What is the correct way to count the beat on Ludacris' "Roll Out"?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DL8RhwVBveo

obviously option 3 IMO

god i forgot how much i love this song

NO, option #3 is def wrong (even though I used to hear it that way and had to fight to re-train my ear).

Posted about it here:
how much does the beat for kano's remember me sound like ludacris' roll out?

I've always known it was option #1/2 because of the backbeat and where the sections start, but my ear constantly wants to flip it to #3 because the first note of the horn riff sounds like a pickup. Which makes sense, because it's a salsa sample displaced to start on the downbeat -

i didn't realize ppl had trouble counting it

Anyway here's the definitive smoking gun, live version with count-off and everything:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6v4qkYpb8Q

opt 3 just seems like an engagement troll. opt 2 is just double time of opt 1. so i don't see (or hear) any controversy here. all you have to do is listen to the snare, which reliably marks 2 and 4

lmao 1 and 2 are functionally the same, it’s just a question of how much you want to subdivide

3 is wrong

because the feel of the song dictates the count not where the snare is located. there are dozens of timbaland songs with the snare on the two

"I used to hear it that way and had to fight to re-train my ear"

have you considered that the feel of the song is what determines the rhythm & not where they decided to put the drums ... if you dance to a song as if the 1 is in one spot that's where the one is

i didn't say the snare dictates what the count is, in this song or any other song. i just said that if for some weird reason you're confused about how to count this song, you can listen to the snare in this instance

it seems liek the controversy suggests people disagree about how to count the song, not that i'm 'confused' about how to count the song

lots of people on the internet are confused by very basic things tbf. and framing something as a "controversy" when there isn't one is Getting Clicks 101

i have never heard that there was any such controversy over this song. when he says what in the world is in that case, "world" is on the downbeat.

i used to have this issue with "linus & lucy" as a kid - i thought the beginning of the main phrase was on the downbeat, when it's actually an eighth note before the downbeat.

I’ve always heard it as 2

the sample convinced me that it’s actually option 1, but i think ludacris hears option 3, and messes with the bar line to have the emphasis on the 1 of option 3, which throws it all off-kilter

― gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Monday, July 14, 2025 1:34 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

This quote from Jordan's link kind of gets at the issue to me -- If ludacris is peforming the song as if it's option 3, surely there's a case the song itself (ludacris' contribution being a part of it) is in fact option 3

he def hits the word GLOCK as if its the one

and ONE
twin GLOCK

so you think Ludacris hears "what in the world is IN that case" as the downbeat???

I mostly hear it as 2 but it’s one of the (many) great aspects of this track that 3 also works easily

(I’m not sure I could tolerate someone persistently dancing to it at the tempo of 1)

I mostly hear it as 2 but it’s one of the (many) great aspects of this track that 3 also works easily

(I’m not sure I could tolerate someone persistently dancing to it at the tempo of 1)

i can sort of understand someone hearing the chorus melody in isolation and thinking it's option 3 — "twin" is the fifth, "glock" is the tonic

yes the way the chords are laid on the beat strongly suggests #3 interpretation

im not crazy for thinking this, if you go in the thread for every questlove insisting its 1/2 theres ppl like anderson paak and sango saying they hear it as 3

the song literally starts on the downbeat. idgi.

is this about how the vocals ride over the beat? or syncopation?

does the missing bass drum confuse people? sorry for 3x post

look, i am not surprised to hear that anderson paak can't find the downbeat

(I’m not sure I could tolerate someone persistently dancing to it at the tempo of 1)

― Tim F, Tuesday, July 29, 2025 2:27 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

option 1 hearers would interpret it as a halftime feel and would likely dance to the 8th notes (aka #2's quarter notes), so the tempo would seem the same

the sample convinced me that it’s actually option 1, but i think ludacris hears option 3, and messes with the bar line to have the emphasis on the 1 of option 3, which throws it all off-kilter

― gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Monday, July 14, 2025 1:34 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

This quote from Jordan's link kind of gets at the issue to me -- If ludacris is peforming the song as if it's option 3, surely there's a case the song itself (ludacris' contribution being a part of it) is in fact option 3

― ok (D-40), Tuesday, July 29, 2025 2:13 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ya i think anyone who definitively says that it is one or the other is being unnecessarily rigid. like questlove said that he wouldn't want to play in a band with anyone who heard option 3...in that case, you would need to find a new rapper for the song lol

why would he need to find a new rapper?

again:

so you think Ludacris hears "what in the world is IN that case" as the downbeat???

