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I singled out this release because the Beat Konducta series feels like the best representation of his aesthetic, as it shows off both his ongoing quest for interesting sounds and his wizardry in manipulating his discoveries. Madlib’s inclusion on this list is a foregone conclusion, even though his output would require its own separate list to properly assess as a whole. All this blends surprisingly well with the robotic abrasion which El-P is best known for, and this contradictory-yet-balanced jumble of sound expresses El-P’s intentions and world view just as well and as his lyrics ever did.īeat Konducta Vol. Unexpected proggy guitar passages and even occasional flutes are slotted in neatly. There are intros and fadeouts reminiscent of warped psych-pop jingles, with tight arrangements stacked between them. This take is especially validating when you notice how much order and melodic detail is hidden in his trademark pummeling chaos. With that in mind you can understand my interest in hearing his beats laid bare.
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Consider also how the old mantra of “El-P is ahead of his time” began to feel a lot more tangible as grime and dubstep got a foothold in the US while harsher industrialized sounds began to creep up more in the rap world. I wouldn’t claim that he got drastically worse as a rapper, but that aspect of his work just lost its appeal, and his production was always the main draw anyway.Ĭonsider, for example, how the instrumental versions of Fantastic Damage and The Cold Vein have aged better than certain elements of the albums proper. I celebrate El-P’s entire discography, but this album was the exact point where I began to prefer the instrumental versions of his releases to the vocal ones. I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead Instrumentals As a testament to the creator’s talent, this retrospective sounds more like a celebration of glory days than a eulogy.
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The formula of The Fool is simple, but the execution is powerful – through a collage of breaks and dialogue samples, K-Def took the listener on a guided tour of the music and culture that shaped the foundation of hip-hop as he knew it. It’s a true connoisseur’s love letter to that style, which by ’06 was beginning to fall out of favor. In 2006 K-Def was already a respected veteran with a long and storied career in hip-hop production, and in retrospect the release of The Fool feels like the last truly significant hurrah of the old guard he represented.Īmong in-the-know fans weaned on classic 90s rap, K-Def’s album holds almost as much sway as Donuts. K-Def’s instrumental debut was obviously not the last album to be constructed from soul loops and blunted drums, but there is a certain nostalgic finality to it. the LA beat scene, which deserves a detailed write-up of its own). I tried to focus on items that have the most tangible connection to the larger world of rap, purposefully avoiding more abstracted areas which teeter on being sub-genres unto themselves (i.e. The purpose of the list is to explore some of the more interesting and important releases among them, and to highlight a few personal favorites that may have been overlooked. New approaches to production and new influences bred entirely new sounds to be used for soundtracking rappers and creating standalone compositions.Ģ006 ushered in a fertile stretch for instrumental hip-hop, heralding a plethora of wildly different beat tapes and full-lengths. Sampling and live instrumentation intermingled more and more, closing the gap between hip-hop and the music that inspired it. A period of nearly unchecked file sharing provided producers with an unprecedented amount of new sample sources from a variety of locales and musical epochs. But as rap evolved, hip-hop instrumentals were quick to follow. In the wake of Donuts the sub-genre grew stale, partly suffocated by a wave of well-meaning but uninspired posthumous tributes to Dilla himself. Soon enough, the internet, for better or worse, would become a wellspring of new ideas that pointed to unexpected and radically different directions.Īftershocks were felt in instrumental hip-hop too. The nascent blog boom allowed access to a wealth of previously obscure material, prompting a reassessment of the historical canon and spurring cross-pollination between previously far-flung styles. New York began its decline, and the South rose to prominence on a national scale. It emerged in the midst of a transitional period in rap where old traditions began to stagnate both above and below ground, and the genre began to evolve in new directions. In our list of the 100 best indie hip-hop records, Donuts was set as a cutoff because it felt like the last really significant release of that era. Donuts is a somewhat arbitrary point to single out, but it can be used as a convenient marker on the timeline of independent hip-hop.