Minimalism in Hip Hop

My fave minimal hiphop ('side from my man MANTRONIX) will always be the Clipse's "Grindin'" and Roscoe P Coldchain's "(This Beat is) Hot". Both Neptunes, both fucking sick. I'm glad that 'Drop It' made it so big, but do people agree that there's a general trend at work here...? I kind of thought hiphop was moving back towards maximal-ism with Kanye and that Reign In Blood-sampling Lil' Jon track, the lush 50 Cent productions etc...

God, for some hard Mantronix beats on the radio today, something like "Cold Gettin' Dumb"... even some of those early-NWA style beats like "Boyz in the Hood" from "... And The Posse"... I want it cold, hard, minimal and jacking damn it!

The Neps helped to usher this back into the mainstream and though I do thank them for that in a sense (reminding ppl about a variety of production) it pisses me off no end nowadays....all sounds so soulless now something I never clocked onto when it first resurfaced....

yeah - if anything the minimalist trend has come and gone

neptunes and timbaland were the only two that could pull it off with any consistency - takes real balls and skills to put together something like drop it like it's hot and then step away saying "that's enough". there'll always be the odd track that nails it once in a while, of course.

the rise and rise of kanye west, the current trend for jacking big loops from soft rock etc (complete with vocals) and the massive buzz about rich harrison's recent productions suggests that, for the club and street tracks, minimal just isn't where it's at right now.

hint said:

yeah - if anything the minimalist trend has come and gone

neptunes and timbaland were the only two that could pull it off with any consistency - takes real balls and skills to put together something like drop it like it's hot and then step away saying "that's enough". there'll always be the odd track that nails it once in a while, of course.

the rise and rise of kanye west, the current trend for jacking big loops from soft rock etc (complete with vocals) and the massive buzz about rich harrison's recent productions suggests that, for the club and street tracks, minimal just isn't where it's at right now.

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i didn't make my point clear....I wasn't a fan of minimalism....I jus appreciated the fact that the Neps managed to illustrate to ppl that there was a lot more out there....a lot of there stuff is VERY 80's & soulless imo

timbaland, for me, is a guy that can easily mix it up....some of his stuff has so much going on its crazy....

Minimalism is alive and well (and still growing in some ways) in hip hop. The Neptunes and L'il John are definitely doing it big, and have only scratched the surface of the direction they're headed in the past few months. Swiss Beats is still doing his minimal thing. The Rich Harrison productions may be boombastic in the drums but they're certainly sparsely produced (just drums, horns and voice). Kanye's new joint with Common is much more minimal than anything else he's done, and it's BIG.

That's not to say that every top producer is making minimal beats right now. But to say that the trend has passed I don't think is correct.

But yeah "Grindin" had to be the tune that started the recent trend. And Rick Rubin kinda drew the connection between past and present in "99 Problems."

anyone rate that neptunes track "n*gga please" off of, uh, i wanna say blueprint 2. dumb lyrics, especially young chris, but after "grinding", it's probably my 2nd fav neptunes prod...there might even be a roll deep version. think i saw it on soulseek at some point but the grab was unsuccessful.

Minimalism has ALWAYS been a theme in hip-hop, I can't think of a period where there weren't minimalist productions going on. I mean, Run DMC, Mantronix, DJ Premier, Havoc, Swizz Beats, Trackmasterz, Timbo, etc. It seems like the Neptunes have really hooked into this idea these days, post maximalist "Milkshake" with "Drop it Like Its Hot" and the remix of that track, plus their beat for q-tip and busta's "For the Nasty," plus the stuff that leaked with the Slim Thug record...I'd say its a pretty hit or miss prop. for them right now (some of the Slim Thug tracks suck, and their beat on the Talib album is dreadfully dull, although his rapping certainly doesn't help) but when was it not? I can't think of a time when it wasn't the case that for every great Neptunes track there was one I wasn't feeling. Still, they're definitely not churning them out like they used to.

Grindin' seems to have inspired this whole "Tipsy" - Ebony Eyez - 112's "My Mistakes" serious of experiments with a very similar template. So far it's all been interesting stuff I think.

minimalism - paid in full ie heaven

i always saw early BDP as kings of hip-hop minimalism

Tell that to MC John Cage.

Minimal? I wanna hear Snoop rolling on Alva Noto.

baboon2004 said:

Tell that to MC John Cage.

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"This is another... exclusive... John Cage production... 4'33" reee-miiix!"

and there'd be some Lou Reed beef dis tracks. I wonder what the skits would be like? I'm guessing silence.