― c u (crüt)

this lyric makes it pretty clear how ludacris hears the beat

yeah i have to agree

if he hears #3, his flow just makes a lot more sense imo. like it would make more conventional sense for the “roll out” to hit on the 3 and 4 than it would for it to hit on the 4 and 1, and for luda’s emphasis to hit on 1 instead of the 4-and

i disagree, i think it makes way more sense that he’s creating these interesting syncopations rather than performing mental gymnastics to make those syncopations seem more “natural” or something

it's not mental gymnastics, it is more natural

Yeah it’s the placement of the “roll out” vocal sample which is most strongly supportive of #3 I think

It’s cool that the song ostensibly works both ways because usually when you mishear the downbeat the song sounds insane

Deej, you're hearing it wrong. BUT that's ok, I totally get it and used to hear it wrong too. My ear wants to hear the first note of the salsa sample as a pickup and the second note as the downbeat, which makes total sense if you listen to the original (I linked it in that other thread) where it's on a totally different part of the phrase. Timbaland just plopped it down on the one.

I take an Occam's razor approach to these situations -- does it make more sense that all the snares are all displaced in a hit rap song, and that all the different sections (especially when the beat drops out) start on the 4 rather than the 1? Or does it make more sense that I was hearing it wrong, and that everything starts on the downbeat and all the snares are on the backbeat? I think the live version makes it an open & shut case. Listen to how they come in and out of the Big Pimpin' beat.

(also yes options 1 & 2 are exactly the same, just half-time or not).

it also doesn't mean he isn't creating interesting syncopations. the way he messes with the bar line, and flips to double-time every third bar are choices that other rappers might not have made.

Also I don't believe for a second that Ludacris hears option #3.

i think deej's point is if ludacris made a great song while "hearing it wrong" then did he really "hear it wrong" and is there a such thing as "wrong" in this context

I had this same issue with the Michael Jackson song 'You Rock My World', the bassline messes with my head and makes me hear beat 3 as the downbeat.

This is neither here nor there but for years I assumed “Lorenzo Kennett” was like a famous football player Luda was bragging about hanging out with

I dont get how crut's example makes anything more clear lol

I feel like Jordan has the same DRUMMER TUNNEL VISION questlove has here where the determining factor of the 'correct' beat is just how the drummer plays but imho the sample pulls the drums into its orbit rather than vice versa ... im basing that on just what the feel of the song is, where gravity is pulling the track

Also I don't believe for a second that Ludacris hears option #3.

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Tuesday, July 29, 2025 3:10 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you think he's emphasizing words like GLOCK on the two? doesn't that seem like unusual emphasis for a rapper, to emphasize the two and not the one on your big hook ?

And I definitely know musicians in serious touring bands who have performed tunes while hearing the downbeat differently from each other. But I think that only really works if the arrangement is static. I implore y'all to watch this live video, just look at how he moves and pay attention to the dropouts and beat switch-ups -- Ludacris def does not hear option 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6v4qkYpb8Q

you think he's emphasizing words like GLOCK on the two? doesn't that seem like unusual emphasis for a rapper, to emphasize the two and not the one on your big hook ?

I think he's following the horn phrase, which is itself displaced, and that's what makes it feel unsettled. But it would be much more unusual to not have a backbeat, and to not bring the beat back on the 1 after dropping it out.

(i got my) is the pick up and TWIN is on the 1

xp

but he doesnt say TWIN he says twin GLOCK

well, not in the radio edit, lol but

great point ... naming two people is not 'singling'

look, I just felt like some ppl on here were more about the 'pile on' than about the 'pursuit of knowledge and greater understanding.' if this is not the case than I apologize

counting is exclusionary to the innumerate. we should just go xiuuu badoombapbap pause badoombapbap

― massaman gai (front tea for two), Monday, August 4, 2025 8:57 AM (one week ago

This was a severely underappreciated post imo

Xp - I got butthurt because I wasn’t just posting for the lols, otherwise I would’ve been like … fair enough. Being called out for trolling when I am trolling is nbd, but I was actually making a bunch of sincere posts discussing the topic.

"Spirits in the Material World" is kind of a great example for this thread.

Stewart Copeland is putting the kick drum on the "2" and "4," which turns the song around

Andy Summers is playing reggae-style upstrokes, but the kickdrum (and possibly the melody) makes it sound like he's doing straight downbeats like he does in "Roxanne"

I have never heard this song "correctly."

I would wager that 95% of Police fans have never heard this song "correctly."

The Police probably reveled in the fact that it was illusory and weird and no one except the three blokes on stage can hear it "correctly"

But... NONE OF THIS CHANGES WHERE THE FUCKING DOWNBEAT IS

I think it depends on context? Like, to me, it’s clear the kick is on upbeats maybe because it has a dub vibe? Maybe because I listened to the Magazine cover of Beefheart’s “…. Big Dummy” right before just now which also has the kick on upbeats.

Xp - I got butthurt because I wasn’t just posting for the lols, otherwise I would’ve been like … fair enough. Being called out for trolling when I am trolling is nbd, but I was actually making a bunch of sincere posts discussing the topic.

