Diggin' Into Hip Hop Suckage (Part 2)

I got started on this rabbit trail earlier this week, and here is the first section of "data" I am going to use to make my point that old rap was superior and new rap is weak in comparison.  I'm going to select some songs to use for the research, and we'll introduce those eight songs here.  Before we get in to that, let me show you why sampling is so great.  I'd play you the entirety of Paul's Boutique, but for brevity's sake, here is the unstoppable Ice Cube's "Jackin' fo Beats"

Seriously, a Ford Aerostar minivan?  Heavy duty gangsta move, Cube.

Data Point Number One: Sampling/Beats

Classic hip hop used samples to create awesome beats.  Now, I know that the super old school stuff (Grandmaster Flash or Kurtis Blow) used basic beats instead of samples, but by the time "Rappers Delight" hit, sampling was the way to make a good track.  According to Billboard, the top song on the Hot Hip Hop chart on July 12, 1989 was "Me Myself and I," and on August 14, 1989 it was "Fight the Power."  I randomly chose those dates using the earliest stuff available on that Billboard interactive tool.

According to the Internet, "Fight the Power" sampled 20 (TWENTY!!!) songs, including classics from James Brown and the Isley Brothers.  "Me, Myself & I" meanwhile sampled only 6 songs, including the obvious (Funkadelic) and the not so obvious (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves).  But both of those songs, and other top tracks from that era, create the coolest sounding stuff from pieces of old music.  To me, when the DJ adds in recognizable bits, that makes the new composition even cooler - when you can hear a snatch of James Brown, Funkadelic, or Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, that is kind of exciting.

But since that Biz Markie court decision, you still get some Funkadelic (because George Clinton and his posse are willing to license their stuff) but amazing things like the Beastie's Paul's Boutique or the Bomb Squad's 20 sample pastiche just disappeared.  Well, Girl Talk still exists, and his musical collages are amazing, but I think he gets around it by giving his music away for free.  This guy thinks he gets away with it because the labels are scared of the fight, but I'm not so sure.  If he was the number one selling album and there was a pot of gold to go after, I bet the labels would sic their lawyers on him. Honestly, after thinking about this for a bit, I wish they would go after him, lose, and Ice Cube's next album would be 100% sweet soul samples and James Brown.

So, on to the second pair of songs.  I had to slightly move the dates because exactly ten years after Me, Myself & I was July 12, 1999, and the number one song was some group called Sporty Thievz with a song called "No Pigeon," a really crappy answer to/re-make of TLC's "No Scrubs." WTF is this garbage? Anyway, I pushed out a few months and the most popular track on November 21, 1999 was Missy Elliott's "Hot Boyz," then the next track was the 504 Boyz's "Wobble Wobble."

In both of these, you get that Dr. Dre-style interpolation, without recognizable samples.  Missy's song was produced by Timbaland, and according to WhoSampled, it does not sample any other song.  The 504 Boyz track samples one other song.  Remember when Master P was a thing?  UGGHHHHH!

Now look, I'm not saying those songs are necessarily bad, but if you were to think of a Missy song, is that the first one you would think of?  "Hot Boyz" is not in her top ten on Spotify or top 20 on YouTube, so likely not unless you were a big fan.  Can you describe the beat after you listened to it?  I'm re-listening to it right now and I can barely remember.  Clicks and bass?  Meanwhile, I could immediately sing you the tune to Me, Myself & I.  I know, this is still all subjective, but I'd wager that more people would find the old beats superior to the new.

Taking it out another decade farther to 2009, Drake's "Best I Ever Had" was the number one song on the Hot Hip Hot chart for months, and the next number one was Jay-Z's "Run this Town."  While the Drake track actually contains a pretty hefty sample of a song, I still think it proves my point because the sampled song sucks and the sample is so very generic it could have just been cooked up by a guy with a Casio and 15 minutes.  Here is the Drake tune and the tune it sampled:


When you hear that, no one is thinking it is a sample.  You're also not thinking it is a hot beat.  You're just thinking that some producer with a confusing name cooked up that beat with a drum machine in his basement and managed to get noticed by Drake.  Of interest, Wikipedia says Drake got sued by Playboy over the sample.  Pretty garbage sample to get sued over.  I wish Drake would have fought it and won.  Sadly, no, he punked out and paid up.

Jay-Z's "Run This Town" interpolates a song - some crazy ass Greek tune - into that signature guitar riff used throughout, but I don't think that is a true sample.  Hear for yourself:


Now, I think that track has a better beat, without a doubt, than Drake's song.  But I also think that military drum sounds cool (and that Jay's verse is tragically lame).  But even if that beat is slightly better than its contemporary, I'd still prefer the old school.

Finally, let's look at today.  I couldn't just pick the top two tracks because the "Hot Hip Hop" chart now includes hot R&B, but the top two rap tracks today are "Summer Sixteen" by Drake and "Me, Myself & I" by G-Eazy.  That is some cool symmetry with bookended MM&I's.

On the Drake tune, WhoSampled says they sampled this weird track called "Glass Tubes." Listen to the Drake link, and about 1:55 in, you'll hear some piano sneak in under the beat. Not much of a sample.  But it is definitely there.
And, if I'm being honest, I actually like Drake's beat.  Super simple, very clean, pretty sweet.  Even if that hurts my thesis I'm writing here, I like the beat.  But, do I like it better than the classics?  I don't think so.  Did Future use it last week on a different cut and you can't tell the difference?  Probably. There is nothing recognizable in that beat to differentiate it.

"Me, Myself & I" is apparently a HUGE hit - 119 million listens on Spotify is legit.  Not my favorite, G-Eazy's "I Mean It" and "Random" are more my speed, but apparently the world is into it.  But, WhoSampled has nothing about the song, and a Google search turns up nothing, just production by Michael Keenan, Christoph Andersson, and G-Eazy himself.

I don't get the appeal.  The hook makes me think of something - not the Jenga Bus song from the Six Flags commercials, but something equally annoying.  Not the greatest beat, just piano, snare, and some synths.  If someone else used that beat, without the hook in the middle, you'd never even notice.

So, over the period of 27-ish years you go from artists getting to use the most amazing old school soul and funk tunes, and digging into crates to find new sounds and snippets they can use, to the modern version of interpolating unknown Greek music or just using synths to create generic sounds that any rapper can use.  I just listened to the "Rap Caviar" playlist on Spotify for an hour or so, and it is actually kind of interesting.  The new-style beats are remarkably similar - I bet the data geeks at Pandora could decipher exactly how similar, but it is mind numbing after a while.

I think the data points to old school winning here.  Sure, the new beats can be nice, you can bob your head along to them, but is there anything in those beats you'll remember tomorrow?  27 years from now?  I'd argue no.

Let's try a ranking with points: I think the beats rank in the following order: "Fight the Power," De la Soul, "Run this Town," "Summer Sixteen," "Wobble Wobble," "Hot Boyz," "Best I Ever Had," G-Eazy.  Giving the most points for the top of that list, that plays out like this:

• 1989: 15 points
• 2009: 8 points
• 1999: 7 points
• 2016: 6 points

We'll dig into lyrics next.