Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Kenny Beats on the Regional Sounds of Hip Hop

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Kenny Beats on the Regional Sounds of Hip Hop · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. There's a reason Kenny Beats is one of the
0:25
Speaker 1: great young producers in hip hop because he does his homework.
0:30
Speaker 1: Kenny has a vast understanding of the regional sounds and
0:33
Speaker 1: histories of cities to pull from when making beats. For
0:35
Speaker 1: an artist, this allows him to find a common musical
0:38
Speaker 1: language with rappers, which gives him a leg up in
0:40
Speaker 1: an art form as hyperlocal as a rap. Everything from
0:44
Speaker 1: the popular local dances to the type of crime most
0:47
Speaker 1: prevalent in different cities can inform the sound of a
0:50
Speaker 1: local scene and influences how Kenny might approach making a beat. Today,
0:54
Speaker 1: we're kicking off a two part series of interviews with
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Speaker 1: Kenny Beats and The One You're About to Hear, which
0:59
Speaker 1: was taped a while back. Kenny maps out the evolution
1:02
Speaker 1: of regional sounds in hip hop, drawing parallels between disparate
1:06
Speaker 1: cities and now hip hop has evolved from creating beats
1:09
Speaker 1: out of old drum samples known as breakbeats, to sampling
1:13
Speaker 1: and referencing itself. I should also say that Kenny producer
1:16
Speaker 1: theme song The One You're About to Hear as if
1:19
Speaker 1: he were Rick Rubin in nineteen eighty five. See ifing
1:22
Speaker 1: gets which Specie Boys song it's based on. This is
1:30
Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmonds.
1:38
Speaker 1: Here's Rick Rubin and Kenny Beats at Shanglu La. What's
1:41
Speaker 1: a good what's a good place to start? Well, really, like,
1:45
Speaker 1: first off, everything that you and I have talked about
1:47
Speaker 1: when it comes to regional hip hop and these things,
1:50
Speaker 1: I'm talking about such a short time period. Yes, I
1:52
Speaker 1: was born in ninety one, so I'm really thinking a
1:54
Speaker 1: little bit before when I was born, and then how
1:58
Speaker 1: that came into all the stuff I grew up with,
2:00
Speaker 1: and then all the stuff I'm actually working in now
2:03
Speaker 1: and what that was routed in. But oftentimes, like most
2:06
Speaker 1: of the parallels I'm finding between two cities or two
2:10
Speaker 1: artists or influence going on in the radio now or
2:13
Speaker 1: even on like a street level, it doesn't go back
2:16
Speaker 1: as far as like hip hop's roots go back. You
2:20
Speaker 1: know what I mean When I talk about like all
2:22
Speaker 1: the connections between Memphis and Atlanta, and all the connections
2:25
Speaker 1: between Detroit in the Bay Area, or even like Florida
2:30
Speaker 1: and New Orleans. The real like common denominator for me
2:36
Speaker 1: all started by the time like drum machines and eight
2:38
Speaker 1: O eights were introduced and those kinds of things. So
2:41
Speaker 1: I'm not even thinking back as far as like when
2:43
Speaker 1: Boombap hit any of these cities or g Funk or
2:46
Speaker 1: even that, It's just the conversation starts there, yes, you know,
2:50
Speaker 1: and like I think it's just so interesting how like
2:53
Speaker 1: there was like the first big rapper like signed coming
2:56
Speaker 1: out of Detroit that people always talk about was this
2:59
Speaker 1: dude named Robert s got signed in like nineteen eighty five,
3:02
Speaker 1: and that was like very reminiscent of like Brooklyn hip
3:06
Speaker 1: hop and like you know what I mean, like New
3:07
Speaker 1: York kind of stuff. But like the common conversation with
3:11
Speaker 1: Detroit is always eminem Kid Rock, Danny Brown, Big Sean,
3:16
Speaker 1: like those are the people like on the Mount rushmore
3:19
Speaker 1: of big commercial hip hop in Detroit that comes to
3:21
Speaker 1: everyone's minds. But what's going on on the street level
3:25
Speaker 1: there right now is so different than any of those
3:29
Speaker 1: four big artists. And it all started from what I
3:33
Speaker 1: understand with like artists like dex Osama and artists like
3:38
Speaker 1: Team east Side and what was dexas grouping of the
3:42
Speaker 1: Choppa Boys, and like I can play an example right now,
3:46
Speaker 1: the easiest parallel to always draw with people as Detroit
3:49
Speaker 1: in the Bay. It's all really fast. When people talk
3:51
Speaker 1: about Bay Area music, they really do think of like
3:53
Speaker 1: a mustard beat, or they think of like these kind
3:56
Speaker 1: of like swung G funk influenced, you know what I mean,
3:59
Speaker 1: kinds of production and raps and stuff. And Detroit to
4:04
Speaker 1: me is what all the people in the Bay are
4:05
Speaker 1: always talking about and listening to when I'm talking to
4:08
Speaker 1: those artists, and the first time you hear what I
4:11
Speaker 1: think of is like the current style that goes on
4:14
Speaker 1: in that city and where all those kids draw from.
4:17
Speaker 1: The forefather is from the late nineties, you know what
4:20
Speaker 1: I mean. It's it doesn't go back decades and decades,
4:24
Speaker 1: and like when you hear decks of stuff, you hear
4:28
Speaker 1: big reverbi pianos like piscicado strings and acid basslines, it's
4:34
Speaker 1: always these don't don't, don't don't play some play something
4:43
Speaker 1: my moment shout, I've gotten the reason why I got
4:47
Speaker 1: this vest on me. Yeah, these niggas won't needn't come
4:50
Speaker 1: in I so you can hear like it kind of
4:57
Speaker 1: sounds like the beats are being made with like the
4:59
Speaker 1: stock string sound, the stock piano sound, the stock bass
5:02
Speaker 1: sound they had. But when I listen to it, it's
5:07
Speaker 1: very often in early like Detroit rap and this subgenre
5:11
Speaker 1: of it an acid base wound, like the same similar
5:15
Speaker 1: kind of bass sound. And Detroit is also known for
5:18
Speaker 1: fathering techno, and there's a lot of those same sound
5:22
Speaker 1: palettes used. So in my mind, I'm like, Okay, somebody
5:26
Speaker 1: learned how to make music in Detroit around people who
5:28
Speaker 1: were familiar with these certain synthesizers, these certain drum machines
5:32
Speaker 1: or whatever. But what was resonating where they were from
5:35
Speaker 1: wasn't for on the floor drums, wasn't techno, wasn't this.
5:38
Speaker 1: It was different kinds of patterns, different kinds of beats.
5:41
Speaker 1: They were probably listening to stuff from other cities. So
5:43
Speaker 1: when they go to do a high hat pattern on
5:45
Speaker 1: a t R A to eight, or they go do
5:46
Speaker 1: a bassline on an old juno or whatever it is,
5:51
Speaker 1: they're emulating the melodies and the drum patterns and everything
5:56
Speaker 1: of hip hop, but they're using techno sounds really if
6:00
Speaker 1: you look at it, and I think that's where like
6:02
Speaker 1: the early Detroit sound came from. The tempo and everything
6:06
Speaker 1: got updated by what kids were listening to in this net,
6:08
Speaker 1: but it really was from Detroit techno elements. And when
6:11
Speaker 1: you listen to the biggest rappers in Detroit right now,
6:14
Speaker 1: if you go to a party in Detroit and play
6:16
Speaker 1: these songs like the entire room knows every word if
6:19
Speaker 1: even if they have no hook, you hear such similar elements.
