LL's 'I Need a Beat'; was that the equivalent of 'Drop It Like It's Hot' or 'Grindin'' when it came out?

Jeff gave me a flyer yesterday for his party on Sept 10th at apt. If you're in the NYC area, you can corner him and ask I suppose. Tell him what I said above and see if he wants to fight!

but you should read it anyway

1979-1981: Mostly studio musicans, but occasionally tape loops. In interviews now, those who used tape loops always seem to deny it. Lagel reasons, you know.

1982: Drum Machines and the occasional Fairlight, along with assorted noise makers. Fairlights were so goddamned expensive that you only used one if the studio you were renting had one, and even then, people still were reluctant to use it. The "stab" in Planet Rock is one, I believe. The primary machines were the Linn Drum and 808, but the DMX came out a bit later and was considered the hot piece of gear for a short period (it sounded dated very quickly). Other than "King Kut" and Art of Noise's "Beat Box", I can't think of any timeless use of the DMX. Prince's insitance of keeping the Linndrum in the limelight caused it to age well.

1985: Electro dying, and tempos slowing down. The 808 with sustain started becoming an interesting diversion (Mantronix, Rick Rubin, Egyptian Lover, Amos Larkins, 2 Live Crew, and a couple others began playing with it like this). After "Rock the Bells" became a top 40 hit, people followed suit. MC ADE and Amos Larkins made the first song to call out the Bass itself (Bass Rock Epxress). Emu released the SP12 drum sampler, hoping to dispose of multiple drum machines by compiling all the drum sounds you want into one piece of gear. Dr. Dre makes great use of this with its real intentions throught 1987 (CIA, Fila Fresh Crew, etc).

1986: Ice T's 6 in the Mornin added street tales to mid tempo 808 beats, paving the way for "Boyz in the Hood" and Too Short's career (and many other copycats in the late 80's) Also, a ton of records talking about Bass (Rodney O's "Everlasting Bass" from LA, Original Concept's "Pump that Bass" from Long Island", etc). More imporatntly, Ultimate Beats and Breaks was released and Eric B and Rakim debuted "My Melody", which would change the course of NYC Hip-Hop. People began to use the SP12 to loop things rather than drums alone. The trade secret was to sample a record on 45+8, then playback the sample as slow as possible...this extended the sampler's time.

By 1987, NYC had nearly abandoned the raw 808 sound, while LA and Miami were still milking it.

1988: Emu released the SP1200, which had more sample time. This caused a massive shift in Hip-Hop production as everybody stared to loop pieces of music along with drums. Enter marley Marl and the Bomb Squad's break through with layered sample work. MC Shan is pissed...

By the 90's, Akai's MPC60 and MPC3000 (and of course pro-tools) really made sampling everything easy, but the legality of it squashed it...and the digital age of noodling around on keyboards came in to define Hip-Hop.

Someone else will have to take it from there. Not a fan of the 3 note noodling...

Despite the huge sound Larry got, it was just a Linndrum, which usually comes off wimpy (think "Kiss" by Prince). Larry knew how to juice that piece of gear!

is it true that he was the first to 'play' samples by putting them underneath various keyboard notes?

Who is "he" in this question? RZA? I never thought about it, but I have to admit, the first time I triggered loops with different notes to turn the beginning of the loop in a note itself was surely after Wu Tang. This may be a very valid point!

Did Larry Larr have a solo record called "Da Wizard of Odds"? Is that the same dude?

Whole E Shit -- Larry had a solo album. I will be slsking when I get home from work. Larry's real name was Larry Smith, if you have it there to check credits.

"it goes uh 123 uh 321, my man Larry Larr, my name's DJ Run..."

"get ball don't stop get ball don't stop" = "rap is a real genre now rap is a real genre now"

?

or "p.s.k" by Schoolly D was the equivalent of "grindin' and "drop it like it's hot" the equivalent of "la di da di" when they came out?

?

Whole E Shit -- Larry had a solo album. I will be slsking when I get home from work. Larry's real name was Larry Smith, if you have it there to check credits.

