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But this list isn't about boring statistics - the following ten records have served as the canvas for literally thousands of tracks that accompanied our lives in the last 30 years. The WhoSampled database has recently crossed the 20,000 samples mark, and since every sample is classified according to the part sampled, it allows us to pull out some interesting statistics, such as the most sampled drum breaks across all genres. Bedroom producers soon began looping drum breaks on cassettes, and eventually, the arrival of dedicated digital samplers and drum machines made the job easier, allowing far greater control and manipulation. He began extending these instrumental passages by hand, switching from one record to the next, chopping from break to break.
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At the time, when playing extended disco mixes and heavy funk, Herc noticed that it was the instrumental versions, and often the percussion-only breaks in the middle of those records, which sent the crowds wild. In the early 1970's, years before producers had begun chopping up old records on samplers, Jamaican-born and Bronx-based DJ Kool Herc introduced a new approach to mixing records, paving the way for the development of Hip-Hop beatmaking. They just happened to do so exquisitely.You can't mention sample-based music and not talk about drum breaks. They were just two friends who made party music. EPMD seemed relatable, less godlike than the mystic figureheads of the genre. Maybe that's another reason why this album worked its way into a young rap fan's heart the way it did. Sermon's stoned, mumble-mouthed reportage ("When I walk through the crowd I could see heads turning/I hear voices saying 'That's Erick Sermon.'/Not only from the women, but from the men/You know what? It feels good, my friend.") volleyed back and forth with P's more traditional, monotone slick talk ("I'm the Thriller of Manilla/MC cold killer/Drink Budweiser/Can not stand Miller/MCs cold clock until the parties through/Then they tap me on the shoulder and say 'This Bud's for you.'") -creating another fluid layer of sound above the hypnotic basslines and spliced-in melodic embellishments. But they were plenty clever and their voices played off the music perfectly. They stuck to standard battle rap and boasting. Coming off as two pretty regular guys from Long Island who liked Mercedes Benzes, neither Sermon nor his partner Parrish Smith were near the lyricists that KRS-One or Rakim were. Like the mixing board in the spaceship cockpit was upholstered with velour. Grade-A choice samples snipped from records ranging the pop music spectrum-Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, Zapp, Steve Miller, Joeski Love, Otis Redding, The Beastie Boys, Rick James, The Whole Darn Family-woven into ten songs of smooth, plush, luxuriousness. I loved that crackly rawness (I still love that, too!) but compared to that, EPMD sounded like it had been recorded in the cockpit of a spaceship. & Rakim's Paid in Fullhad the grit of city streets in their grooves.
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Previous rap standard bearers like B.D.P.'s Criminal Minded or Eric B. When Strictly Business came out, it sounded, technical fidelity-wise, about a million times better than anything else that had come before it. He is the funk master.)Īnd it's something about seamlessness and futurism. (Erick Sermon has never gotten the respect he deserves for his production. This album spent a long time as my default answer to the always-impossible-to-answer question, "What's your favorite rap album." What was it about EPMD's Strictly Business that made me love it so? (And what is it? I do still love it a lot, though my default answer to that question has changed to Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.) It's something about under-ratedness-having that secret perfect gem that you know is a perfect gem but other people don't seem to see its perfection. Label: Fresh Records/Sleeping Bac Records, Priority Records, EMI Records