6:23
Speaker 1: And the producer today, who I think everyone considers just
6:26
Speaker 1: the godfather of the current Detroit sound as hell of
6:28
Speaker 1: a And when you listen to some of the hottest
6:31
Speaker 1: stuff going on out of the Bay or like artists
6:34
Speaker 1: like Geasy, you know what I mean, or artists like
6:37
Speaker 1: that are coming out of La right now, a lot
6:39
Speaker 1: of their sound is informed by these tempos, these kinds
6:43
Speaker 1: of kick pounds, these drum patterns, And I think when
6:45
Speaker 1: you look at Mustard and you look at like how
6:49
Speaker 1: he took over radio in twenty twelve with these big
6:52
Speaker 1: basselined hundred bpm beats and that I think it's a
6:55
Speaker 1: combination of like these Detroit and Bay sister city like
7:02
Speaker 1: kinds of styles of beat making and rap. But at
7:05
Speaker 1: the same time, the producers he grew up listening to
7:09
Speaker 1: probably weren't the guys making these beats in Detroit. He
7:11
Speaker 1: was probably listening to the Battlecat, and he was probably
7:13
Speaker 1: listening to DJ Quick, and he was probably listening to
7:15
Speaker 1: LA music, where the sound choice is different and the
7:18
Speaker 1: bounce is different. So like when you talk about g
7:22
Speaker 1: Funk or you talk about like legendary La and Bay producers, like,
7:26
Speaker 1: it's much more swung and much more funky, you know
7:30
Speaker 1: what I mean. And it's a much different kind of
7:32
Speaker 1: attitude than the Detroit shit, just like being in the
7:35
Speaker 1: Motor City is a way different attitude than being in
7:37
Speaker 1: the Bay. And so I think they were inspired by
7:40
Speaker 1: each other. But Mustard was going to use a softer,
7:43
Speaker 1: rounder bass sound instead of that acid base because it
7:47
Speaker 1: might be a little more smooth, but he's still going
7:49
Speaker 1: to keep it at one hundred bpm. The only the
7:53
Speaker 1: only difference is sound choice. To me, really a little
7:55
Speaker 1: bit of tempo, a little bit of sound choice, but
7:58
Speaker 1: it's essentially the same vibe and you're getting across like
8:02
Speaker 1: the same kind of feeling and you listen to like,
8:04
Speaker 1: like even in other huge Mustard songs like be Honest
8:09
Speaker 1: for kid Ink, like you hear the piano influence and
8:13
Speaker 1: you hear other things that are very Detroit it's just
8:27
Speaker 1: he opts for the snaps and the no hats and
8:30
Speaker 1: the chill little like like the little chants and extra
8:34
Speaker 1: percussion and hat rolls rather than the really strict fast
8:39
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, hats and percussion of this
8:41
Speaker 1: and that. But it's similar sound choice too. You hear
8:43
Speaker 1: those same like chant sounds and same rim rolls and
8:47
Speaker 1: everything in both the beats. It's just a matter of
8:49
Speaker 1: like swing bounce mustards a little behind the beat or
8:53
Speaker 1: I feel like Detroit stuff is either strictly quantized or
8:55
Speaker 1: if anything, a little ahead. Do you think that, um,
8:58
Speaker 1: the local drug choice makes a difference in the tempos
9:01
Speaker 1: and it's it's got to. I mean, if you look
9:05
Speaker 1: at the Bay, like one of the biggest movements ever
9:08
Speaker 1: out of the Bay is a high fee movement. And
9:09
Speaker 1: if you look at mac dre and keep the Sneak
9:11
Speaker 1: and all those kinds of guys like it was very
9:14
Speaker 1: informed by Molly, you know what I mean, and like
9:16
Speaker 1: by the drugs that they were doing and stuff. And
9:18
Speaker 1: in Detroit, I mean it's not necessarily drugs, but the
9:22
Speaker 1: type of crime and the type of things that go
9:23
Speaker 1: on their prostitution mainly and the different types of drugs,
9:27
Speaker 1: like much more harder stuff. From what I understand, that
9:29
Speaker 1: gets sold in Detroit way more prevalently is that's talked
9:33
Speaker 1: about in the music way more, you know what I mean,
9:35
Speaker 1: And from what I understand, the Bay Area and Detroit
9:37
Speaker 1: of that in common with prostitution and things like that.
9:40
Speaker 1: But you hear about different kinds of things because this
9:43
Speaker 1: music is getting made on a street level and they're
9:45
Speaker 1: just talking about what they know in that city. And
9:48
Speaker 1: that's what gets the biggest reaction is the people who
9:51
Speaker 1: are being the most authentic and the most honest and
9:53
Speaker 1: the most regional. They're talking about things that specifically, you know,
9:56
Speaker 1: this neighborhood. Like when you talk about New Orleans bounce music.
10:01
Speaker 1: One of the characteristics of bounce music is call and response.
10:05
Speaker 1: From day one with a big Freeda and Magnolia Shorty
10:08
Speaker 1: and those kinds of people, like it was always about
10:11
Speaker 1: getting the audience to respond to something that you were saying.
10:13
Speaker 1: Even in the beats, it would be there'ld be these
10:15
Speaker 1: big chants and something about like let me see you
10:40
Speaker 1: bet it, let me see you bets it, let me
10:42
Speaker 1: see you The energy is incredibly yeah, and it's so
10:44
Speaker 1: high up and the whole genre of of of bounce
10:48
Speaker 1: music is based in two or three drum samples. If
10:50
Speaker 1: you ask anyone who knows anything about bounce music, they'll
10:53
Speaker 1: tell you the trigger Man, uh drum loop is what
10:57
Speaker 1: basically the whole genre was created off of it. If
11:00
Speaker 1: you look up just the trigger Man, it's but the
11:01
Speaker 1: original record is the show Boys. Everyone knows this. The
11:08
Speaker 1: whole genre is based in that. And it's like that
11:11
Speaker 1: that one break created this whole thing, and it's from
11:14
Speaker 1: drum machines, you know what I mean. It's not a
11:16
Speaker 1: James Brown thing. It's not an old meters like loop.
11:20
Speaker 1: It's someone played those eight oh eight rims and then
11:23
Speaker 1: sampled that and forty other songs and it created a
11:28
Speaker 1: tempo and a vibe and this and that. But like
11:30
Speaker 1: when you see the like the call and response thing
11:34
Speaker 1: that goes on and bounce music turned into cash money
11:38
Speaker 1: and no limit and artists like Juvenile or credited being
11:41
Speaker 1: at the start of dance music and then they turned
11:44
Speaker 1: into like crunk music from there. And then you see
11:47
Speaker 1: little John all of a sudden be influenced by these
11:49
Speaker 1: big call in response channel if you like everything he
11:54
Speaker 1: was saying was always like further Crowd, like to the
11:57
Speaker 1: Windows too. I was like, it's very New Orleans bounce,
12:02
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Even if you look at
12:04
Speaker 1: like the influence on Memphis to crunk music and Little John, Like,
12:09
Speaker 1: there's so many different parallels there. And at this point
12:13
Speaker 1: when you trace back either the artists I'm working with,
12:16
Speaker 1: the artists I'm big fans of, I'm not always like, oh,
12:20
Speaker 1: this goes back to this old DJ Premier record and
12:23
Speaker 1: that was sampled from this James Brown record, because I
12:26
Speaker 1: feel like so much of hip hop is like that.
12:28
Speaker 1: But now we're so far along that it's like I'm
12:31
Speaker 1: tracing it back to people sampling something off an ASR
12:36
Speaker 1: or you know, an NPC, and that only goes back
12:38
Speaker 1: to the early nineties, late eighties, you know, like G
12:42
Speaker 1: Easy and Cardi B have a current song. I think
12:46
Speaker 1: it's called no Limit. Let me play it. If I
12:49
Speaker 1: hit it one time, I'm a White book, if I
12:51
Speaker 1: hit it two times in the like of if three
12:55
Speaker 1: Times I'm a White it's the it's a sample of
12:57
Speaker 1: slab of My Knob by three six Mafia. They redo
13:02
Speaker 1: the flow. There's things about the beat that are really
13:05
Speaker 1: similar than give Me don't have the eggs, don't have
13:11
Speaker 1: to pay Memphis super Memphis like MPCs TR eight to eights,
13:17
Speaker 1: super simple patterns. But like asap Ferg's biggest song last
13:20
Speaker 1: year Ride with the Mob, hamdu A La check and
13:26
Speaker 1: with Me and do your job is the name Bimbala
13:30
Speaker 1: did the chain tona photo watch Presi Plaine Jain, Yeah,
13:34
Speaker 1: make Guiney chain arrested piece So and that's a huge
13:38
Speaker 1: New York artist and then a huge Bay Area artist
13:41
Speaker 1: and Cardi also a New York artist, all being influenced
13:44
Speaker 1: by an old song from Memphis, and three six Mafia
13:47
Speaker 1: were known for slowing down the trigger Man break that
13:50
Speaker 1: came from New Orleans. They all tie in in a
13:54
Speaker 1: weird way. So like this has been something for me
13:58
Speaker 1: that's just been such a phenomenon in the last few years,
14:00
Speaker 1: because I stopped making hip hop for a while, and
14:02
Speaker 1: I came back to it and was so scared that
14:06
Speaker 1: my card would get pulled off, not understanding you don't
14:08
Speaker 1: even certain thing that's going on in a city, or
14:11
Speaker 1: the lineage of it and or how to make it
14:14
Speaker 1: or the sound choice, and so I would get stuck
14:16
Speaker 1: in these little pockets of being like Okay, I'm working
14:19
Speaker 1: with this kid right now from Baltimore. I need to
14:24
Speaker 1: understand more about what goes on there in the rap scene,
14:28
Speaker 1: in the dance music scene, what kind of dances come
14:30
Speaker 1: from there, what kind of attitude the people have from there,
14:33
Speaker 1: and why the type of crime it's on in the city.
