Tho I’m a Hip Hop DJ, your man DJ Yose grew up in London loving the Electronic scene. I only dabbled in production but at the end of the day I’m a music lover and with the digitization of music I believe we’re losing out on some important music production elements.

So its interesting to see this interview with Soulwax, a DJ group thats known for some famous remixes that echo the dirty house sound currently taking over the scene with acts like Justice. Even though their genre is ingrained in ‘electronics’, Soulwax purposely use analog machines to bring a unique human element to their music.

Its interesting that they mix the old technology with the new to create their sound. The interviewer is a bit of a fanboy, but I can’t help but to be impressed with the amount of analog ‘toys’ in their studio. The analog instruments allow for errors, and those errors really help the artistic process break from the norm. Music is not like car-manufacturing.. There should be some human freedom within its creation to make unique pieces.

In comparison, a lot of Hip Hop (also a lot of modern music in general) just seems boring with recycled samples on computers. Don’t get me wrong. Timbaland lays some ill drums, and Kanye’s got some fresh ideas but you wonder, if these producers and the other not-so-talented producers had analog instruments to make their music, would it sound as good? OR could they make something more creatively ground-breaking? …Or does that even matter? Is it all about making a hit?

Lets do a little history lesson. The birth of Hip Hop: In the 80s, the MPC made it real easy to strip samples and lay them on a 2 or 4 bar sequence, then loop it. I mean, wasn’t Hip Hop founded on taking the disco breaks and looping the hell out of it? Isn’t the music supposed to be repetitive, and arguably, ‘not creative’?

Here’s a couple of Hip Hop production videos I was feeling:

Just Blaze (notice he uses pre-recorded drum loops)

Heatmakerz (the dude brags about finishing the track in 15 mins)

See, here’s where I run into a wall in this discussion. Though the beat creation process isn’t that complicated, impressive, or ‘artistic’, I can’t hate on the beats because they’re pretty hot. Then who cares if the producers aren’t using analog instruments or being expressive? Who cares that they are heavily relying on machines that spit out the exact same sounds over and over again? Is more human necessarily better?

At the end of the day I think its just that producers have become lazy. I mean, if the Heatmakerz makes beats in 15 mins and make X amount of dollars, why work more for the same amount? That makes no economic sense. Music is now truly a business and less of an art. Unfortunately, in turn we hear more quantity of lower quality music.

Look at the old school legends like Pete Rock who grew up at a time that Hip Hop wasn’t a business. You’ll notice he uses the MPC in a very different way from the other two videos. He breaks up the samples over 16 pads and brings the ‘analog’ effect to how he lays them down, introducing the element of possible human error.

Pete Rock working the MPC

Then there’s also generally talented people like Pharrell who obviously has knowledge of classical music, and creates in this video, arranging the melody, beat, and chorus. But then ask yourself… How did you like his album In My Mind? Yea.. It was horrid.

Pharrell on the keyboard.

One way or the other music is changing and with it becoming as easy as a 15 minute fiddle on some machine to make beats, there’s going to be an obvious oversaturation of lazy music. Thats what’s been happening recently and its a mad dash to put out a finished product that gets received well in the singles market. Many of these producers rely heavily on computer programs, etc., but then again, complicated processes don’t necessarily make hits.

But Soulwax is a perfect counter-example who purposely take the harder route for what they feel is ‘their’ sound. Not only do they open people’s eyes to the fact that even in a digital age, music can be created with human sensibility, but they’re proud of their craft. And more artists like these in the industry can only improve the quality of music.

Thats enough perspective for one day… Peeaaaceee,

Yose

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