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The Best of the Best: the Greatest Rap Producers Ever (# 50-36)Sep 22 '10 (Updated Nov 20 '10) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Rap's elite - THE GREATEST BEAT MAKERS IN HIP HOP HISTORY - numbers 50-36.
Behind every great rapper, there's a great producer. Yet why is it the man (or woman!) with the microphone generally gets the share of the limelight over the person behind the boards? Whatever the answer is, it's time to try and redress that balance by giving some shine to the VERY greatest hip hop producers EVER. First and foremost – who do we include? Hip hop’s a huge music form. This list is concerned purely with the beats behind the rhymes. These can be manifested through producers in the singular form (they can be DJ-Producer combinations of course!),or production squads. Within that framework, we are talking about beatmakers who play all the instrumentation themselves, or composers who bring others together in playing instruments. DJs, turntabalists, scratchers, ALL serve their purposes in this great artform – but they’re not included here. Next, how am I going to judge this list of musical monsters? We need some rock solid a*s criteria... right? To make this list, you need to have demonstrated some of the following criteria. The more you have of the different categories, the better: 1. ABILITY. Being able to create hot, slamming, beats. Simples. 2. SOUND. Can you craft your own style of music? Signature checklists that signal your beats, etc. 3. LONGEVITY. To be the greatest producer ever you need to have done it to top level for a substantial period of time. 4. CATALOGUE. Does what it says on the tin., But I do make one important distinction: what seperates the great from the very good is the ability to mould one’s style of music to a particular emcee or group and then drop great rap albums. After all, it's relatively easy to manufacture a one-off hit single, but far, FAR harder to create a 16 track set of fresh beats. And incidentally that's a point in itself... being a big hitmaker isn't a negative, obviously, but it's not inherently fundamental to being a great producer. What I’m ultimately saying is if you are a producer who has the ability to maintain a hot sound over the course of a full length album... that WILL score big points. 5. ORIGINALITY/INFLUENCE. Producers who have the ability to create influential and/or amazing sounds will get massive props, particularly when compared to trend-followers. But it’s not entirely a black and white scenario, for sometimes producers who trend follow have better catalogues than those who created that particular sound. Ultimately, the question as to who is better - teacher or student - can only be answered looking at it from the overall perspective of body of work. The only exception is if they can’t be split i.e. all things being ‘equal’, then the originator will get the deciding vote. But you’re probably bored of me rambling now. This is intended to be an interactive list; for lots of these producers have huge resumes, and I want to help you guys get the best idea of how they sound. I’ve listed production credits I have either remembered or are of particular distinction. You’ll see a load of links to reviews (mine – and others!) as well as the occasional youtube link if I feel you HAVE to listen to a song there & then. ***** Let’s get things moving. Up first, numbers 50-36... (and if you're looking for honourable mentions - they come at the end of this gargantuan project!) Edited: 19.11.2010 (some producers demoted to honourable mentions, others promoted & re-arranged) #50. Afrika Islam. Mostly associated with: Ice-T Ice-T's main producer in the mid 80s, Afrika Islam oversaw the rise of the premier pre-Death Row/Ruthless Records gangsta rapper/social commentator. His style was, in fitting with the musical style at the time, sparse and lean, bassline-orientated rap that flitted with rock-crossover at certain points (particularly on Ice-T's best album, 1991's "O.G. Original Gangster"). It's a shame Islam practically fell off the map after this period of dopeness - he had the base to start to really refine and mature his sound. #49. Mannie Fresh. Mostly associated with: Juvenile, Cash Money Here comes one of the Dirrrrrty South’s principle hitmakers and driving forces. I’m no great fan of the Dirty South and its crunk influences, but there’s no doubt that Fresh has dropped the best of this style: bassline-heavy, unsubtle, crushing music meant for clubs and in cars with juiced up sound systems. Fresh has worked heavily with Lil Wayne, Baby (who is unbelievably wack, by the way) and Juvenile, as well as producing cuts for Bun B, T.I., Rick Ross, UGK, B.G. etc. Is he ever going to climb higher on this list? It's unlikely. #48. Chief Xcel: Mostly associated with: Blackaclicious I love Blackalicious. My first exposure to them was on their second album, one of THE releases of 2001: "Blazing Arrow". My man Chief Xcel crafted a gorgeously rich sonic blend of earthy basslines similar to Jurassic 5 or People Under The Stairs, with densely abstract funk and soul influenced landscapes (like Outkast)... listen to the soaring "First In Flight", the post-apocalyptic grandeur of "Blazing Arrow", and the noughties' answer to A Tribe Called Quest's "Electric Relaxation", the absolutely gorgeous "Make You Feel That Way". And guess what, this amazing release was only a MINOR improvement on their stunning debut release: "Nia" (2000), which slightly slowed the tempo