ETHOS

By Paul Pennington

As I have told many, my mother has been the greatest musical influence in my life. When people notice my 27,000+ (I am shameless) song iTunes Library, I consider it a reflection of the wealth of knowledge that my mother gave me at a young age. What must be understood about my life is the fact that as a child we did not listen to the radio. Instead our car was inundated with the sounds of Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, Roy Ayers, and Donald Byrd. Even as I grew older my mother introduced me to Lauryn Hill (Miseducation Tour with my mom was my first concert ever…), Erykah Badu, Jill Scott and Mary J. Blige. Being a musician herself, my mother understood sounds and harmonies on a level unbeknownst to the average listener. This translated into the musical selection that she passed on to me.

Because of this, I first heard that familiar piano cadence without an accompanying drum loop. When I first heard those notes, smooth yet aggressively stroked piano notes, they were then Ahmad Jamal’s “I Love You” from his 1970 classic The Awakening. However, many of my contemporaries would understand the piece in question as Nas’ “The World Is Yours” produced by legendary producer Pete Rock. It’s moments like these that I cherish in life—I listen to a hip-hop record to find a song from my past; from music’s elongated history

While I generally agree with this broad analysis of hip-hop, I feel that it is necessary—and quite controversial—to add that these different musical variants were brought together to form something that, may be music, but wasn’t necessarily created by musicians. Allow me elaborate. In my unnecessary ruminations on this thing we call hip-hop, I became cognizant of the notion that maybe hip-hop as a musical medium is not, itself music. Again, I must explain (I feel the pulse of every little backpacker racing with every one of my sacrilegious words). The identity of “music”, created by literally taking someone else’s music, is inherently problematic. When does one cross the line in careful reconstruction of another’s work and just flat out beat-jacking? Ultimately, I have concluded that regardless of the level of skill placed into this synthesis of new and old that we call hip-hop, it remains music. After all it does contain concretive musical elements of harmony and rhythm. What I will not concede, however, is the identity of the hip-hop producer as an authentic musician. This is not a castigation of all producers; it must be noted however that some maintain suspect identities as today’s purported musical elite.

In looking at the case of Pete Rock’s production of “The World Is Yours”, while I give ample credit for his crate digging in finding the sample, his ability to find the perfect portion to sample and ultimately producing the beat we know and love today, it should be understood that theoretically his works sounds more like a musical engineer than an actual musician. This does not negate the musical prowess of Pete Rock. I just feel that it is important to understand the juxtaposing constructions of art between Ahmad Jamal and Pete Rock.

Look kids he plays a real live piano…wooooow.

While Jamal, a formally trained-pianist undertook the painfully excruciating task of composing the piece based within musical chords, rhythmic timing and performance annunciation, Pete Rock gathered the sample, cut and pasted the song and looped it, added layers of organized sound effects and scratches, dropped the pitch and—quite fittingly—placed in the perfect artificial drum kit pattern.

I apologize (not really) if I come off as an elitist or someone that is too hard on hip-hop. Again, I do not attempt to belittle the work of the hip-hop producer—I would just like to put it into perspective. I believe this idea of sampling and production tools has created a substantially bigger monster in opening the game to the likes of various clowns such as Soulja Boy who can “make a beat in [his] hotel room” while on tour. It’s the simplicity of production that makes its perpetuated definition as music such an absurdity. I don’t make beats and I’m sure I couldn’t make a beat like Grammy-Award winning producer Kanye West. Now my friend and beat aficionado Isaiah ”DJ Zay” Greene has claimed to have recreated a Kanye beat from scratch. Now DJ Zay is nice but he definitely hasn’t won any Grammys…yet. My issue is while I play the alto saxophone and consider myself to be quite competent I can and never will be able to replicate Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology”. When one plays an instrument it is on a completely different plane in comparison to mechanically doctoring someone else’s work—regardless of the difficulty.

There are producers who have pushed boundaries in producing music however. Arguably (it really isn’t actually) the greatest producer hip-hop has ever seen, J Dilla played myriad instruments all of which he introduced within his work—including the flute…the flute.

Pause…Think about it…Continue.

I believe I have gushed enough about my not so secret crush towards talented producer/multi-instrumentalist, ?uestlove. As much flak as The Neptunes receive for their mainstream sounds, they deserve more credit then most “underground” producers for being well-trained instrumentalists who rarely rely on samples—furthermore when these individuals use samples they create a completely different song. As a musical nerd, I enjoy finding originals and comparing them to their newer interpretation. What you can find in looking at Kanye West is arguably (again it really isn’t) the laziest beat usage outside of The Diplomats’ producers, The Heatmakerz. Usually taken in the first 30 seconds of a song, these samples are generally sped up and given a customary Kanye drum loop. On the other hand, I remain in disbelief—three years later—at the way in which Dilla chopped up Marvin Gaye’s “God Is Love” and created Common’s “Love Is”

What’s that mommy?…It’s a guitar honey. They played those when I was a little girl.

Regardless of where you stand, I hope you understand my point. I really enjoy hip-hop. However, because of my entry point, as listening to originals first as well as playing an instrument myself, I have a different perspective. I believe that some of the work Kanye West has done is phenomenal and most likely could not be replicated by musical great Marvin Gaye. However, it is slightly ironic that Kanye would probably be using a creation of Gaye’s in the first place. I applaud musical engineers for their talents behind the booth. While I ultimately believe that their endeavors, at the most simplistic level, is substantially less arduous than creating music with an actual instrument, without a prompt, I do respect the talents of the hip-hop greats.

Shouts outs to UPenn producers Willie Beemen and RJF…Expect an Ummah-esque project out of the Beeman-RJF-Zay production triumvirate in the near future…