14:35
Speaker 1: It's like, all these things inform the conversation of what
14:38
Speaker 1: my high hat pattern is going to be when I
14:40
Speaker 1: get there that day. And it's sometimes something that's small
14:44
Speaker 1: that gets the person to get on the record and
14:46
Speaker 1: do their thing or not because you're assuming, like, oh,
14:50
Speaker 1: let me just let me clean that up that snares
14:51
Speaker 1: a little ahead of the beat, let me just quantize
14:53
Speaker 1: that for you, and then do a similar beat to
14:55
Speaker 1: your last single. And then guys get there and they're like, nah,
14:58
Speaker 1: this doesn't feel right. And it's not always even the
15:01
Speaker 1: volume in the studio or the sound choice or anything
15:03
Speaker 1: like that. It doesn't rhythmically hit where they're used to
15:07
Speaker 1: it hitting in their head when they think about home
15:09
Speaker 1: and they think about the process of making music that
15:11
Speaker 1: they started with in their basement with their friends, and
15:14
Speaker 1: it probably affects a comfort level in there in the
15:17
Speaker 1: way the rhyme works. It's like if you're used to
15:20
Speaker 1: a certain bounce and writing to a certain bounce and
15:22
Speaker 1: a comfort level, it's harder to it's harder to channel that. Yeah,
15:27
Speaker 1: if it's bouncing different, even if the temple is the same.
15:31
Speaker 1: And I think guys assume that they're being a good
15:34
Speaker 1: engineer or a friend to the artist or the song
15:38
Speaker 1: by trying to clean something up with an equeue or
15:41
Speaker 1: trying to put it on beat, or trying to make
15:45
Speaker 1: it relate to something that they think is working right
15:47
Speaker 1: now on the radio or for another artist, blah blah,
15:49
Speaker 1: And that's where you lose everything. And for me, it's
15:53
Speaker 1: like understanding when a new artist comes to the studio
15:56
Speaker 1: from New Orleans that it's not always a conversation of like, oh,
15:59
Speaker 1: do you understand the trigger man break and help bounce
16:01
Speaker 1: music started? It's not that, but it informs where they're from,
16:06
Speaker 1: what they grew up on. Maybe they lean towards these
16:08
Speaker 1: kinds of tempt Maybe they scored these rhythms, maybe not,
16:11
Speaker 1: but it's in each case to learn about them. Did
16:13
Speaker 1: you have to go to the places I haven't been
16:16
Speaker 1: to a lot of the places I've wanted to, but
16:18
Speaker 1: a lot of times. I'd been to these places before
16:21
Speaker 1: I learned more about it, because I'd traveled as a
16:24
Speaker 1: DJ for years. I've been to forty something states playing shows,
16:28
Speaker 1: but then came back into hip hop and working with
16:30
Speaker 1: all these different artists a lot of the time in
16:32
Speaker 1: LA and it was kind of like getting schooled about
16:35
Speaker 1: these places that yeah, I've been there. Oh yeah, I
16:37
Speaker 1: know about this neighborhood and this restaurant and so forth
16:39
Speaker 1: and so on. But did I ever apply any of
16:42
Speaker 1: that knowledge of what I'd even seen in my life
16:45
Speaker 1: to the music. No, not before someone was right in
16:47
Speaker 1: front of me and was saying to me, like, now
16:49
Speaker 1: this is how we do it, like it's sposed that's
16:52
Speaker 1: supposed to be what's wrong to you, that's right to us,
16:56
Speaker 1: And now like that's paramount for me. So it still
17:00
Speaker 1: wouldn't be what you make wouldn't really follow a templated
17:04
Speaker 1: you'd use this information as it's like a menu of
17:09
Speaker 1: things to pick from because you don't want to make
17:13
Speaker 1: the same record someone else made. Never but it's basically
17:18
Speaker 1: a lot of the time the job. I feel like
17:19
Speaker 1: if the producer in the studio should be just to
17:22
Speaker 1: give the vocabulary to the artist so they can get
17:26
Speaker 1: out their idea better. You're trying to show them, Okay,
17:28
Speaker 1: maybe you want to try this vocal effect, or you
17:30
Speaker 1: want to try this instrument, or you wanta try this
17:32
Speaker 1: variation of this instrument. For me, it was giving me
17:35
Speaker 1: a vocabulary to understand what they're doing, you know what
17:41
Speaker 1: I mean, because a lot of times I'm always helping
17:44
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And like, this is the
17:46
Speaker 1: artist helping me to just come into their world. Even
17:48
Speaker 1: if we don't use that lesson today, a decision I
17:51
Speaker 1: make or a sound choice or whatever is going to
17:53
Speaker 1: be just informed by the conversation of oh, like you
17:57
Speaker 1: make music from Memphis, you know I mean, I'd work
18:01
Speaker 1: on a lot of rap. So, like we were saying
18:04
Speaker 1: with the Bounce music, shouting out, where you're from, who
18:07
Speaker 1: you are, what you stand for is a quintessential like
18:10
Speaker 1: cornerstone of a lot of the artists I work with.
18:12
Speaker 1: Where they're from is who they are, And my mind,
18:15
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, would an ode to where you come
18:18
Speaker 1: from as far as the tempo or a sample or
18:21
Speaker 1: the sound choice set it off when you play this
18:23
Speaker 1: live in your hometown, I think it would. And like
18:27
Speaker 1: those are the moments where this becomes a tool where
18:29
Speaker 1: you're like, oh my god, where the DJ mentality brought
18:33
Speaker 1: into production really helps. You're always thinking about what's going
18:38
Speaker 1: to rock the club. But isn't that what you would
18:41
Speaker 1: say when you used to talk about the first records
18:43
Speaker 1: on deaf Jam is that the rap records that were
18:45
Speaker 1: coming out didn't reflect how it felt when you went
18:48
Speaker 1: to a rap show. You would hear all this scratching
18:50
Speaker 1: and all this mic work and all these things, and
18:52
Speaker 1: like that's what brought those songs to life. I think
18:56
Speaker 1: with people now, like whenever that breakbeat or triggerman sample
19:01
Speaker 1: or old vocal thing or something from your childhood or
19:04
Speaker 1: that place that makes you think of somewhere comes into
19:07
Speaker 1: a new song now with an updated type of beat
19:10
Speaker 1: or drum sound or tempo or whatever it is, it
19:14
Speaker 1: already like sets such a strong platform and foundation for
19:19
Speaker 1: like this song to reach a lot of people and
19:22
Speaker 1: make them feel a lot you know what I mean,
19:24
Speaker 1: because it's it's routed and like, oh, this is an
19:26
Speaker 1: experience a lot of these producers that created these waves
19:30
Speaker 1: and these sounds, whether it was what they were playing
19:32
Speaker 1: or they're sampling or whatever. I think they're shocked now
19:35
Speaker 1: that a lot of times on hip hop, the music
19:37
Speaker 1: serves like a bed behind these huge drums, and it's
19:40
Speaker 1: not these samples right in the front of these big
19:43
Speaker 1: melodies or keyboards things. It's like there's kids who were
19:47
Speaker 1: so influenced by crunk music and by three six Maffi
19:50
Speaker 1: and by all these things that now it's like the
19:53
Speaker 1: drums and the swing of the drums and the sounds
19:56
Speaker 1: of the drums are the biggest thing in so many records,
19:59
Speaker 1: and you end up with artists like Splurge and ten
20:01
Speaker 1: K and kids from Texas who just rap on eight
20:03
Speaker 1: o eights Do you want to play? Sure? Splurge is
20:06
Speaker 1: from Arlington. These kids just wrap on just drumps. Yeah,
20:16
Speaker 1: get that shit to my mom. He'll deal with the
20:18
Speaker 1: fashion that she came from town. I came from the mood.
20:20
Speaker 1: She took some time. I really to drink like a
20:23
Speaker 1: little bits, to go to the pen like a prison.
20:26
Speaker 1: Is so good. He's in every single label, meeting everything
20:29
Speaker 1: he could be in, telling them no melodies, no hooks.
20:32
Speaker 1: It's so good. His mixtape was called no Melody, the
20:37
Speaker 1: name of the tape, Like they are the most quintessential
20:41
Speaker 1: example of like just getting at how you live, making
20:45
Speaker 1: what sounds good to your friends where they are. And
20:47
Speaker 1: I think it was it's with Spurs, like he's to
20:49
Speaker 1: the point now where if he doesn't just hear something
20:51
Speaker 1: big and hard and instinctual and powerful that everybody in
20:54
Speaker 1: the room goes, he doesn't even want it. And that's
20:58
Speaker 1: what I was saying about the good and bad parts
21:00
Speaker 1: of that. And hip hop is like it informs people
21:03
Speaker 1: in a certain respect of like, Okay, we know this
21:06
Speaker 1: is gonna work at the club, and we know that
21:07
Speaker 1: this is gonna go off in this region. Kids from
21:10
Speaker 1: around here are going to rock with how this song
21:12
Speaker 1: is moving because it just feeds into what we all
21:16
Speaker 1: know and what we all collectively like the zeitgeist of
21:20
Speaker 1: this area. Like it's crazy when you see artists who
21:24
Speaker 1: are very much from somewhere and act like it and
21:27
Speaker 1: look like it and have the same slang and accent
21:30
Speaker 1: or whatever, but their music just sounds like somewhere else
21:33
Speaker 1: very specifically, even like kids like Shoreline Mafia who are
21:36
Speaker 1: from LA and very big in LA. People always talk
21:38
Speaker 1: about how bay their music is, and yet it's within
21:41
Speaker 1: a state, but it's two completely different scenes and sounds,
21:45
Speaker 1: And I mean New York is really kind of an
21:48
Speaker 1: outlier too. I feel like even today, like I think
21:52
Speaker 1: New York, a lot of young, hot New York artists
21:55
Speaker 1: hate the fact that when people talk about New York beats,
21:58
Speaker 1: they think of Boom Bat nine, they think of Wu
22:04
Speaker 1: Tang type rhythms and beats and you know what I mean,
22:07
Speaker 1: they think of Alchemists beats, they of mob Deep. But
22:11
Speaker 1: if you look at the newest, biggest songs from there,
22:14
Speaker 1: if you look at all six Nines music, it's the same.
