I am obsessed with instrumental hip-hop music for two reasons:
- Listening to instrumental hip-hop throughout the day makes it easier to buttress the grand illusion that my life is a movie scored by incredible beat-makers.
- More importantly, instrumental hip-hop allows anyone, not just me, to unconsciously survey the history of pop music as a result of IHH's fucking awesome use of samples.
To demonstrate, I have selected a song that everyone likes, RJD2's "Ghostwriter."
First, listen to the original:
Incredible, right? But where did it come from? See if Paul Desmond's "A Taste of Honey" (1964) sounds familiar:
How about those angelic voices? Would you believe they're from Elliot Smith's "I Didn't Understand?" (1998)
And the generally awe-inspiring horn section, which someday I hope to listen to while robbing a bank or something, is taken from Betty's Wright's "Secretary" (1970-something)
And there you have it. I'd recommend Derrida's essay "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" if you are interested in understanding the sort of meaning and method of such musical bricolage.
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2 footnotes:
kelley, I have often wondered about the samples of that RJD2 track, and while my internet here is too slow to listen to the stuff you tracked down, that's pretty damned impressive if you did all that by yourself. when I make hip hop instrumentals, I just cheat and make my own samples. keep doing what you do best - I dig the blog.
thanks dude. The only sample I knew instantaneously was the Elliott Smith - the other two were the result of sleuthing the internet. But still, no one else put them all together before, aye aye?
keep makin those beats -
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