down a bit on gorgeous songs like "As The World Turns". I haven't heard the duo of Xcel and Gift of Gab's third album "The Craft" (2005) yet, but I'm going to remedy that soon, and excitingly, they are working on a new release for 2011!! #47. N.O. Joe. Mostly associated with: Scarface, The Geto Boys The first central figure to the sound of Houston's greatest ever rap group The Geto Boys is N.O. Joe, who as a key Rap-A-Lot producer has helped sculpt the group's sound from "Till Death Do Us Part" (1993) onwards. "Till Death Do Us Part and "The Resurrection" (1996) established his sound, it was at times cinematic, at times darkly funky, at times skirting a dirty type of G-Funk, and at times absolutely thumping and aggressive. While the sound didn't change that much from Geto Boys record to record, I still feel that on each record individually his beats demonstrate a neat level of versatility. Then there's his work on Scarface's numerous solo albums, which peaked with "The Diary" (1994)... but I'm not going to say much more, because I have a Geto Boys review in the pipeline, during which I will expand much more on this dope and oft. overlooked beatsmith. Stay tuned. #46. DJ Pooh. Mostly associated with: Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, King Tee My man DJ Pooh is a a solid and consistent beatmaker who's never been what you may call prolific, maintaining instead a steady flow of dope beats for a variety of big Westcoast artists down the years. His style is difficult to pigeonhole, for it evolved over the course of two decades, from relatively sparse (".357 - Break It on Down" for LL Cool J on 1987's "Bigger and Deffer"), to funky hardcore (his work with King Tee and on Kam's "Watts Riot") to classic pimped out 'Westcoast' summer funk ("New York, New York" and "Smooth" from Tha Dogg Pound's 1995 album "Dogg Food"). His career defining work is with Ice Cube, however. Pooh was a key member of "The Boogie Men" (along with Sir Jinx (#26) & Cube), creating the musical backing for rap's greatest ever album (IMO), "Death Certificate". The producer then flew solo on Cube's "The Predator" (1992), with "It Was A Good Day", simulatenously considered one of the finest G-Funk beats ever AS WELL as being in the running for the best Cube song ever. Then there's also the absolutely pounding, stomping "When Will They Shoot?" and "Title Track" from the same LP. Oh, and I haven't mentioned any of his dope tracks on Snoop Dogg's "The Doggfather" either (particularly, "Vapors" and "2001"). A really dope a** producer. #45. Salaam Remi. Mostly associated with: Nas This guy is talented. He's done a lot of work with Nas, taking over the mantle from DJ Premier as the Queens luminary's "main" producer when it comes to signature tracks and lead singles. The results are pretty stunning, as off the top, they've done a lot of amazing work together, including "Get Down", "Made You Look", "Suicide Bounce", "Bridging the Gap", "What Goes Around", "You Can't Stop Us Now" and arguably best of all, the slammin' "Thief's Theme". He doesn't have the largest discography on this list (maybe his fee is insanely high or something?) but has done some excellent work for Big Boi (I LOVE "Follow Us"), The Fugees (his biggest hit here, the anthemic "Fu-Gee-La"), Canibus ("Get Retarded") and Ludacris ("Virgo"). His style strikes me as an musically-competent, organic fusion of the old and new schools... and damn, I just want to hear more! #44. DJ Jazzy Jeff. Mostly associated with: Will Smith You're most likely to recognise Jeff as Will Smith's mate, the dude who got repeatedly thrown out of Uncle Phil’s Beverly Hills mansion in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". But he's a bit of a production veteran, delivering a variety of sonic landscapes first with his stonkingly successful crossover pairing with Smith, titled “DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince”, and their series of smash hit albums through the late 80s and early 90s (you will undoubtedly have heard all time hip-pop anthems like “Boom! Shake The Room” and “Summertime”). Jeff then delivered quite stunning musical work, in tandem with his A Touch of Jazz production crew, with his solo albums on British label BBE: “The Magnificent” (2002) was one of the best records of the decade, although I have yet to hear “The Return of the Magnificent” (2007). Not many better words to use regarding this guy, than 'magnificent'. #43. Evidence. Mostly associated with: Dilated Peoples The Dilated Peoples lead producer is an excellent underground beatmaker who along with The Alchemist and DJ Babu can be credited as making his group one of the best produced in hip hop. Evidence doesn’t produce much for anyone outside of the extended Likwit-crew – but check his work out in particular on Defari’s “Odds & Evens” – it’s one of the best albums of 2003, thanks in no small regard to his brassy and catchy backing tracks. #42. Swizz Beats. Mostly associated with: Ruff Ryders, DMX The guy who got sued by Casio... or so goes the urban legend. Swizz Beats is a hitmaker first and foremost, who has produced for his clique Ruff Ryders as well as a who’s who of big Eastcoast mainstream stars in the last 15 years (his biggest hit to this day is probably DMX's classic, "Ruff Ryders Anthem"). Despite the sheer quantity of tracks he's been credited to, Swizz is actually reasonably inconsistent, and his ‘sound’ is pretty unsophisticated, but with songs like "Dr. Carter" he proved to me that he has got it in his locker to make sophisticated