers the message of the story. The repetition of “Dollar dollar bill” followed by “ya’ll” is extremely catchy and I found myself singing it throughout the day after the first couple listens. The cadence of this line works perfectly against the piano line sampled from the Charmel’s “As Long As I Got You.”

Cash rules everything around me,
cream, get the money
Dollar dollar bill, y’all.
Cash rules everything around me,
cream, get the money
Dollar dollar bill, y’all.

De La Soul’s “3 Feet High and Rising”

This week, I’ve been listening to De La Soul’s debut album “3 Feet High and Rising” from 1989. When I was 12 years old, My sister and I stayed with my mom in a loft apartment above a natural food store. The owner lived nearby and I had a crush on his 15 year old daughter. One day she was sitting on their porch and kept saying “Hi, I’m Mr. Fish. How do you do? As for me, I’m in tip-top shape today.” from De La Soul’s track “Tread Water.” Well, that was enough to get me started listening to them. And I continued to enjoy this throughout middle school and into high school. I don’t even remember the name of the girl that introduced me to it, but I still love this album.

De La Soul worked with Prince Paul creating one of the most innovative and influential hip hop albums of all time. The set aside much of the macho bravado that dominated rap lyrics in exchange for more philosophical musings on love, peace, spirituality, relationships, and identity. They promoted a more positive peaceful way of living an enacting change, in contrast to their contemporaries who spoke more of violence and anger.

Likewise, they mixed surprising sources into their music, using the Casio RZ-1 8-bit sampling drum machine. Samples appear from such artists as Hall & Oates, Steely Dan, Johnny Cash, Led Zeppelin. Their use of samples also changed hip hop in another, more legal, way. The Turtles sued for the unauthorized sample of their recording of the Byrd’s “You Showed Me” in “Transmitting Live From Mars.” The out-of-court settlement changed the practices of sample-based music to include clearing samples. The following year, hip hop group Salt N Pepa released their own version of “You Showed Me.” I don’t know if they did so out of response to the De La Soul controversy on or not, but I’d assume they cleared their samples.

Potholes In My Lawn

I found it very difficult to only pick three songs to talk about here, because that means excluding so many other great tracks. I definitely was not going to ignore my favorite, “Potholes in My Lawn.” I like the the way they use effects to alter the vocal. Most of the vocals follow the same relaxed rhythmic while the use of echo-delay and changes in accompaniment provide variety and a sense of movement.

The surrealistic lyrics invite interpretation without much indication. I suspect they’re talking about the threat that negative criticism and self-doubt pose to the creative process. Where the lush green lawn would be an artist’s utopia where the writer’s genius work would just flow from them; the potholes pose as those areas of self-doubt, making it difficult to walk around. The lyrics casually rhyme here and there. It’s more a playful use of rhyme than following a strict pattern.

Everybody’s sayin’
What to do when suckin’ lunatics start diggin’ and chewin’
They don’t know that the Soul don’t go for that
Potholes in my lawn
And that goes for my rhyme sheet
Which I concentrated so hard on, see
I don’t ask for maximum security
But my dwellin’ is swellin’
It nipped my bud when I happened to fall
Into a spot
Where no ink or an ink-blot
Was on a scroll
I just wrote me a new ‘mot’
But now it’s gone
There’s no
Suckers knew that I hate
To recognise that every time I’m writin’
It’s gone

They primarily built the accompaniment around sampling the War song “Magic Mountain.” They’ve sped up the original, giving it a brighter more positive sound. The yodel that servers as a chorus came from the Parliament track “Little Ole Country Boy.” A drum machine pattern emphasizes the beat. Mostly these are the kick and snare, with hi-hat sounds used to “hurry up” the beat, using during the third beat. In the late-80s/early-90s, this was a popular place to play in the beat. The rest of measure would often follow basic patterns, but between the third and fourth beat, something interesting would happen which encouraged many of the dance styles of the time.

Me Myself and I

De La Soul’s biggest hit “Me Myself and I” stands as one of their best. In the song, they reference the Jungle Brothers’ track “Black is Black,” from which they drew the vocal rhythm. They took the dominant sample of the song, including the synth hook from “(Not Just) Knee Deep” by Funkadelic. They’ve layered samples from a few other artists, as well as made use of the drum machine to strengthen and give continuity to the beat.

