Most criminally unsung old-school & new-school hip-hop and R&B producers

Richie Rich from 3rd Bass brings the muhfucking jams, in my opinion, and does not get his share of props.

Jay-E does rule. So does The Ummah.

i'm a big fan of Kanye and Just Blaze, and i'm glad they're getting recognition these days, but i think/hope Bink! will be the next Roc producer to break out. the beat he did on Freeway's "All My Life" is effin' tremendous, plus "1-900 Hustler" is classic. also, i'm keeping my eye the Heatmakerz, who did a bunch of Diplomats joints, esp. "I'm Ready".

(yeah, nick, KMKurt is really good...he uses good equipment too w/r/t engineering: his beats hit harder and clearer than virtually anything else)

JC The Eternal is the embodiment of unsung/antisung. And nobody has taken up his project, at least inside hip-hop. Lush hip-hop--there's a thread.

Has Epperson done anything since Country Grammar that's worth checking out? (I tend to avoid the other St. Lunatics like the plague tho Murphy Lee's spot on Air Force Ones makes me wanna check him out a bit more]

Bud'da did some great stuff for Aaliyah but that seems to be mainly it for him so far.

Heh. Shows how much I know...I always thought Large Pro was biting off that album!

mannie fresh. (no, really.)

also: the work earthtone iii have done w outkast and friends.

I just ordered a buncha freestyle classix from mixedmusic.com so I'll be listening to them and thinking about this stuff more whenever they arrive.

There's no reason for a healthy, normal person to know about Paul and Extra P working on Eric B records--it's just coming out now in interviews, etc. That should all get sorted out in the next five years or so, much to the displeasure of Mr. Eric B.

Jazzie Pha is a soldier, like DR Period. Hard to understand why they didn't get kicked up to the platinum circle. (DR Period's shining moment: Smoothe Da Hustler's "Broken Langauge," absolutely as good as OC's "Time's Up.")

Tank is great. Tonex, who I assume is also the producer who calls himself T-Boy, is also great, in a very post-Prince way, and nobody much cares about him. Easy Mo Bee, as much as he works, gets very little credit. And how much better can a beat be than "Flava In Ya Ear"? Not much, and it was turned down repeatedly before he gave it to Craig Mack, another lost genius.

Kendal, who did much of the Ahmad record, had a great, post-Chronic feel. All cushy and sweet.

"Wizzy Wow" is Teddy Riley in "I'm-going-to-trump-my-former-employees-The-Neptunes" mode. Meaning, awesomely torqued and tense.

Organized Noize almost always good, often astonishing. The "Akshon" single on Killer Mike's album is Andre 3000 restating his total genius status. I can't think of a thing he's done wrong.

Epperson did three amazing beats on Ali's invisble but suprisingly good Heavy Starch album, "Drop Top," "Wiggle Wiggle," and "Collection Plate." You can get that one for a few bucks on half.com, like the PM Dawn and Easy Mo Bee's solo album. Beatnuts deserve their own thread, if just for setting off the epistemological freakout when they hated on Trackmasters for replaying the Fernando Arbex (sp?) sample from "Off The Books" for the J Lo single. They really thought it was THEIR song because they'd sampled it, even though Trackmasters hadn't sampled either them or the original. Baurdillard to thread....

I'm glad I said something that suggests a different genealogy for hip-hop, Frank. This is why I'm writing a book on hip-hop production--I know, who cares? but it seemed relevant to mention (and I won't again). I hope I don't fuck it up, but it's at least half interviews. Last month, John Robie was sort of mindblowing as interview, both taking credit for everything that ever happened in hip-hop and also putting it down mercilessly (and then apologizing). But the point he made that was absolute solid gold, the one thing I wanted a real player to say, was that the early days were all about making these expedient (his word), cheap disco records, and that the people involved were both unlike each other (black DJ, white gay record label owner, white rock/classical synth programmer) and completely in the dark. How could it not work?

