Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop (Music Culture)

Rating:
Summary: Finally someone gets it right
Review: I'm usually pretty skeptical of books written about hip-hop by authors with PhD's. Most of the time, they don't get it. They aren't hip hop heads, although they might own a few Cd's. Mike Dyson, Tricia Rose, et cetera.

I think this book gets it right.

But the title of this book is misleading. It's not a how-to book on making hip hop beats.

It's an ethnographic study on hip hop producers, most of which are underground/college radio hip hop makers.
So chances are most Amazon customers won't know the names of the producers, or even be able to recognize any of their songs.

But if you know names like Paul C, Diamond D, Showbiz, Pete Rock, Premier, Dilla, Marley Marl, Supreme, Soulman, Dj Muro - this book is really good.

There are a lot of insider issues that producers talk about between themselves, but never really get into the main hip hop discussion, and so it has no chance of getting into the mainstream.

Joe decided to look at producers and ask these questions. He interviewed folks like Dj Kool Akiem (of the Micranauts), Vitamin D, Domino of Hieroglyphics, and he asks questions like
- Why do you need to sample, why not just replay the sample?
- What's the big deal with reissues?
- Producers who didn't start out as Dj's
- Will you sample from a rap record?

If you're just a hip hop head, the quotes from producers are probably the most interesting part of the book. You really get to look into 1 school of thought on how to make beats.

If you're an academic, it's got plenty of footnotes, and lots of support for his ideas.

For me, I think the best part of the book was the literature review. He looks at a lot of the bigger books on the subject of hip hop and breaks them down as to why they don't make sense.

The only problem I really see with the book, is that it focuses on a certain type of producer. Sample based, means sampled from vinyl. You won't find a "keyboard" producer. You won't find producers that make g-rap type beats. (Mannie Fresh type of producer). It's very biased towards an underground, old east coast sound 89-93 era, aesthetic. Which is all the more interesting since he's based on the West Coast.