Beats - Complexity vs Simplicity

^^^^^I tell people this all the time. Hip Hop can be the same thing. Maybe with a hook or a phrase throughout. one of hip hop musician's favorite instruments should be some type of turntables. Cutting an scratching some royalty free vocals or even their own. They don't need a rapper.



 
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EXACTLY. A "We Don't Need A Rapper On Our Beats" movement needs to kick off. I'm not saying you should totally abandon working with different artists but some tracks are better suited to be consumed with no vocals and you would be better off working it straight to the listening audience.

Tracks like "800 Number" and "I'm Puerto Rico (Instrumental)" are club standards here in the East Coast going on 3 decades now
 
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KelevraOne said:
That's on the mainstream level. If you check out the local and indie levels of hip hop it is more varied than ever in the U.S.. You got your trap music, Boom Bap, Jerkers, Weirdos, Jazzy spoken word type and every other type of hip hop there is. If you're checking for the big names then it's choked down and simplified.
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It's not about the variety. But if I want to listen to a Rakim-like record......I pick a Rakim record. If I want to listen to a Run DMC-like record, I pick Run DMC every single time. And if I want some Faithless-dance stuff.....guess what? I pick Faithless. Same goes for 60s rock or jazz.

The "mainstream" is just the purification of the essence of what's the "lowest common denominator", nothing more...........but boom-bap or trap won't be mainstream music. Because they either suck or they are simply a re-mix of what was already there to a degree.........that you simply reach for the BETTER, ORIGINAL stuff.

Like I can listen to Jamiroquai knowing he's heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder, but if he did a Stevie Wonder-copycat record, I wouldn't listen to it......there's STEVIE for that. KnowwhatI'msayin?

And most of that "underground" stuff isn't some out-of-the-leftfield, hail-mary, lets-do-this-even-if-the-world-is-against-us shit. It's BORING and just waiting to reach a certain amount of Youtube clicks, before it has its 15mins of fame.

It's DEAD, because there's no new fresh blood AND AIR coming in. There's enough blood, but it's been in circulation for decades (the ideas/samples/formulas) and no fresh oxygen (new styles/people/topics). The whole movement suffocates.

And yeah, consider releasing INSTRUMENTAL HIP HOP music the way to go, because there are literally 100s of "#1 records" which we will never hear, because Lil Wayne didn't want to have them on his last album, or whatever.
 
Legal Dollaz said:
Excellent thread. More rap producers need to start considering themselves self-contained ARTISTS. Instrumental Artist to be exact.

I good amount of rap instrumentals I hear that are considered very complex don't need any vocals at all and should definitely be marketed as instrumental songs. I don't understand why rap producers are scared to make that leap of faith, especially after producers in other genres like Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia, etc...have shown the way in terms of popularity and financial viability. The overall VALUE of your creative output will increase if some of ya'll decide to go in this direction because there are instrumental songs that I just love by themselves. Sure beats getting the same "this track is crazy but I really don't know which artist of mines it could work for" feedback.
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I agree, but I made a thread asking who listens to instrumentals that aren't their own and I was in the minority.
 
JeanLukPigheart said:
It's not about the variety. But if I want to listen to a Rakim-like record......I pick a Rakim record. If I want to listen to a Run DMC-like record, I pick Run DMC every single time. And if I want some Faithless-dance stuff.....guess what? I pick Faithless. Same goes for 60s rock or jazz.

The "mainstream" is just the purification of the essence of what's the "lowest common denominator", nothing more...........but boom-bap or trap won't be mainstream music. Because they either suck or they are simply a re-mix of what was already there to a degree.........that you simply reach for the BETTER, ORIGINAL stuff.

Like I can listen to Jamiroquai knowing he's heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder, but if he did a Stevie Wonder-copycat record, I wouldn't listen to it......there's STEVIE for that. KnowwhatI'msayin?

And most of that "underground" stuff isn't some out-of-the-leftfield, hail-mary, lets-do-this-even-if-the-world-is-against-us shit. It's BORING and just waiting to reach a certain amount of Youtube clicks, before it has its 15mins of fame.

It's DEAD, because there's no new fresh blood AND AIR coming in. There's enough blood, but it's been in circulation for decades (the ideas/samples/formulas) and no fresh oxygen (new styles/people/topics). The whole movement suffocates.

And yeah, consider releasing INSTRUMENTAL HIP HOP music the way to go, because there are literally 100s of "#1 records" which we will never hear, because Lil Wayne didn't want to have them on his last album, or whatever.
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that same argument can be used for music in general.

And there's a lot of fresh blood coming out for hip hop. A recent example of something new popping up would be (as much as I dislike him) Lil B. I don't think I've ever heard anything like him before he came out.
 
lilro said:
I agree, but I made a thread asking who listens to instrumentals that aren't their own and I was in the minority.
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You were asking your peers who maybe a part of but do not represent the greater music listening audience. I see plenty of instrumentals of hip hop classics on You Tube with hundreds of thousands of views each/combined.

And keep in mind in this day where everybody that listens to rap potentially rap themselves (prosumer) they've all been conditioned to spend a certain amount listening time towards instrumentals anyway. Its just a matter of being able to distinguish a track you make that might be the next Waka Flocka street banga and one that might be YOUR next street banga.

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JeanLukPigheart said:
And yeah, consider releasing INSTRUMENTAL HIP HOP music the way to go, because there are literally 100s of "#1 records" which we will never hear, because Lil Wayne didn't want to have them on his last album, or whatever.
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EXACTLY. Better to take that track, come up with some creative visuals and slap it up on You Tube and start branding your name to the general audience than having that track sitting on your hard drive with you being frustrated because you feel its better than any shit on Wayne's last project. Stop competing with the other producers that SUBMIT (get it, submission???) to Wayne's album and start competing with WAYNE himself
 

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Music is more than just something you like the sound of. People want respect for there music....cool. But the option of having your MUSIC represent something has ALWAYS BEEN THERE. Listeners participation. It's more musicians in hip hop that people DON'T KNOW ABOUT who do instrumental music that has a specific listener's participation in it.

 
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GodParticle said:
I don't get how you could say theres no "fresh air".




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Miss Banks has her moments, but it's nothing that really makes me go "wow!" and the second track is "same 'ol, same 'ol". It's not THAT good, you know?
 
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