22:17
Speaker 1: It's in the nineties, it's all ninety ninety five. If
22:19
Speaker 1: you look at Bobby Schmirda, his biggest song ever, hot
22:22
Speaker 1: Boy Like, it was literally boom Bat DJ premier New
22:27
Speaker 1: York City rap music tempo, it's the it's these kinds
22:30
Speaker 1: of things you're hearing now and and drill music and
22:34
Speaker 1: in the New Atlanta musicles of the New York. Yeah,
22:36
Speaker 1: let's play like a classic one n This is the
22:55
Speaker 1: first thing you played that sounds like it's rooted in
22:57
Speaker 1: a breakbeat feel totally. And but that's that's classic New York.
23:00
Speaker 1: I think when people think New York, that's what they
23:03
Speaker 1: think of. And then you look at like the biggest
23:10
Speaker 1: artist in New York now like Gummo actually wasn't even
23:13
Speaker 1: in the nineties as far BPM rights, but a lot
23:16
Speaker 1: of six nines music works in the same tempos. They
23:24
Speaker 1: never pop you fully by Whatsout, My nap Out, Mom
23:31
Speaker 1: got outs Out, We got so about my Nigga's really
23:34
Speaker 1: game ban same day. It's so fast. It sounds like
23:39
Speaker 1: a descendant of Crunk though totally, But this is New
23:43
Speaker 1: York rap now. Interesting. Bobby Schmirda, do you remember when
23:47
Speaker 1: you first heard Crunk? Yeah, I was like eight. Did
23:50
Speaker 1: it blow your mind? Because it destroyed me when I
23:53
Speaker 1: heard I loved it. I remember hearing like Young Bloods
23:58
Speaker 1: and Ying Yang Twins and hearing Little John's production first
24:02
Speaker 1: and just being like in awe of how simple and
24:06
Speaker 1: hard it was. Yeah, and just being like like, remember
24:08
Speaker 1: the whisper song by Getting Twins, Doom Doom Doom Doom Doom.
24:14
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh you find it? Yeah, you doing my
24:21
Speaker 1: Little Mamma Lemon Whisper. Yeah, you think about it. This
24:26
Speaker 1: was a hit so cool, and they're not too far
24:30
Speaker 1: away from what Splurge is doing now. It's an eight
24:32
Speaker 1: to eight and a snap, splurgees then eight to eighty. Hey,
24:36
Speaker 1: let me hear it. Hut you super distorted and like
24:43
Speaker 1: super new with the sound choice, but it's still just
24:47
Speaker 1: drums and it's focused on the flow. And now they
24:50
Speaker 1: call it ASMR. But I feel like with like the
24:53
Speaker 1: Whisper song, Hey, all that extra mouth noise and everything
24:57
Speaker 1: here is what makes it so interesting on such a
24:59
Speaker 1: simple beat. And with Splurge they record it in the
25:03
Speaker 1: middle of a room with all his friends and you
25:04
Speaker 1: hear all this room noise and extra stuff. And he
25:07
Speaker 1: also wraps really quiet and really in front of the mic,
25:10
Speaker 1: similar in Palette you know what. And songs like the
25:14
Speaker 1: Motto by Drake, like huge hit with Little Wayne, I'm
25:19
Speaker 1: a fucking man, y'all get it? Do you? Type of
25:22
Speaker 1: money a body I can like a million, just like
25:24
Speaker 1: the Whisper song though a three note eight to eight baseline, claps, snares, hats,
25:29
Speaker 1: that's Bay tempo. It's very Bay Area in the bounce
25:32
Speaker 1: of it. But it's like it shows like in Texas,
25:37
Speaker 1: in Texas and in Atlanta and in the Bay Area.
25:41
Speaker 1: Necessarily like the same sound choice, you know what, I mean?
25:46
Speaker 1: Three or four ideas with the bounce of that respective city, yes,
25:51
Speaker 1: the tempo of that respective city. Yes, it's it's that
25:56
Speaker 1: instinctual and elemental. It's like we can talk about how
26:00
Speaker 1: certain instruments work better in certain parts of the country,
26:03
Speaker 1: or certain people respond to horns more in New Orleans
26:07
Speaker 1: and Atlanta than where they were spond to pianos and
26:10
Speaker 1: strings in the Midwest. Like, I think the tempo and
26:14
Speaker 1: the bounce. The bounce and the swing of the records
26:16
Speaker 1: are like the two things that really make the biggest
26:19
Speaker 1: difference in every part of the country. Because if you
26:22
Speaker 1: can get it down to just a base sound in
26:25
Speaker 1: a clap or something in the two four but just
26:28
Speaker 1: changed one hundred bpm over here, different the kick hits
26:31
Speaker 1: a little different in the pattern one hundred thirty bpm
26:34
Speaker 1: over here and then one fifty over here. It's like
26:39
Speaker 1: it's really about how people feel and how it moves them,
26:42
Speaker 1: and maybe the drugs of the city or where people
26:48
Speaker 1: party in that respective city or how they party or
26:50
Speaker 1: whatever has something to do with that. But at the
26:53
Speaker 1: same time, as like there's we've already seen just in
26:56
Speaker 1: this conversation, how many things trace back to how many
26:59
Speaker 1: other things the cities that believe in the music and
27:04
Speaker 1: in the hip hop and see it as a business.
27:06
Speaker 1: Are the ones where the sound finally takes press and
27:09
Speaker 1: it's not always where it originated. Yeah, I've heard people
27:12
Speaker 1: talk about that with Memphis. But if people in Memphis
27:16
Speaker 1: had the belief in the business of hip hop that
27:19
Speaker 1: they did in Atlanta, crunk music would have started in
27:22
Speaker 1: Memphis first, or certain other let's say, just any kind
27:25
Speaker 1: of niche trend thing could have popped off in the
27:29
Speaker 1: city where they created it rather than somewhere like the
27:32
Speaker 1: Bay or a guy like DJ Mustard sees, Oh, this
27:35
Speaker 1: has the potential to be. That's what That's what the
27:37
Speaker 1: great artists have always done, though the great artists have
27:40
Speaker 1: recognized them the local scenes where something's being made that's
27:46
Speaker 1: really cool, but it's really only for their and they
27:51
Speaker 1: can take the DNA of that and make it into
27:54
Speaker 1: something that becomes national totally. And it's always or global
27:57
Speaker 1: And that's always been It's always been that way. It's
28:00
Speaker 1: always been even in rock and roll. You know, it's
28:02
Speaker 1: always been like hearing something and then amplifying it in
28:07
Speaker 1: a new way and it gets you know, it's like
28:10
Speaker 1: with Led Zeppelin and the Blues you know, like like
28:13
Speaker 1: that it had to cross it had to cross the
28:16
Speaker 1: Atlantic to get that blown up, because anyone, any self
28:22
Speaker 1: respecting blues artist wouldn't play music that was It'd be
28:25
Speaker 1: like ridiculous. Yeah, but that's what made it international was
28:30
Speaker 1: that it like h And also sometimes it's interesting too
28:33
Speaker 1: that sometimes the misunderstanding of something that you like forces
28:41
Speaker 1: you to make something that you think you're making something
28:44
Speaker 1: like what you heard, and then it comes out completely
28:47
Speaker 1: different just because you're you're hearing it different or you
28:50
Speaker 1: don't know how to make that stuff and you're just
28:52
Speaker 1: trying to guess it at the end of the third thing, Yeah,
28:54
Speaker 1: which is also great, Like a lot of great stuff
28:56
Speaker 1: happens that way. It was like kind of aiming for
28:58
Speaker 1: one thing and getting something completely different. We'll be right
29:01
Speaker 1: back with Kenny Beats after a quick break. We're back
29:08
Speaker 1: with Rick and Kenny Beats. I think seeing this part
29:13
Speaker 1: of the matrix is one of my biggest strengths in
29:16
Speaker 1: any room with people making music, because especially if I'm
29:20
Speaker 1: in like a very stuffy room with a lot of
29:22
Speaker 1: top shelf people who are doing very big things and
29:25
Speaker 1: trying to preemptively figure out what's gonna work really well
29:29
Speaker 1: for their fan base or whatever. When you come in
29:31
Speaker 1: a room like that and you play like a kid
29:34
Speaker 1: like Tissa Korean for example, who's actually now on the
29:38
Speaker 1: new Chance the Rapper single, but like Tissa months ago
29:41
Speaker 1: was just making funny music but dancing in it again
29:51
Speaker 1: from Texas just drums, twenty year old kid who's really
29:55
Speaker 1: popping the there right now invented a bunch of dance
29:57
Speaker 1: crazes and stuff. If I play a Tissa Korean video
30:00
Speaker 1: in a room I'm in with all these really stressed out,
30:04
Speaker 1: really popping people, instantly it just lightens up the vibe
30:08
Speaker 1: because now not like, oh, what's the perfect chord change,
30:11
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, this kid's funny, Like oh this song
30:14
Speaker 1: is just some big eight O waights and this kid's
30:16
Speaker 1: rapping super crazy and they're all dancing wild in the video.
