workin thru these
Nas - It Was Written (Trackmaster joints):
Impressions of the message. The separation of channels, the insistence of its refrain, the precision in choice of every sound and hit, anchors Nas. *It's not about Trackmasters.* There's nothing competing for attention with the vocalist, that's key for this kind of production.
Music that can't decide if it wants to be rap beats, club music, ambient or noise, wants to be all of it at once with synthesizers gushing and spilling and bleeding over... it's just bullshit. All of these separate kinds of music have a separate function, no? The timing of the breakbeat and vocal samples, it's impeccable. With rap production you can make something that HITS with few elements and what makes it work is how you space it out. Economy of sampling. And *insistence of refrain*, nothing has to be this, 'subtle', 'sculpted', 'fragile' '''system of music'''. Hit on a groove and *stay on it*. EVERY THING IS ON THE *ONE*.
If ye can't fuckn tell by how often I use em, the glidey synth leads of 90s rap production are, just about my favorite thing (I guess I used em on relatively earlier stuff more often before moving away from em, but in recent live jams it's all about the gliderrrzzz).
I'm not digging 'Affirmative Action', I don't wanna make shit like this lmao, feels self-consciously Mafia, kind of this marching/plodding thing. 'Black Girl Lost', the juxtaposition of this *pillowy* piano and strings sample and the steadiness of the bassline, the insistence of the drums, that *textural* thing to 90s rap drum samples... it's just *tasty*.
Had to rewind 'Shootouts' (a couple times!), was totally expecting it to go in that "fascist hop" (this is something I saw on k-punk and blissblog lmao, not sure if it's still appropriate in retrospect) direction with the horns but that was bait and switch. Found myself getting hypnotised by that uneven piano sample, the one-note bassline timed with the kicks (this goes back to what *makes* tunes, syncing individual elements to each other or making them symbiotic with eachother, insistence, simplicity, economy...) And the strings, just totally unintrusive in the best way. IT WAS *WRITTEN* BUT IT WAS NEVER *TOLD*. This has to be my favorite track out of all these. Might do a slow edit of this, the slew of lyrics is just psychedelic. Peep the jewels, black man, it's even better than gold...
Was familiar with "Imagine That" through what it quotes and also of course Screw's version (from 'Done Deal' specifically). Pretty unspectacular in its original
version? A lot of this 90s rap shit is *too fast*, like it's some kind of game to *follow everything the rappers saying*, and it has this AGGRESSIVE BOP YOUR HEAD thing to it. Gotta let things breathe...