I would almost make that argument about "When I Hear Music" (whatta fucking great song) and "Jam On It" and "Whoot/Whoomp There It Is" and "C'Mon N' Ride It" being more influential than the canon figures listed, except that it's all over when you get to Dre. For commercial rap, nothing survives the ground zero of "The Chronic." The remainder of hip-hop history becomes a museum staffed by backpackers, and I have nothing against either museums or backpackers. But Public Enemy are the most historically deleted group ever. (Remember how much Russell Simmons hated them.) They used to be on the cover of the New York Post ONCE A WEEK in the summer of 88--they were that central. Now they function like language poetry, or curling--completely off the map. The question of who is better is much more thorny. I like "C'Mon N Ride It" better than any Kool G Rap, but "The Symphony Part II" is better than any L'Trimm. But not by much. OK. Shutting up now.

I hope those italics work.

Oh, and hello Dan. Did you get me email?

Now if only Madlib could hook up with D'Angelo. Stinking!

I didn't bring Rza up earlier in this thread because he's not criminally unsung, he's one of the few properly-respected beatsmiths I can think of.

But yeah lotsa the stuff I think has to be transformed to the extent its incorporated back because the underlying tracks have both a rhythmic mode and ethos that doesn't fit what what dre & co transformed hip-hop into.

Just Blaze and Kayne are, I think, carrying on the RZA legacy in a number of key ways also. Also I'd really like to see something on the detroit production sound in Em's latest stuff, coz I know he didn't originate it but I don't know much else about it.

Raekwon's Immobilarity and Only Built 4 Cuban Linx both gold.

Method Man's got four platinum albums.

GZA's Liquid Swords and Beneath the Surface both gold.

Still, your point stands, Sasha. The fact that 36 Chambers hasn't received a certification in 8 years is astounding (and I would think it's an error, but this is from the RIAA website, especially since it's been Nice Priced for at least the past four or five years...), and certainly buttresses the idea of the Wu-Tang Clan as a building block, more than the hip-hop cathedral that they would like to be.

As to the subject at hand, who produced the Neneh Cherry Raw Like Sushi record?

Booga Bear, Cherry's ex-husband, did much of Raw Like Sushi.

Sterling--I don't think Frank and I are at odds, either. I was, ironically, trying to rock it non-reductive style, and clarify the margins of discord between our two position. In a pinch, I'd agree that the bounce trumps everything. It's a trip what records have failed, over time, and which have improved. Party records do tend to look good longer than art records, but not always (cf. Nation of Millions fuck these italics).

What you read as reduction--no, what is reduction in my writing is just a taste for rhetorical force. And periodical word counts force (repeat) my hand--if I have to choose between starting an argument in 800 words, or dropping a fragment of a longer, narrative, emotional impression, I'll take the former.

Excellent point re Tim's new revivalism, but that feels pretty recent.

Dinner time!

like that guy said,,,, just blaze really does kind of sound like rza at times. just blaze sells a lot of records for people, i think.

The thing is, a lot of Bass & Bounce simply hop-scotched over Dre like he wasn't there (except maybe for lyrical content, which I credit to Eazy E).

So, I know this is even more glib and reductive, but could we say that (among many other things) Timbaland put Miami together with L.A. (with Kingston as backdrop)?

And is Ennio Morriccone (and Augustus Pablo) the secret sound in Dre?

My favorite Organized Noize (if it is Organized Noize; my promo copy has no credits) is Backbone's "5 Deuce-4 Tre," which sounds like the best of Atlanta mixed into the best of Mannie Fresh.

Sasha, you can't eat until you tell us more about the book. And see if you can make a CD to accompany it, like Reynolds did with Energy Flash.

Best old-school track of the '90s: Spice Girls "Wannabe."

I just realized that's not the way you spell Deric.