― sarahell, Friday, August 15, 2025 12:07 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think youre trolling because it would take a complete idiot to not find a dozen examples itt of you trolling & then one point where you're arguing in a way I found obviously disingenuous because i've actually seen people discuss the different speed w which they play the hi hat has different effects & it seemed as if you were denying those conversations ever took place. i'm not sure why we all have to play dumb about what led to me naming you specifically even while suggesting you were one of many participants taking this pose

xpost

Ok, so you agree with deej?

lol I spoke too soon

Xp context in how likely people mishear the downbeat on Spirits! Like I am not disagreeing on where the 1 is on the song. You are claiming that it is confusing because the kick is on the 2 and 4. I am saying I was just listening to a song where the kick was also not on the 1 and 3 (the typical placements) so I was used to hearing the kick on beats other than the 1 and 3.

I don't find Spirits in the Material World difficult to feel properly, but I remember when it was very hard for me to hear ska, reggae, and bebop in a settled way, anything fast with emphasis on the upbeats.

Here's one - Metallica's Fight Fire with Fire still breaks my brain a bit. It's super fast and not only are all the snares on the upbeats (thrash/pogo/polka style), but the riff and the vocals emphasize the upbeats too. Except for the cymbal crashes, it's very difficult for my hear to not slide to hearing everything as a quarter note (and I think it's made worse by years of hearing it wrong when I was a kid). 'Damage Inc' is like this too with the riff in the beginning (before the vocals come in) and during the solo section. Fuck.

Isn’t the use of this kind of rhythmic ambiguity dialectic in rap and pop and used all the time cf timbaland beats … or like as in dub music (or 80s rap influenced by dub) where there are micro rhythms created at cross purposes with “correct” rhythm … the point isn’t that there is not a grid but that bending it is intentional

― ok (D-40), Thursday, August 14, 2025 7:01 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Anyway the point I’m making here is that if we don’t know where the rhythm is until that “grounding” element appears then there are multiple/ambiguous interpretations possible and that those are kind of a “feature of” the record rather than a “misunderstanding” by idiot audience members who dont know how to count

I think it's a little different with dub and club music, because creating a hypnotic, circular, cycling effect is in large part the point (see also, substances). Less about the tension & release of pop music.

I think it depends on context? Like, to me, it’s clear the kick is on upbeats maybe because it has a dub vibe? Maybe because I listened to the Magazine cover of Beefheart’s “…. Big Dummy” right before just now which also has the kick on upbeats.

― sarahell, Friday, August 15, 2025 1:21 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

No it doesn't?

I think sarahel is agreeing with you and explaining why the song doesn’t confuse her

She is agreeing with me but I don't know if I actually buy any of her prog-muso brags of "Timbaland beats aren't crazy" and "Spirits in the Material World isn't confusing" when she thinks Magazine's Beefheart cover has "kick on the upbeats" when it's clearly and solidly on the downbeat and then follows a dotted sixteenth pattern

The kicks are not on the downbeat on the Magazine song. I have played it.

Unless I am confusing it with Lust for Life — they are reverses of each other re kick pattern

And Whiney, you know who I learned to play drums from! I feel like anything that comes off as bragging to you is just my avant-cluelessness lol

There's kicks on the downbeat of both "Big Dummy" and "Lust for Life"

I don’t agree with 99% of the nonsense that deej is spouting in this thread, but I'm starting to come around to “sarahel doesn’t know what she’s talking about”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sH7APaIvqg

the kick is a syncopated dotted sixteenth note pattern that begins solidly on the downbeat every time

It’s syncopated… and thus, you hear kicks on off beats… fuck it’s been awhile

Off beats aren’t the upbeats

Okay … what I was attempting to convey was that they aren’t on the 1 and the 3.

Solely

But not ONLY on the upbeats. That's just a shuffle, where the kicks are on the 1 & and the 3, and also on the "-let" (as in "1-trip-let-2-trip-let").

xp

i listened to so much Tim this week, thanks Deej <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuBU3pzy7is

Okay I am confused

It’s possible I learned Big Dummy as dotted 8th note pattern in a faster tempo so there was a kick on the 4? It’s also possible I am wrong.

this thread got me listening to ghost in the machine for the first time since the 80s. this record is really good. there's an "original sequence" out there that buries "every little thing" on side 2 gonna listen to that soon too. the guitar solo on "invisible sun" sounds like the sax solo on baker street. song's in 4, not a lot of hay to be made on that front but still I recommend it, killer tune

Isn’t the use of this kind of rhythmic ambiguity dialectic in rap and pop and used all the time cf timbaland beats … or like as in dub music (or 80s rap influenced by dub) where there are micro rhythms created at cross purposes with “correct” rhythm … the point isn’t that there is not a grid but that bending it is intentional

― ok (D-40), Thursday, August 14, 2025 7:01 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Anyway the point I’m making here is that if we don’t know where the rhythm is until that “grounding” element appears then there are multiple/ambiguous interpretations possible and that those are kind of a “feature of” the record rather than a “misunderstanding” by idiot audience members who dont know how to count

I think it's a little different with dub and club music, because creating a hypnotic, circular, cycling effect is in large part the point (see also, substances). Less about the tension & release of pop music.