30:18
Speaker 1: Instantly everyone's watching the screen and now it's like, oh,
30:21
Speaker 1: this gets funny. I imagine we did something like this.
30:23
Speaker 1: Imagine we tried that tempo I met and it's a
30:26
Speaker 1: joke at first, yeah, and it's like, oh, well, like
30:30
Speaker 1: this is an extreme example because Tissa's so off the wall.
30:33
Speaker 1: But Chance saw this kid somewhere and was like, I
30:37
Speaker 1: just love his energy. Let me harness it, let me
30:39
Speaker 1: see what works about his music that I could apply.
30:42
Speaker 1: And the first single from Chances long awaited album is
30:45
Speaker 1: featuring Tissa Korean and they dropped it on Triller the
30:48
Speaker 1: dance app before streaming services because Tissa's so popping in
30:53
Speaker 1: that world that every little young kid dances to his songs.
30:56
Speaker 1: But you see how like being aware of these cool,
31:01
Speaker 1: small regional things like almost help reinspire the people who
31:07
Speaker 1: are the best at it. But this is coming from
31:10
Speaker 1: such a place of just like honesty, and like we
31:12
Speaker 1: literally want an artist I'm working with right now records
31:14
Speaker 1: all his songs in the garage band on his Apple
31:16
Speaker 1: microphone on his computer and use all garage band loops
31:21
Speaker 1: play something. I'm sure his Bubba Savage Old Bubba is
31:41
Speaker 1: twelve years old from Courtland, av in the Bronx. Little
31:45
Speaker 1: Oozi's working with him, a Boogie's working with him. All
31:47
Speaker 1: these huge artists are a fan of him because he
31:49
Speaker 1: just says whatever he wants. But when you put on
31:52
Speaker 1: the Buba video in the serious session, kids go, is
31:55
Speaker 1: that a twelve year old kid rapping about I'll make
31:59
Speaker 1: you disappear? Like magic? You're like, you know, and then
32:02
Speaker 1: instantly they start doing You're dealing, We start laughing, it
32:04
Speaker 1: starts being funny. And then like I was a female
32:09
Speaker 1: the day, a lot of her music is very cute,
32:10
Speaker 1: and she heard that piano loop and she's like, oh
32:12
Speaker 1: my god, I love this. And then I pulled up
32:14
Speaker 1: a bunch of xylophones. We started working with xylophones, and
32:17
Speaker 1: we made a real song, you know. And so like
32:20
Speaker 1: that's why I focus so hard on these things, because
32:22
Speaker 1: these this is what it's inspiring me. It's not getting
32:25
Speaker 1: in the room with like the biggest genius ever of
32:28
Speaker 1: all time and then showing me how to make a
32:30
Speaker 1: record to reach a billion people. It's what's happening in
32:32
Speaker 1: this small, small corner of the country that makes those
32:37
Speaker 1: people from that part of the country erupt in a
32:40
Speaker 1: different way than the fans of the biggest artists ever.
32:44
Speaker 1: Like when something's for you from you, by you, you
32:47
Speaker 1: know what I mean, where you grew up, Like a
32:50
Speaker 1: party in the Bay with all Bay artists with two
32:53
Speaker 1: hundred people in a basement is an uncomparable energy to me.
32:57
Speaker 1: And like people who play big shows, there's always the
32:59
Speaker 1: conversation of like would you rather play for twenty thousand
33:02
Speaker 1: people or two hundred of your best fans in the
33:05
Speaker 1: world in this one room, and like it's clearly going
33:08
Speaker 1: to be better than with the two hundred people. I mean,
33:10
Speaker 1: for sure, I think the ladder is always it And
33:12
Speaker 1: that's how I look at this. It's like I never
33:15
Speaker 1: choose an artist I'm working with because if they're young
33:18
Speaker 1: and popping, or because they have a certain wave anywhere.
33:21
Speaker 1: I just like what I like and like giving context
33:25
Speaker 1: to people is my number one goal. Is like just
33:29
Speaker 1: helping someone understand why this is so cool where it
33:34
Speaker 1: is and why I latched onto it even though I'm
33:36
Speaker 1: not from there, it might not fully get it. When
33:38
Speaker 1: you can have an artist like Gez and Cardi b
33:42
Speaker 1: an Asap Rocky put out a song like No Limit
33:45
Speaker 1: and then kids figure out that that slab of my
33:47
Speaker 1: knob and all of a sudden they're listening to three
33:49
Speaker 1: six Mafia, It's like, that's so cool to me, you know,
33:53
Speaker 1: I love that because it's just raps are to become
33:57
Speaker 1: one of the biggest genres in the world, you know
33:59
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like from the time that you started
34:02
Speaker 1: def jam all the way to right now, It's like,
34:04
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone ever saw this like it's
34:07
Speaker 1: nobody did. It's insane nobody, But I think it's so much,
34:12
Speaker 1: so many waves of it, just like feeling like it
34:17
Speaker 1: was going away, like over and over again. It's it's
34:20
Speaker 1: it's because of what we're talking about. Though. I think
34:22
Speaker 1: that's why rap has become as big as it's become
34:26
Speaker 1: is because it's just like it transports you. Whatever artists
34:29
Speaker 1: you're listening to, it transports you to where they're from
34:31
Speaker 1: and how they grew up. And even if now they're gigantic,
34:35
Speaker 1: whenever they started their first music as always the truest,
34:38
Speaker 1: most authentic storytelling you can find in music. For me
34:43
Speaker 1: right now, you know, I love to hear the stories
34:46
Speaker 1: of all these different places and for me to try
34:48
Speaker 1: to help add to those stories without really doing my
34:51
Speaker 1: due diligence, yes, I think that would be misguided and
34:54
Speaker 1: I think I'd be hurting more than i'd be helping.
34:56
Speaker 1: It's crazy. Any theories on why, um, why Miami based
35:01
Speaker 1: music was so particular there, like when everyone in the
35:05
Speaker 1: country was was going slow, Yeah, they were always fast.
35:09
Speaker 1: It was always cocaine. I don't know. I don't know,
35:13
Speaker 1: it just always was fast. I'm not a Miami guy.
35:18
Speaker 1: Like going from New York and listening going to a
35:20
Speaker 1: hip hop club in New York to a hip hop
35:22
Speaker 1: club in Miami, every song would be there. You would
35:27
Speaker 1: not one of the same songs would play in the
35:29
Speaker 1: two cities. Yeah, I mean, does it has to do
35:32
Speaker 1: with the street life, has to do with how fast
35:34
Speaker 1: paced Miami is and how much money there is there
35:37
Speaker 1: and how new the development was going out. That's like,
35:40
Speaker 1: I just think that Citi's I've always not liked Miami
35:43
Speaker 1: because it's all lambos and beautiful girls in gowns and
35:47
Speaker 1: all this money and all this stuff. It's like the
35:50
Speaker 1: music must have lended itself to the scene in some
35:52
Speaker 1: type of way where people realize the faster we go,
35:55
Speaker 1: the more reaction we're getting out of people. But a
35:59
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that went on in Miami base slowed down.
36:01
Speaker 1: Is juke or is Bounce or is Baltimore Club or
36:05
Speaker 1: is whatever? It's same breaks, same as sample play, a
36:08
Speaker 1: juke feel. It's very two live crew in the sound
36:22
Speaker 1: choice and in the sample choice, and then you listen
36:24
Speaker 1: to two live crew, But that still sounded more like discoy,
36:27
Speaker 1: like more from the floor or on the floor. Mummy
36:30
Speaker 1: bass was not really like that, but the tempo was
36:32
Speaker 1: like it was just fast. Yeah, come on, yeah, she's
36:41
Speaker 1: all rooted in the planet rob Yeah, for sure it is.