Re-bought approximately 30 rap titles off Half in the last two months to replace what I used to have on tape. Total was roughly $150, though I did bite the bullet and pay $10 for the second Lakim Shabazz. Everything else was in the $2-$4 range.

jmj's work on the first onyx album seems incredibly prophetic of the kroq playlist circa 1999-2001 now.

shawn j, period, when in elastic proto-timbaland mode and not lazy undie mode. ditto hi-tek.

i also forgot dj muggs in my last post

No, one American noticed Roots Manuva. But he is now a hippie.

This is totally correct. the Ali album has largely awesome production - I think Epperson is now the bounciest of bounce producers by far - but Ali's so stodgily average. I'm looking forward to a Murphy Lee album. Is there one yet?

Man I can't wait for the new Mis-Teeq album.

DITC not unsung, but Show always deserves an extra donut, if only for Runaway Slave.

The Scratch on the Roots records is different from the Busta guy--that Scratch is the beaboxer who replaced Rahzel.

Q-Tip is maybe the winner, as people don't even think he's a producer. Recent interview with Bob Power revealed Tip did plenty in Quest, including many of their best moments, like "Check The Rhime." Explains why I love Amplified so much, but never much like Jay Dee: Those are Tip's beats. Prefer Madlib for jazz, though he is hardly unsung. His new Blue Note remix album is so much better than the other 47 Blue Notes remix things. And The Trojan mix CD thing, and "Astronaut" and the new Wildchild...

Thanks to Dave Stelfox for those names--searching (beachball spins)...

DJ Spinna--underrrated, and also an incredible live DJ. Blew away Shadow and Kut Khemist, hadly amateurs, last year on the same set.

Why did Muggs decide not to be Muggs around 1998? He started biting Dre and then kinda wandered off the playing field. And now he's Geoff Barrows. Sorta.

Also, whoever the Trackezoids are, I liked (for the most part) the work they did on Binary Star's album but haven't heard anything about them.

Blowout Combis a perfect example of sleepertude, as Butterfly didn't actually do much of the first one (Shane Faber did much of it, uncredited, or at least says he did) but Butterfly did actually prduce much of the second (BC), which is amazing, and which the label hated, the jerx. Divine Styler should have his own ice cream flavor, if only for "Microphenia."

A brilliant idea! :-)

That Divine Styler "Before Mecca" 12" was the first uptempo hip hop track in like... forever when it came out. Snapped a lot of producers out of the trip hop slumber, I think.

What about No I.D. on Resurrection? Never mind his wack solo album Accept Your Own... Guess he's from the Black Sheep school.

Who produced KMD?

this thread is getting a little crazy now but heads up to rich harrison who produced that terrific amerie lp

ge-ology coulda been contenders...

was buckwild on the first organized konfusion lp? well anyway, whoever 'snap and the foolish mortals' are: "don't ask me who's sane, cos the hypnotical gases are eating my brain"

Also, I believe MF Doom was pretty much always the producer for KMD, for the most part....

What songs has Pimp C produced djdee? Do you mean the same one from UGK?

What happened to them after Aaliyah's last album? Did people think they were a bad omen or something?

But it's all about "Perfect Man". The doo-wop bridge!!!!

anyone know who produced Memphis Bleek's "Yes" and Beanie Sigel's "I Gotta Have It"?

SUAVE HOUSE

Tela! 8ball and mjg! SH just had a "best of suavehouse" cd released last year i believe that i want to pick up.

Y-Kim The Illfigga - I only know of beats he did on the first Killah Priest record 7 or 8 years ago but the beats for "Blessed Are Those" and especially "From Then Til Now" still sound amazing.

Jake One - I know he's one of the new cats out there but I don't hear his name mentioned often. He did great beats on the Gift Of Gab and Vast Aire solo joints and of course "Days Of Our Lives" and everyone's favorite "Rock Co. Kane Flow" from the last De La record.

Oh No - He did quite a few great tracks on the Wildchild and Declaime albums. But he's Madlib's brother - quite a shadow.