music. When he feels like it. #41. Scott Storch. Mostly associated with: Dr. Dre Second to Daz Dillinger, Scott Storch is the second best on Dr. Dre’s long list of co-producers (he provided that amazing key line on “Still D.R.E.”). He’s a Canadian (ed. no he's not, he's from Philly!) white guy who has often been dismissively written off as a generic copy and paste producer... and sometimes this can be true. He is a hitmaker whose beats are extremely Dre influenced – but he has undoubtedly got talent (that's why The Roots enlisted him to help on albums like 1999's "Things Fall Apart"), just listen to Big Boi’s outstanding single “Shutterbug”. Storch has an extensive production discography now, but unfortunately about 80% of the artists he works with are total garbage. If he sorts that out, keeps refining his style, and drops a hot album for someone, he’ll really start to make moves. #40. Easy Mo Bee. Mostly associated with: The Notorious B.I.G. Along with P. Diddy and his Hitmen, Easy Mo Bee is one of the pillars of strength behind Biggie’s: “Ready To Die”. He produced a string of tracks on this masterpiece release, which classed him as a jazz-influenced, boom bap come horrorcore producer who had the ability to meld the two into cinematic, threatening soundscapes on “Warning” in particular, and rumbling old school anthems like “Machine Gun Funk”, and one of Biggie’s pre-RTD singles “Party and Bullsh!t”. Mo Bee was a big producer back in the day, getting his start for the legend that is Big Daddy Kane, and going onto producing albums for Gza (“Words From The Genius”) and Craig Mack and tracks/hits for 2Pac (he did a lot of outstanding production work on Pac's classic 1995 album "Me Against The World"), Das EFX, LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes and The Lost Boyz, as well as more work with Biggie on “Life After Death”. His work since the late 90s has been relatively sparse, though he has occasionally surfaced with releases like Now or Never: Oddysey 2000, which was an Eastcoast-centric collaboration project, and dropping tracks for the Wu, Kurupt, Ras Kass, Big Daddy Kane and others. #39. No I.D. Mostly associated with: Common Common’s main producer back in the day, No I.D. delivered amazing work on Com’s classic “Resurrection” (1994), which featured a heavily Tribe Called Quest-influenced sense of utter musical relaxation, and the more uptempo, brassy “One Day It’ll All Make Sense” (1997). The Chicago-born producer wasn’t seen for a long time after these twin successes but came back in 2007 on Jay-Z’s “American Gangster” and has since had a resurgence, crafting tracks for Young Jeezy, Killer Mike, Kanye West (No I..D is also a a key figure on Kanye's upcoming LP, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy") ... and the most exciting news is that he’s back working Common for the legendary emcee’s upcoming album. Stay tuned. #38. Mike Dean. Mostly associated with: Scarface Following his buddy N.O. Joe, now it's the time of the other main driver behind Scarface’s rise to prominence. ‘Face is the King of the South, and a top 10 rapper ever, and Dean dropped a lot of beats on his best ever album: "The Diary" (as well as 2000's “Last Of A Dying Breed” & 2007's “Made"). Dean’s style was a warped, cinematic twist on G-Funk... a dirty, dangerous, tense sound. He's worked with a lot of different artists: Tha Dogg Pound, Yukmouth, Juvenile, Devin the Dude, E-40, UGK... and I've not heard a wack beat yet. Dean joins No I.D. as a key co-producer who is assisting Kanye in his aforementioned, soon-to-be-released fifth LP. #37. Dan The Automator. Mostly associated with: Kool Keith, Deltron 3030 God, I love Kool Keith. He's a pretty crazy emcee - and his best album is the all time underground classic, "Dr. Octagonecologyst" (1996). Dan The Automater was the genius behind this album, introducing an extremely surreal, dense sound that was the type of "futuristic" vibe that his later group Deltron 3030 would embrace with their nearly-as-good 2000 debut album (which Dan had a large hand in, too). Crazy Moog synths, flutes and strings, vocal excerpts from porn films cut in, DJ Qbert's revolutionary scratching... "Dr. Octagonecologyst" was a psychedelic trip. Asides from this, Dan has accumulated a sizeable discography working with people like Del (and with The Handsome Modelling School) and has dropped collaboration albums with DJ Shadow... so he must be doing something right. 36. The Beatnuts. Mostly associated with: Themselves An extremely under-appreciated production crew from Queens (ed.) – the reason for this is they very rarely produce any beats for anyone outside of their own inhouse circle. “A Musical Massacre” (1999) was an excellent release – and I love the Big Pun featuring single “Off The Books”. These are quite flamboyant producers, eager to drop club-ready, party-hard sample-driven beats… though Juju of the crew has also produced one of my all-time favourite dark, menacing, plain aggressive cuts: Big Pun’s “Beware”. The Beatnuts are a pretty raucous crew... it's just such a shame they've never really moved beyond their self-contained boundaries, because when they have (listen to Ghostface Killah's bonkers Juju-produced, "One") the results are stunning. ***** BOOOM!! Keep it locked peeps - rap's next 15 greatest ever musical wizards is coming real soon. In the meantime, sing my praises, or give me some sh!t in the comment section. NEXT INSTALLMENTS: #35-21 #20-11 #10-1 Honourable Mentions  |
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