36:44
Speaker 1: But again it's drum machines. You know. What I mean
36:47
Speaker 1: is no breaks. It's like a very electronic thing in
36:51
Speaker 1: the scope of hip hop. Yeah. I had discussion with
36:54
Speaker 1: a friend the other day who was talking about that.
36:57
Speaker 1: In today's world, the sound is considered part of the writing.
37:03
Speaker 1: So in other words, if you were if you were
37:06
Speaker 1: called in as a producer and you changed the snaw
37:09
Speaker 1: a sound from the existing snad without changing the pattern,
37:12
Speaker 1: if you just replaced the existing snare sound in the
37:15
Speaker 1: track with a different sound, that you would be a
37:18
Speaker 1: writer of the song. Is that the case from what
37:22
Speaker 1: I understand? Yes, would never name names, But I had
37:26
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine who was signed to a
37:28
Speaker 1: very big producer, and his contract with that producer was
37:31
Speaker 1: if you drop a song completely produced and written and
37:34
Speaker 1: everything by you and the people involved, he gets fifteen
37:37
Speaker 1: percent of it, just as you being signed to him,
37:40
Speaker 1: and if he adds one thing to that beat or
37:43
Speaker 1: anything at all, he touches it. In programs on it,
37:45
Speaker 1: he's taking eighty percent of the song. And what he
37:47
Speaker 1: would do was just basically just like take the midi
37:50
Speaker 1: of a high hat pattern and change the high hat
37:52
Speaker 1: sound and then all of a sudden he's involved and
37:54
Speaker 1: now he owns all of your share. That is wild. Yeah,
37:59
Speaker 1: try to keep my friends from signing any of those
38:02
Speaker 1: kind of contracts. But it is, it is like that
38:05
Speaker 1: these days because sound choice is so paramount. When you
38:07
Speaker 1: think about a song like Grinding, you know by Farrell
38:10
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but literally it's just drums, you
38:15
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like like a lot of stuff
38:16
Speaker 1: we talked about today, it's really like just this big
38:20
Speaker 1: instinctual kind of rhythm. And so if someone changes yo yo,
38:27
Speaker 1: if someone changes that clap, that's twenty percent of the beat.
38:37
Speaker 1: It is what it is. It's like the example I
38:40
Speaker 1: was saying before about like samples this Farrell. This that
38:52
Speaker 1: little a that Farrell used to use all the time.
38:56
Speaker 1: It's from the Triton keyboard, the most popular keyboard in
39:01
Speaker 1: hip hop, and like the early two thousands, it's just
39:03
Speaker 1: a sound on the Triton. So it's Yamaha. It's not
39:07
Speaker 1: owned by Farrell. Even though we've heard it in clip songs,
39:09
Speaker 1: Snoop Dogg songs, ANYRD songs, Rihanna songs, all types of
39:13
Speaker 1: gigantic Neptunes production because it was just a key piece
39:16
Speaker 1: of perk for them that they use all that time, percussion.
39:20
Speaker 1: Like to me, I got it. I got my hands
39:23
Speaker 1: on it a while ago, and when someone asked me, like,
39:26
Speaker 1: like I remember working on a Vince Staple's album, he
39:28
Speaker 1: would say, like, I want something that feels kind of neptunesy,
39:31
Speaker 1: but I don't want to like take from it or
39:32
Speaker 1: I don't want to use the same patterns. And I
39:34
Speaker 1: was like, man, like, if I could just get the
39:36
Speaker 1: A from some of the Farrell stuff, it immediately puts
39:39
Speaker 1: you back to Neptunes, back to Timbo era. And so
39:42
Speaker 1: I found it, and then I found out it was
39:44
Speaker 1: from a keyboard, and I'm like, Okay, Ferrell doesn't own this,
39:47
Speaker 1: and I can't get in trouble for sampling this, but
39:49
Speaker 1: it's a Farrell sound, you know what I mean as
39:51
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned, or like, even when you go
39:55
Speaker 1: back and listen to like the chant that's in that's
40:00
Speaker 1: in like every Mustard beat, every Juicy J thing, like
40:04
Speaker 1: every it's it doesn't even trace back to a break.
40:07
Speaker 1: It traced back to like, uh, what was it? Like?
40:10
Speaker 1: It's like house beats and loops, like Volume three, like
40:15
Speaker 1: the I think the original is Yellow Yellow y Ell.
40:20
Speaker 1: Is it a song? No, it's a group from England,
40:22
Speaker 1: like an electronic group from the eighties, but they had
40:25
Speaker 1: the sound. It's just it's just the chant. I can't
40:29
Speaker 1: remember what song it is, so I can't. I can't
40:31
Speaker 1: tell you. It's been a while, hold on the mustard.
40:34
Speaker 1: But but you hear it and everything from California and
40:38
Speaker 1: everything from Detroit and a lot of old Southern stuff.
40:41
Speaker 1: You hear the chant on the off beat and Little
40:42
Speaker 1: John beats and stuff like that, and it's like, man,
40:46
Speaker 1: that's a classic sound in hip hop. But you get worried.
40:49
Speaker 1: You're like, man, I've heard it in so much stuff.
40:50
Speaker 1: If I sample in my own trouble and sometimes it's
40:52
Speaker 1: like hard to find the lineage of these sounds. And
40:55
Speaker 1: now that so much of these beats is made up
40:58
Speaker 1: in the sound choice, you got to be careful. Like
41:01
Speaker 1: the main standpoint is I don't want this song to
41:04
Speaker 1: not come out because this is a kick that they
41:06
Speaker 1: can trace back to a record that I might be
41:08
Speaker 1: sample or like an eight O eight that might be stolen,
41:11
Speaker 1: and then due to the user license agreement from the website,
41:14
Speaker 1: I bought the eight to eight from this is technically
41:16
Speaker 1: not my copyright. Like there's all kinds of weird little
41:19
Speaker 1: things like that sounds are the name of the game
41:22
Speaker 1: now it's not really records, but like the metadata and
41:25
Speaker 1: all these sounds exists, and I don't know, Like for me,
41:30
Speaker 1: I like really pride myself on hoarding sounds and just
41:34
Speaker 1: having terabytes and terabytes and hard drives and hard drives
41:38
Speaker 1: of just sounds, and the more I can learn about
41:41
Speaker 1: like the lineage of them, easier it is for me
41:44
Speaker 1: to use them and apply them. We'll be back with
41:46
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats after a quick break. We're back with the
41:53
Speaker 1: rest of Rick's conversation with Kenny Beats. Do you ever
41:57
Speaker 1: see there being an evolution lyrically in hip hop of
42:01
Speaker 1: it not being not all being so similar in content?
42:08
Speaker 1: I don't find it to be really no. The amount
42:11
Speaker 1: of stuff, the amount of people I work with, it's
42:14
Speaker 1: every day. If I have, say, have two sessions a
42:16
Speaker 1: day for a whole week, I probably got five six
42:20
Speaker 1: perspectives that don't understand each other. Yeah, for sure. And
42:24
Speaker 1: like I've rat like nowadays, it's even harder now because
42:29
Speaker 1: I'd never base something on a personality or like anything
42:32
Speaker 1: other than the music. I'm like, if I love this music,
42:34
Speaker 1: I want to help this person to work on it.
42:36
Speaker 1: And then I start working with them and I realized, like, oh,
42:38
Speaker 1: your past is trouble. Then you're like industry business stuff
42:42
Speaker 1: is all messed up and this and that, And I
42:44
Speaker 1: don't always do my research, but a lot of times,
42:47
Speaker 1: like whoever I get in with, I need to figure
42:50
Speaker 1: out how to understand their perspective quickly. And if I
42:53
Speaker 1: only had two or three perspectives or contents or like
42:57
Speaker 1: things that I had to be weary of when I
42:59
Speaker 1: got with an artist, my job would be way easier.
43:01
Speaker 1: And it's not easy because someone from New Orleans comes
43:04
Speaker 1: in and everything I just learned last week from a
43:07
Speaker 1: New York artist does not apply here. Can you always
43:10
Speaker 1: understand all the slang like the local slang at first?
43:13
Speaker 1: But I ask, I don't pretend to, Yes, that's the
43:16
Speaker 1: biggest thing. Don't ever either use a term you're not
43:19
Speaker 1: comfortable with or even try to like pretend you understand it.
43:25
Speaker 1: Ask if you there's no time, or you say to
43:28
Speaker 1: someone what does that mean? They're gonna go oh? He said,
43:30
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Like that, no one's ever gonna
43:32
Speaker 1: do that. They're gonna go oh, bro. It means this, yeah,
43:35
Speaker 1: like if you try to or from where I'm from,
43:36
Speaker 1: how would you know that? Yeah? Of course? And Atlanta.