Allmusic had one of those blank entries that confirmed that SOMEONE named Larry Larr had a record called Da Wizard of Odds out....1991....Ruffhouse....i searched around and couldn't find much on google....some entry on Spitkicker that I couldn't get to cuz I'm not registered that the excepert on the google search seemed to indicate that Larry Larr recently joined EST from 3XDope at some concert....dunno if that means that there's another Larry Larr from Philly...hmm....lemme know if you find out anything on that....

yeah "he" is RZA, it's what he claims in the book. he also tells he used to slow samples down cos of the limited storage on his samplers. but that was done way before Wu already?

Although I'm not a fan of "Drop it Like it's Hot", I think the two songs are very different. "La Di Doddi" introduced a self paced narrative, expanded the role of beatboxing, and made Slick Rick's style THE focal point. "Drop it Like it's Hot" surely does none of that, despite my attitude for a song I usually call "unfinished sounding". Whatever it does offer and whatever its fans get from it, I'm sure it shares very little with La Di Doddi other than something on the surfae from a certain perspective.

M@tt, I will put a fair amount of effort into seeking Larry's project, but from 1991, I suspect something pretty terrible and will give up on that search prematurely, no doubt.

yeah "he" is RZA, it's what he claims in the book. he also tells he used to slow samples down cos of the limited storage on his samplers. but that was done way before Wu already?

I was most definitly doing it before RZA even had a record out, and the engineers taught it to me. As I started doing little shows and going to networking things, I found out it was industry standard. As was starting off my doing pause mixes -- which of course, I thought I invented when I started.

really? are you prince paul? forgive me my ignorance, i have never heard of pappa wheelie before!

I mean that if the Fat Boys were the stars of the Beat Boxing novelty in 1984 (yes, I know, Doug E did it first, but stars)...then La Di Doddi was the first to have it's artist gointo the studio with literally no equipment, and had a routine based around beatboxing worked out in advance. Fat Boys used it on record as an accesory. Drop it is a produced song...equipment and such. Rahzel was the only person to expand beatboxing after La Di Doddi as far as I've seen.

And Snoop is just a west-coast, updated Slick Rick, isn't he..

Snoop has a 10+ year long career behind him, including a cover version of La Di Doddi...so I can't see where Drop It would be the one song to qualify as an update.

I really should step out of this convo though...I'm not here to bash new Hip-Hop and prise the old. Just clarification on my earlier points.

Not every American underground Hip-Hop produceer makes it big you know! (But I wasn't producing under the name PappaWheelie in the 80's/90's either). I was small time and never quite made it...thus, wasting time at work now.

Woops...missed this earlier.

I remember really wanting Awesome Dre but failed to get it. A friend had it a year or so later and I remember it being a flat knockoff of PE. There were a lot of groups that tried to merge PE beats and NWA hardness into one package at that time. I found out he was from Detroit later, which was all nice and fuzzy for me (I was born an hour outside of Detroit and discovered Hip-Hop there until I moved to Florida in late 83).

That bay area one I know nothing about. My friend jeremy would maybe. He loves all those obscure bay groups.

The first rapper from Detroit I knew of, believe it or not, was Kid Rock, back when Too Short produced him!

I don't know, Pharrel said in a radio interview that he made "drop it like it's hot" for Snoop to sound like an old Rick and Doug style beat and that's immeditely what i thought when i first heard it. The beatbox on "la di da di" was far more relaxed than any Fat Boys track.

Whatever the case, it's more of a "la di da di" style track than it's a "i need a beat" style track, surely..?

Sans the old school machines. I'm not here to knock Pharel's intentions though...but I'm sure he aimed at only getting "so close". He wasn't about to pull out the Emulator and have it dominate the track.

The beatbox on "la di da di" was far more relaxed than any Fat Boys track.

Yeah, whihc was the point I was trying to make above about it being self-paced and expansive.

Whatever the case, it's more of a "la di da di" style track than it's a "i need a beat" style track, surely..?

This is beyond me. I think the current minimilism in Hip-hop is an agenda, whereas the old days of minimilism was due to necessity...which really is all I am able to comment on.

A year before Run-DMC's first single, Larry Larr was commisioned by Russell Simmons to do a record:

http://www.discogs.com/release/201570

I have it queued up at slsk now.

Obviously a classic that's been overlooked by me.

Street Funk/Boogie track.