I love the intro with the snare on the first and third beats, with kick on second and fourth beat; this dramatically turns the beat upside. It’s disorientating, exciting, while maintaining the beat. They also use the fader control on their table to produce a stuttering effect to the backing vocals during the chorus. This funky effect gives life to the track while creatively manipulating their source material.

Eye Know

Their single “Eye Know” gets its refrain and synth hook from Steely Dan’s “Peg.” Originally, the line “I know I love you better” was the last line of Peg’s second verse, but here it has become the chorus. This is noteworthy, because usually when a sample is used for the chorus of a hip-hop song, it was the chorus of the original song as well. The strummed guitar and melodic horn stabs were sampled from the beginning of “Make This Young Lady Mine” by The Mad Lads. This time, they’ve sampled acoustic drums from “Get Out My Life, Woman” by Lee Dorsey.

The speakers offer a life-long relationship to an ambiguous female love interest. Each three members of De La Soul each get a verse, where they share a little of their philosophy of love and relationships. Throughout the song, there’s self-introductions and visions of a beautiful life together. These are peppered with references to other songs on the album, as well as songs by other hip hop artists, including another reference to the Jungle Brothers(“Behind the Bush“). De La Soul does not shy away from throwing references in, making little jokes in their songs, and just generally having fun doing what they are doing. On this album, they strike an impressive balance of being playful while being true to their vision.

We could live in my Plug Two home
And on Mars where we could be all alone
And we make a song for two
Picture perfect things and I sing of how
I know I love you better

Portishead’s “Dummy”

This week, I’ve been listening to Portishead’s debut album “Dummy” from 1994. I remember how excitingly unusual and new this album sounded when I was 17 years old. This combination of goth, hip hop and jazz came from another world; that dark alien digital world was filled with the smoke and fog of human emotion. In this world, Nine Inch Nails were the rock n roll and Portishead were the jazz-soul. This was my and much of the world’s introduction to the trip-hop genre, though I don’t think the name existed yet. While I spent more time listening to Nine Inch Nails, I definitely enjoyed Portishead as well. I seem to have lost touch with most of these songs over time, only really remember a few of them; It was good to spend a week revisiting, even though I didn’t love it as much as I used to.

Sour Times

The second track, “Sour Times,” provides a great example of what Portishead is about. They built the accompaniment around samples of a late 1960s crime-noir jazz piece “Danube Incident” by Lalo Schifrin. Over of this, they have layered organic instruments and synths emphasizing elements of the original score. Beth Gibbons sings about longing for a former lover who has since gotten married to another.

Cause nobody loves me, it’s true
Not like you do

There’s an unusual instrument rises and falls from the back to the front. More percussive than melodic. ; it makes me think of Tibetan prayer wheels, even though they sound nothing like this. It’s quite possibly a cimbalom, which they’ve played in a jangly sinister way. There was something similar in the Schifrin song that sounds more like a plucked violin, or piano strings. It gives the track an non-specific ethnic feel, like some far away culture.

Numb

I love the scratching of Ray Charles’s “I’ve Got a Woman” throughout Portishead’s “Numb.” The track showcases some very good performance and songwriting, but it’s the use of a turntable that pushes the song into something fantastic. They use some traditional hip-hop techniques in a more languid broken-hearted way. The original melody gets chopped up slowly, pitches descend, as the heart gives out. This produces a far-off and lonely atmosphere with an instrument normally used for excitement and energy.

Glory Box

The greatest track on the album is definitely “Glory Box.” It rightly closes out the album, sounding like the end-credits of a sci-fi noir film. Portishead built the backing music mostly from “Ike’s Rap 2” by Isaac Hayes. As with other songs, they add their own instrumentation to emphasize or change elements of the original song.

An unfortunate thing that happens throughout this album becomes most apparent to me in this song: the use of samples locks them into a key and especially with a chord progression. Where this has always bother me is the end of “Glory Box.” There’s a bridge where the character of the song changes, a break-down. Then the song returns back to where it was. Had they been using all original instruments, I suspect they would’ve opted for a key-change at the end.

Give me a reason to love you
Give me a reason to be a woman
I just wanna be a woman

Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”

album cover of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

This week, I’ve been listening to Lauryn’s Hill’s debut solo album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” from 1998. Though I was aware of its existence, I missed out on this album when it came out. I was well aware of the group Lauryn had just left, the Fugees, through their cover of “Killing Me Softly” from radio play. Lori Lieberman recorded the original, but it’s more likely that the Fugees cover more resembles the Robert Flack recording. Lauryn Hill’s singing was great, but I found the percussion and reggae vocal injections (“one time.. two times..”) annoying.

The Fugees had recently split up in 1997 and Hill began work on her this solo album. Bandmates Hill and Wyclef Jean had been romantically involved during their time in the Fugees. Jean continued the relationship even his marriage to another woman. During this affair, Hill started dating Bob Marley’s son Rohan, who was already married with two children. Rohan and his wife soon divorced and he and Hill stayed together and she soon had a son with Rohan. These are the circumstances under which Lauryn wrote this album, which touches on many of these topics.

Apparently, Lauryn drew some inspiration (and samples) from the movie “The Education of Sonny Carson.” I don’t know if there was much inspiration beyond the title, but the whole movie IS currently on YouTube. Several moments that reminded me of Stevie Wonder, especially “Every Ghetto, Every City.“

From what I can gather in just one week, there’s an over-arching theme to the album running through between-song skits and emphasized by the album title. During the opening track, we hear an elementary school class start with the roll-call and Lauryn Hill is absent. She is absent on the day that the class learns about love, as revealed throughout the rest of the skit segments throughout the album. The point being that Lauryn missed out on the lessons of love and had to learn the hard way, by making mistakes. That’s probably how we all do it, actually.

Lost Ones

The first proper song of the album “Lost Ones” slam right into a rhyme-filled response to an ex after separation. Hill explains how she is the emancipated winner after the breakup. The chorus repeats “You might win some, but you just lost one.” referring to both Lauryn Hill and the battle.

The drum machine punches right in the middle, record scratches syncopation leading up to bar changes. Backing vocals echo and repeat the rhymes at the end of each line. The accompaniment is hard-hitting, but sparse. There’s not a lot going on underneath the vocals. Drum machine and record scratches run through the song, dropping out occasionally for emphasis. Dub-style echo-delay effected keys and guitars stab on the fourth beat of the verses, but even those are below the forward drums. A very low bass mostly rests, but plays notes to mark the movement from between every two or four measures.

There’s nearly non-stop rhyming, which has the effect of making some of the lyrics feel like punchlines. The verses do not have the same number of lines (18, 20, and 16), which is kind of strange. The first verse has the following rhyme scheme: A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-B-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A. The last line is the refrain “You might win some but you just lost one.” Hill delivers that line that doesn’t rhyme different, playing with the fact the third to last syllable DOES fit the rhyme scheme. The second verse: A-B-B-A-A-B-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-D-D-D-D, and those B’s are arguably slant rhymes of A. These lines are full of religious and cultural references, allegedly tying these comments directly to personal subject matter. Much lays on idea of temptation, repentance, and judgement.

Every man want to act like he’s exempt
Need to get down on his knees and repent
Can’t slick talk on the day of judgment
Your movement’s similar to a serpent
Tried to play straight, how your whole style bent?
Consequence is no coincidence
Hypocrites always want to play innocent
Always want to take it to the full out extent
Always want to make it seem like good intent
Never want to face it when it time for punishment

Ex-Factor

The feeling changes with the soulful next track, “Ex-Factor.” Here, the kick drum is still the strongest part of the accompaniment, but there’s much more instrumentation. A simple two note piano motif repeats at the end of several bars, creating movement. There are two organs: a gospel organ playing extended chords through a rotary speaker in the right channel, and a jazz organ playing ascending bright notes in the left channel. Where Hill rapped in the previous, here she sings beautifully. Both of which she does extremely well.

Lyrically, this song shows another emotional layer to the same breakup of the “Lost Ones.” Hill sings more about loss, confusion and helplessness in the face of betrayal. She’s been lied to and hurt; still accusing, but instead of preaching, she’s asking why. With this pair of tracks, we’re given two sides of why Hill should move on.

It could all be so simple
But you’d rather make it hard
Loving you is like a battle
And we both end up with scars
Tell me, who I have to be
To get some reciprocity
No one loves you more than me
And no one ever will

Doo-Wop (That Thing)

“Doo-Wop (That Thing)” mixes some instrumentation of doo-wop with hip hop. The song, however, lacks the doo-wop chord progression, but rather has an strange iii-ii chord progression. The horn riff plays a IV-iii-ii, with a pause after the ii chord. You can feel the resolution to the tonic, but it never actually happens. I like that.

The cautionary lyrics talk about one-night stands and reckless dating. Hill advises both men and women to grow up, be true, and sincere. She also warns about the temptations of sex that can lead to betrayal and dishonesty. Wordplay happens throughout, sometimes with lines rhyming with each other and featuring plenty of clever internal rhymes.

Talking out your neck, saying you’re a Christian
A Muslim, sleeping with the jinn(gin)
Now that was the sin that did Jezebel in
Who you going to tell when the repercussions spin?
Showing off your ass cause you’re thinking it’s a trend
Girlfriend, let me break it down for you again
You know I only say it cause I’m truly genuine
Don’t be a hard rock when you really are a gem

Massive Attack’s “Blue Lines”

This week, I’ve been listening to Massive Attack’s 1991 debut album “Blue Lines” for lessons I can learn as a songwriting musician. “Blue Lines” gets praise for it’s groundbreaking style opening the way for the genre of trip hop for the rest of the decade.I was completely unaware of Massive Attack throughout the 90s. In the early 2000s, I heard a bit of the 1998 album “Mezzanine,” but I honestly can’t say I remember anything about it. I liked the atmosphere of other trip hop artists, especially Portishead. Somehow, a copy of Massive Attack member Tricky’s solo album “Pre-Millennium Tension” found its way into my collection and I enjoyed bits of it.

So, I was looking forward to my week with this album. Overall, this album was disappointing. It’s not that it’s bad, in fact some of it is quite good. I had expectations that it could not live up to. To my ears today, it’s not remarkably interesting or special. I was anticipating something more like the trip hop that followed it, and really it’s hip-hop inspired pop music of the mid-90s. Perhaps what made it innovative was influential to other artists that took it further, making the original sound kind of quaint.

Like much hip-hop, the music of Massive Attack is largely sample-based. Though, as I understand, combining original music with samples was part of the innovation here. But even the SugarHill Gang was doing this back in 1979. The use of samples does not pose a problem for me, but I was disappointed to learn that the bassline from “Safe From Harm” is a sample from Billy Cobham’s “Stratus” which uses the bassline in much the same way. Massive Attack sample, one of the most sampled-artists, Funkadelic for drums.

The opening of the track with atmospheric noise and rolling bassline sounds super-cool. It reminds me of some of DJ Spooky’s (also sample-based) work “Galactic Funk” from 1996. I would assume that’s an example of me hearing the influenced before hearing the influencer. Stylish vocals float over the bassline, sung in a jazz-inflected soulful way by Shara Nelson.

One of my favorite bits of the song are the male smooth-rapped line “I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me to see me looking back at you.” They cut and manipulate this line to enhance the scratched-record feel already present in the lyrics.

The lyrics of this album frequently disappoint. I don’t know if I can condone mispronouncing “contagious” to make it rhyme with “dangerous” though. It reminds me too much of Jez’s song “Outrageous” from comedy show “Peep Show.” Also, this album provides reminders that if the listener can figure it out, maybe you shouldn’t spell it out. Like in the otherwise decent reggaeish track “One Love” when he says “They say don’t lay your eggs in one basket;
If the basket should fall all the eggs’ll be broken.”

The smooth track “Blue Lines” features cool samples from Tom Scott and the L.A. Express. Some clean funky guitar comes from a song by The Blackbyrds. I recognize the Blackbyrds sample from several other hip hop songs around the same time. Again, the vocal are smooth rap delivered in an effortless way that contradicts much of the “spit” or harder-edge rap. Massive Attack often opt for cool over brag:

Somebody da-ditty, nobody
Walking on sunshine, but, still, we’re treading water
The son of many reasons searching for the daughter
Seeking knowledge, not acknowledging the jet-set
Silver papers of the sound within my Budakon headset
The solar system watches in wisdom
The children dance as the moonlight kissed them

The closing track “Hymn of the Big Wheel” features all original music, as far as I can find researching online. It stands also as one of the musically stronger songs. Pulsating synths provide a drone-like effect as heard in Indian or Scottish music. Over this, the vocals sing in a hymn-like melody lyrics that almost achieve what they try to do. Again, there’s some disappointing lyrics. The line “There’s a hole in my soul like a cavity” seems rather redundant, considering “cavity” is a synonym for “hole.” Still, overall the song is a hymn, some of the best lyrics on the album.

As a child’s silent prayer my hope hides in disguise
While satellites and cameras watch from the skies
An acid drop of rain recycled from the sea
It washed away my shadow burnt a hole in me
And all the king’s men cannot put it back again
But the ghetto sun will nurture life
And mend my soul sometime againThe big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes

While I enjoyed some of this album, I don’t feel I’ll be returning to it. Also, this isn’t a collection of songs I see having much influence on my own music. Still, glad I finally heard it and devoted a week getting to know it.

Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back”

Yeah boy! I devoted this week to Public Enemy‘s 1988 album “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” to learn as a songwriting musician. This first first hip hop album for this weekly project. This was also my introduction to Public Enemy, excluding the collaboration with metal band Anthrax in the 90s. My music is definitely not hip hop; so learning from this album works a little differently. Rhythm and tone of voice take precedence over key and melody. While I consider this a valid style, it’s not one that I either have the intention or skill to use. I look to other aspects of the songs for my purposes.

The famous song “Bring the Noise” opens the album after a short intro track. The song starts with the phrase “too black, too strong,” a phrase crafted from a sample of Malcolm X (“It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. […] You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. […] It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.”). This perfectly introduces an album that frequently takes pride in being “too black” while designed to wake listeners up to sociopolitical issues.

The lyrics are densely packed with meaning. References deal with current events and/or historical context, particularly with racism and corruption within both the media and the government.. The use of phrases and word-choice to convey meaning is particularly interesting to me. Unfortunately, Public Enemy seems to spend more time talking about how controversial and political they are than actually being political. Braggadocio and self-referential lyrics have been a major part of rap music since the beginning. In the mid-80s when Public Enemy were getting started, rap songs usually spoke about partying, dancing, rapping.

The overall message of this album is that racism is still a problem and that minorities, especially the black community, should be proud of who they are and take a stand against social injustices. Public enemy is not here to teach so much as wake people up so they will take themselves to school. Most directly, they point to Nation of Islam leader Farrakhan, saying “a brother like me said, ‘Well What he can say to you, what you wanna do is follow for now.'” Though they generally keep it light, when they hit, they hit hard like in the song “Louder than a Bomb” with lines like “Your CIA, you see I ain’t kiddin’, Both King and X they got rid of both. A story untold, true but unknown.”

Public Enemy assumes a sizable crowd are going to be hearing the songs and they speak to that crowd, and they write for that situation. In contrast on “Blue“, Joni Mitchell was speaking intimately to a single listener. On “Highway 51 Revisited“, Bob Dylan was usually speaking to the subject of the song.

The music is almost completely built from samples, with turn-table scratching and a Roland TR-808 drum machine keeping the beat. What they’ve done is more than looping a sample; the music is a layered collage of music and sound effects to create a rhythmic atmosphere. The drum patterns make you want to dance. The first beat of each bar is usually dedicated to the kick drum with a snare on the second and third beat. Extra work on the snare and/or hat during space between the second and third beat that give the rhythm their groove.

Limitations of samplers caused them to use short samples, so most samples are either only 4 or 8 beats long. Since they’ve built each song with a limited collection short samples, chord progressions are nearly non-existent. Changes in the music are created through either having or not having a sample playing; for example, they may cut out the bass line for a eight bars and then bring it back. Combining this layering of starting and stopping phrases with dynamic vocal delivery is what keeps the songs interesting despite the repetitive nature of the music. The siren noises get annoying though.