43:39
Speaker 1: The biggest term right now is cap or no cap,
43:42
Speaker 1: and it means like you're lying, like a cap is lying,
43:45
Speaker 1: I mean, And basically if someone says like no cap,
43:48
Speaker 1: it means like I'm not lying. I would never walk
43:50
Speaker 1: into a room and be like, yo, I swear I
43:52
Speaker 1: sent the files no cap. It doesn't sound right coming
43:55
Speaker 1: out of my mouth. It's not for me. I'm not
43:56
Speaker 1: from Atlanta, but I grew up in New York, and
43:59
Speaker 1: trust me, Like my friends say hi to each other,
44:01
Speaker 1: they say you're. They don't say yo, they literally yo you're.
44:05
Speaker 1: And it's just a New York thing. It's like there's
44:07
Speaker 1: different slang from different places, and if you're not from
44:10
Speaker 1: that place, unless you're around those people all the time, Like,
44:13
Speaker 1: don't even pretend you understand what it means. I was
44:16
Speaker 1: in a studio one time with a really really like
44:20
Speaker 1: a producer. I'm a big fan of from Atlanta, and
44:22
Speaker 1: he just goes bro, do you know what Jay's are like?
44:24
Speaker 1: When someone said when he said Jay's in that song,
44:26
Speaker 1: you know he's talking about and I was thinking in
44:29
Speaker 1: my head, I was like, here's he talking about police officers?
44:31
Speaker 1: Maybe he said Jay's at the door was the line,
44:34
Speaker 1: and I was like, Jay, what is that He's talking about?
44:36
Speaker 1: A junkie? Oh, I didn't know that. My first reaction
44:39
Speaker 1: was a police officer. I clearly was the exact opposite.
44:42
Speaker 1: I thought they were saying, cops at my door. I
44:44
Speaker 1: gotta get out of their type shit. He was talking,
44:46
Speaker 1: there's junkies there. I'm serving drugs to junkies, you know
44:50
Speaker 1: what I mean? The whole at the lex three lines
44:52
Speaker 1: before and after it gets switched out on the context
44:54
Speaker 1: because I wasn't aware of a one letter slang term. Yeah,
44:59
Speaker 1: the songs from my favorite artist in Detroit that got
45:02
Speaker 1: me into them, that made me start listening to him.
45:04
Speaker 1: I didn't even understand them until I worked with the artists. Yeah,
45:07
Speaker 1: and I loved I loved these songs. Yeah, I know
45:10
Speaker 1: every word, but I don't know everyone's talking about sometimes,
45:15
Speaker 1: you know, general stuff everybody gets and that's I think
45:17
Speaker 1: the common denominator of the money stuff. And you know
45:21
Speaker 1: what that's like though, when when you're a little kid
45:23
Speaker 1: and you hear music, you don't really know what the
45:26
Speaker 1: words mean, but you still love it. If you don't
45:27
Speaker 1: know all those words, you know in in everything, you
45:31
Speaker 1: don't know all the words, you don't know what they're
45:32
Speaker 1: talking about. My favorite band was Kiss when I was
45:34
Speaker 1: a toddler. All I listened to his Kiss songs. It's
45:37
Speaker 1: just the music spoke to me. It wasn't the words.
45:39
Speaker 1: You know, how did you get How did you end
45:41
Speaker 1: up getting into Kiss in the nineties, that's a funny
45:43
Speaker 1: time to get into Kiss. My dad's an audio file.
45:47
Speaker 1: My dad listens. If he's an audio file, he wouldn't
45:49
Speaker 1: be listening to kid No. Yeah, but I'm just saying
45:50
Speaker 1: he listens to everything. So across my childhood, like my
45:55
Speaker 1: dad would literally play me a Boz Skag song, and
45:57
Speaker 1: then play me a Commander Cody song, and then play
45:59
Speaker 1: me the Chronic and then a Cheryl Crow song will
46:02
Speaker 1: be in the radio and he would like it, and
46:04
Speaker 1: then he'd play me like a Grateful Dead or whatever
46:08
Speaker 1: it was. So stuff have come across my plate. And
46:10
Speaker 1: when I heard I Just want to rock and roll
46:12
Speaker 1: all night as a four year old, I was like,
46:15
Speaker 1: this is music. It's great, A great recognize my two
46:18
Speaker 1: favorite songs that year because I there's a videotape of
46:22
Speaker 1: me like talking about it. Are I just want to
46:24
Speaker 1: have fun shell Crow and all I want to do
46:27
Speaker 1: is rock and roll all night? By Kiss, I was
46:29
Speaker 1: in a very similar mind space. But yeah, like I
46:35
Speaker 1: don't know, like, but those are anthems, you know for sure.
46:37
Speaker 1: I think at four years old, like you, that's when
46:39
Speaker 1: you start to recognize a good anthem. Yeah, but at
46:44
Speaker 1: to say, like I grew up with my I played
46:46
Speaker 1: instruments a lot of my life, so I had to
46:48
Speaker 1: play music that lend itself to instruments. Played classic rock
46:51
Speaker 1: and played jam band stuff and fusion stuff and funk
46:54
Speaker 1: and soul because bands, yeah a little bit, But there
46:58
Speaker 1: wasn't that much of a scene for in Connecticut I had.
47:00
Speaker 1: I had a amount of friends in one hand, I
47:02
Speaker 1: coul account who really played music and did music in
47:04
Speaker 1: their free time. It was all sports. But uh, my
47:08
Speaker 1: dad was never ironic about liking hip hop or like
47:13
Speaker 1: liking what was on the radio and so like, I
47:15
Speaker 1: remember the Thong song. He just thought it had such
47:18
Speaker 1: great production, Like you would always talk about that. He
47:19
Speaker 1: would talk about the beat of the Thong song and
47:21
Speaker 1: not be funny because it's a song about like a
47:23
Speaker 1: kind of bathing suit or kind of underwear, and it's
47:25
Speaker 1: like the big ass song of the year. My dad
47:28
Speaker 1: was just like he just loved the song. And my
47:30
Speaker 1: dad would sing it un ironically and he'd be singing
47:32
Speaker 1: that dong dong dong dong, and You're like, this is
47:35
Speaker 1: so dumb. But I would see in his face he's
47:37
Speaker 1: like he would see me laughing at him and be like,
47:40
Speaker 1: you're just turning to me kind of like I'm not
47:42
Speaker 1: I'm not making fun of this song. I like this song.
47:44
Speaker 1: So I had an appreciation via him for the stuff
47:49
Speaker 1: that my friends were listening to and that I had
47:51
Speaker 1: around me all the time as being really good music.
47:54
Speaker 1: So even something that would be a novel to many people,
47:57
Speaker 1: that would be a novelty song, if it was well made,
48:01
Speaker 1: it would still be good it. It didn't have to
48:03
Speaker 1: be the cool song totally. Yeah. But like my dad
48:07
Speaker 1: was listening to West Coast hip hop and listening to
48:09
Speaker 1: a current things that were on the radio with me
48:12
Speaker 1: on top of showing me all this other music. And
48:14
Speaker 1: I grew up in Connecticut, so I had I was seamless.
48:16
Speaker 1: I was regionless as far as there was no music coming.
48:19
Speaker 1: There still isn't any music coming from where I grew up.
48:23
Speaker 1: New York was the closest thing I had, and when
48:25
Speaker 1: I was old enough, I spent all my time in
48:26
Speaker 1: New York. But I really grew up without a core regional.