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Friday, August 15, 2025 9:20 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

sure. but i don't think the intent matters as much as the effect. if there's an effect that splits the audience (for the sake of argument) down the middle, 50/50, in how they hear the song, I think that's a *part of the song's effect* regardless of whether or not it's "technically" club music (I mean, it was heard in lots of clubs, and lots of people likely danced to it hearing both counts in their heads) or even intended

If the argument is that we need to have an 'official' Count for the song I get the persuasive aspects of the 1/2 side in terms of what it would be like to perform the song today; or how one would need to 'recreate' it; i'll even give 'better odds' that ludacris and timbaland collectively heard it the 1/2 way (I'm not willing to concede that's a "sure thing," because I remain skeptical of the argument that Ludacris' rapping definitively hears the 1/2 version).

I think the song is *interesting* and provokes this much dialogue and calls into question the very concept of an 'official' Count, that if 50% of the audience fundamentally understands it as option three that does change: 'how do we count the song'. if anderson paak or sango hear the song this way, and remix it along those lines, as if it were counted the option 3 style--I dont mean they *change* the count, but they create the remix *as if the 'unofficial' count was always 'correct'*, never mind the way the dancers 'create' the song's social reception ... we are all always creating the Truth abt the song ...

idk I hear the groove behave a certain way, if I try I can hear it the other way, but the first way feels more 'natural' to me, and so for the function of my life i'm not going to force myself to hear it "the right way" because nothing about what I do requires me to pretend to hear it a way that sounds 'odd' to me. if anything, if I were to DJ it, i'd want it to enter "the way I hear it" so the horn line aligns the way I hear it

this thread got me listening to ghost in the machine for the first time since the 80s. this record is really good.

Maybe their best? I've always been a Regatta/Zenyatta defaulter, but GITM has such great sonic textures and killer tunes.

Ghost is actually my least fav, but there's not a huge distance between Police albums for me, they're all flawed with some great songs

I remember the reviews I read at the time -- which may well have just been the LA Times, that was my "go straight to the Calendar section and soak up every word about music" main source in my pre-teen years -- were very "they're slipping here," and a friend who'd liked the earlier stuff like I did considered it a dud. I was pretty easily influenced by other people's opinions on stuff during this window, at least if they were people I respected, and even though I didn't think the Times' critics liked anything good I really felt the heavy weight of "people whose job it is to write about this stuff are not feeling this." but it was mainly my friends, who just didn't hear bangers on it (except "every little thing," which I remember was the main line: "there's one stone classic here & they're being weird otherwise"). I remember my pal didn't like "Invisible Sun" which...I love that tune! but listening today it's so interesting. they fade "spirits" when it feels like it could go on for six minutes deep in the groove!

(we are not "all always creating the Truth" about time signatures though, just so we're clear, that's not true. it's an extension of some critical reading strategies onto math, where they don't really work.)

and God "Omegaman"! what a fucking jam! even in the 'original sequence' it's only seventh and that just doesn't seem right, this is such a good good tune -- it's got some of the earlier police vibe but the oddball Fripp-y guitar shit in the chorus is trying new shit...wonderful record

that album and Zenyatta are my two keepers from that catalog

I love all their albums but Ghost in the Machine might be my fave

that's quite a display name you have there

I've never listened to an album by The Police :/

(I have listened to Andy Summers records though and Stewart Copeland is obviously sick)

yeah Zenyatta is my jam

I have realized I underrated them for many years

(I have listened to Andy Summers records though and Stewart Copeland is obviously sick)

I got that Fripp/Summers reissue collection this year, so good

(we are not "all always creating the Truth" about time signatures though, just so we're clear, that's not true. it's an extension of some critical reading strategies onto math, where they don't really work.)

― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, August 15, 2025 3:57 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

the time signature isn't what's being debated....

that's quite a display name you have there

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, August 15, 2025 5:30 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm protesting the display name "hungover beet poo" and I might change it to something more disgusting

ive always had a greatest hits relationship with the police tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4vBsyFVACA

good flip of walking on the moon...always liked the drums on that one

Nah, it's this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Qlw1fmCQ0

the version of “driven to tears” from the certifiable live album rips insanely hard

Like a basketball player

no need to let the convo die, it's Monday, let's get it started