48:32
Speaker 1: Really good though, because that way you're not pigeonholed into totally,
48:36
Speaker 1: you know, being brainwashed into one sound as being your sound. Yeah,
48:40
Speaker 1: so you really are free. It's so interesting how how
48:43
Speaker 1: the things like in the moment you probably as a
48:46
Speaker 1: kid would wish everybody played and there was a scene
48:49
Speaker 1: and there were clubs to play in, and how come,
48:51
Speaker 1: you know, people get to do that in other places
48:53
Speaker 1: and I don't get to do that. But it really
48:55
Speaker 1: formed who you are now, and maybe you wouldn't be
48:59
Speaker 1: the same producer you are today if it was if
49:01
Speaker 1: it wasn't for that. I think that's the first thing
49:04
Speaker 1: you and I ever talked about, was it. Yeah, Like
49:06
Speaker 1: when we first talked in your car, Like I remember
49:09
Speaker 1: just saying like I remember growing up and just wishing
49:13
Speaker 1: I had more money. You know, I had a bigger
49:15
Speaker 1: friend and had my friend's house and lived in a
49:17
Speaker 1: place where everybody did music and dad dada, and now
49:20
Speaker 1: I just turned twenty eight. Now, at twenty eight, I
49:22
Speaker 1: literally would never trade places with anybody. I'm so glad
49:26
Speaker 1: I don't have that that obstacle in my mind of like, oh, well,
49:30
Speaker 1: this is what I'm supposed to be doing, or this
49:32
Speaker 1: is where I'm from. It's like my metal phase was
49:35
Speaker 1: just as long as my like Leonard skinnerd phase is
49:38
Speaker 1: just as long as my Dilla phase. You know what
49:40
Speaker 1: I mean? They all, That's what I'm saying. They shared
49:43
Speaker 1: equal parts in my mind, And like I think a
49:46
Speaker 1: lot of my friends at least now, who make a
49:48
Speaker 1: lot of music and have made music as they were kids,
49:50
Speaker 1: they always have this dichotomy of like, here's the music
49:53
Speaker 1: my dad showed me and my parents showed me and
49:55
Speaker 1: all this old stuff I was put onto, and then
49:57
Speaker 1: here's the music I listened to with my friends. And
50:00
Speaker 1: that's definitely true, because that's how you find out about
50:02
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. But the music I listened to
50:04
Speaker 1: with my friends wasn't written off by my dad and like, oh, yeah,
50:07
Speaker 1: that's that's what's on the radio now. My dad would
50:09
Speaker 1: hear certain things and be like, jay Z's really way
50:13
Speaker 1: better than everybody else. Huh, you know what I mean,
50:14
Speaker 1: Like he would see he would understand enough to like
50:17
Speaker 1: really dive into totally. And I think that was many
50:21
Speaker 1: people as they get older, only they only like the
50:25
Speaker 1: music that they liked as a as a as a
50:27
Speaker 1: kid or a teenager. Yeah, that's sort of the rest
50:29
Speaker 1: of their lives. That's their music. So like that, My
50:32
Speaker 1: appreciation has always been that just for everything. Everything like
50:35
Speaker 1: what you like, you know, and it doesn't matter. You're
50:36
Speaker 1: not from a place that lends itself to anything, so
50:39
Speaker 1: you can like everything from everywhere. Yes, I never had
50:42
Speaker 1: the moment in my career and like my music making life,
50:48
Speaker 1: where I got popular doing a specific thing or a
50:52
Speaker 1: specific sound. It was never like, Oh, it's this kid
50:55
Speaker 1: from New York with a working with all these New
50:57
Speaker 1: York artists and he's got that sound right now, so
50:59
Speaker 1: let's try to put him with some other artists and
51:01
Speaker 1: see if that fits with them. My whole life has
51:03
Speaker 1: always been whatever this project is or this person is,
51:05
Speaker 1: I'm that chameleon today and then tomorrow. I'm this Yes,
51:09
Speaker 1: That's why I've forced myself to learn about all the
51:11
Speaker 1: things that go on. But like a lot of my
51:15
Speaker 1: favorite producers and the biggest producers doing it today have
51:18
Speaker 1: found this lane, like thinking about take Keith. Take Keith
51:22
Speaker 1: is probably the biggest producer out of Memphis ever at
51:26
Speaker 1: this point last year, the amount of singles he had
51:28
Speaker 1: and the amount of number ones and everything like, He's
51:30
Speaker 1: doing everything from Drake to Travis to Beyonce, and he
51:34
Speaker 1: is the most Memphis beat maker you could ever be.
51:37
Speaker 1: It is the most three six Mafia influence you could
51:41
Speaker 1: ever be. And he's taken his sound to the nth degree.
51:44
Speaker 1: Is Beyonce forming her style and her current outlook on
51:50
Speaker 1: what her new music needs to be around this kid's
51:53
Speaker 1: drum patterns and tempos and what he's doing, Because what
51:55
Speaker 1: he's doing is such a cultural phenomenon right now. Can
51:58
Speaker 1: you play what would have been the tracks that the
52:02
Speaker 1: older tracks he made that inspired these people to want
52:04
Speaker 1: to work with you. This is the first one she
52:07
Speaker 1: called shoot by Blackboy JB, also from Memphis. Baswin in
52:11
Speaker 1: mo I hit the first role freaking bits on Go
52:15
Speaker 1: See Gone off the roll and without anything. Just listen
52:19
Speaker 1: to a three six Mafia beat right after that. I
52:31
Speaker 1: gotta say, even though in three six Mafia it's much
52:40
Speaker 1: more of a sample, more soulful vibe, that's always what
52:42
Speaker 1: their stuff was, you can tell that Take Heath was
52:45
Speaker 1: influenced by extremely on the beat quantize straight hat, straight
52:49
Speaker 1: kick patterns, sharp ass snares, and it's the music is
52:54
Speaker 1: very faint comparatively how big the drums are way more
52:57
Speaker 1: so now with Take Heath. But even in three six Mafia,
53:00
Speaker 1: it's much more about hearing that hat and that eight
53:03
Speaker 1: oh weight than it is about those strings or any
53:04
Speaker 1: of those samples or in a Dyla thing or a
53:06
Speaker 1: boom Bat thing, like you're gonna hear what's going on
53:09
Speaker 1: in the sample very upfront. But Take Keith is so
53:14
Speaker 1: routed and where he's from, founded artist, where he's from
53:16
Speaker 1: in Block Boy, that that song Shoot just became a phenomenon.
53:20
Speaker 1: There was a dance that went with it. That dance
53:22
Speaker 1: is now in Fortnite and in every video game, and
53:25
Speaker 1: it is a huge thing. It's whenever you like pound
53:27
Speaker 1: your arm forwards and kick your leg back at the
53:29
Speaker 1: same time, you see everybody always doing it, little kids
53:31
Speaker 1: do it all the time. That dance was founded by
53:33
Speaker 1: this artist, helped blow up the song Take Keith made
53:36
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of his beats. The next song that
53:39
Speaker 1: they did after that song Shoot, which I played, was
53:44
Speaker 1: block Boy and Drake and let me see just what
53:47
Speaker 1: it's at right now. Yeah, it's at two hundred and
53:51
Speaker 1: seventy nine million views on YouTube. The which Drake getting
53:56
Speaker 1: on the Take Keith and Blockboys song, and it's like
54:00
Speaker 1: it's the most regional thing in the world. It's specifically Memphis.
54:05
Speaker 1: All Takekeeth was working on was like artists from where
54:10
Speaker 1: he's from, and then all of a sudden, Drake gets
54:12
Speaker 1: on it. It puts eyes onto it in a different way.
54:14
Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden he's doing Travis Scott Records
54:18
Speaker 1: featuring Drake, which are amalgamations of three different beats which
54:22
Speaker 1: change how radio sounds. It's the first like number one
54:25
Speaker 1: single to ever be that weird with all those different songs,
54:28
Speaker 1: and it broke all these records, and it all evolved
54:31
Speaker 1: from what he was doing in Memphis based on old
54:33
Speaker 1: three six Mafia stuff to try to make everyone around
54:36
Speaker 1: him go, oh, that's hard. And now it's Beyonce. It's amazing,
54:40
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of stuff you can break, all
54:44
Speaker 1: these different types of rap music and all these niche
54:46
Speaker 1: shub genres into. But I think the main thing is
54:48
Speaker 1: going to be, like if you go back to the
54:50
Speaker 1: first iterations of all of it, Like we said before,
54:53
Speaker 1: they only had so many tools, so many drum machines
54:56
Speaker 1: and so many things you could get across, and really
55:01
Speaker 1: the feel and the bounce and the tempo and those
55:05
Speaker 1: things are what dictated now styles that are a vastly
55:10
Speaker 1: different and fully formed and evolved. And it always like, men,
55:14
Speaker 1: we ten of us got ten drum machines and ten
55:16
Speaker 1: parts of the country. We got to make ten different
55:19
Speaker 1: crowds rock. This one drum machine with this one pattern
55:22
Speaker 1: does not work in half these places. We got to
55:24
Speaker 1: figure out what works here. Yeah, And now, like I'm
55:27
Speaker 1: still trying to do that same thing, but I've just
55:29
Speaker 1: got a lot of history that I've got to pay
55:31
Speaker 1: respect to. Beautiful cool Man. Thanks to Kenny Beats for
55:40
Speaker 1: breaking down the origins of regional hip hop sounds for us.
55:43
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out next week's episode, where we'll
55:45
Speaker 1: hear all that Kenny has been up to since him
55:48
Speaker 1: and Rick Last back to see Kenny Beats in action.
55:51
Speaker 1: Check out the two seasons of his show The Cave
55:53
Speaker 1: that he has up on YouTube. But he sits down
55:55
Speaker 1: with artists and makes it beat specifically tailored to them
55:58
Speaker 1: on the spot. It's incredible. Also, be sure to check
56:01
Speaker 1: out a playlist of songs produced by Kenny Beats that
56:04
Speaker 1: we put together at broken Record podcast dot com. You
56:07
Speaker 1: can follow us on YouTube, YouTube dot com, slash broken
56:10
Speaker 1: Record Podcast, where we can find extended cuts of new
56:13
Speaker 1: and old episodes, and follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
56:18
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced Helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
56:22
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick
56:26
Speaker 1: Chafee and our executive producer is Meio LaBelle. Broken Record
56:30
Speaker 1: is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like a show,
56:33
Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
56:35
Speaker 1: podcast staff. Our theme music based on the Beastie Boys
56:38
Speaker 1: Brass Monkey, is by today's guest, the uncomparable Kenny Beats.
56:42
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond.