BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS / “My Philosophy”

MP3 05 My Philosophy (KRS).mp3 (5.16 MB)

A couple weeks ago, I said hip-hop was all about beats and rhymes. Kalamu responded, in part, that the type of hip-hop I was talking about—the kind that’s all about hard beats and hard rhymes—died out back in the late Eighties. He thought I was talking about cats like L.L. Cool J and Run-D.M.C. In a way I was, but then again, I wasn’t. He also said my comments were more about my personal beliefs about what hip-hop ‘should’ be, rather than a definition of what hip-hop actually is. The fact is, I wasn’t talking about my personal beliefs at all. The comments I made about the emphasis of lyrics and beats over everything else are the same ones that you’ll find in just about any serious article or book about hip-hop. It is the accepted definition of the essence of this genre of music.

The truth is, all good hip-hop is about the beats and the rhymes first. Not just the kind of hip-hop I like, but all of it. That’s what makes hip-hop hip-hop. In the same way that you might say jazz is all about swing and improvisation, hip-hop is all about beats and rhymes. That doesn’t mean jazz isn’t also about composition, harmonic development and the group dynamic. And that doesn’t mean hip-hop isn’t also about storytelling, social commentary or cutting it up on the ones and twos.

By making the comment I did, I wasn’t fetishizing a particular era of hip-hop. I was simply pointing out the essential difference between the genre of music we call hip-hop and every other genre of music. Similarly, I remember reading this book about jazz where the author attempting to define what jazz is. He eventually said that he couldn’t actually define jazz, but he did know this: not all jazz swings and not all jazz is improvised, but if it doesn’t swing and there’s no improvisation, then it isn’t jazz. That same phrasing is applicable to hip-hop. Not all hip-hop has hard beats and not all hip-hop has vocals at all, let alone hard, rhythmic vocals. But, if it doesn’t have a beat that knocks and the MC isn’t rhyming to the beat, then I’m sorry, you can keep on calling it whatever you want, but it just isn’t hip-hop.

* * *


In this post, I’m going to take you on a little tour. But keep in mind, it’s just an overview. If I could take you back with me to New Orleans for a couple of days, I could show you some of the highlights of the city, and I could show you some of the hip places that the tourists don’t go. You’d leave with a much better understanding of New Orleans than before you came, but you still wouldn’t know the city the way you would if you lived there for a year or two, let alone a lifetime. In the same way, we’re going to spend a couple of moments together touring a place we call ‘Great MCs of Hip-Hop.’ Throughout the tour, I’m going to point out examples of what I mean when I talk about ‘beats and rhymes.’ And I’ll try to give y’all an idea of what hip-hop fans are hearing when they listen to the music.


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Nas – “Get Down” from God’s Son (Columbia/Sony, 2002)

I’ve been listening to Nas rap for almost fifteen years now, and to this day, when he’s flowing at his best, I think the same thing – pure liquid. I won’t say Nas is the best M.C. of all-time, but I do think he has the best flow of anyone who ever touched a mic. He’s so clean, so precise, so smooth. Even his mistakes are elegant. Some MCs have particular rhyme patterns that they use repeatedly. Nas, on the other hand, tends to almost constantly shift patterns as he works his way through his verses. Like Rakim, Nas also occasionally raps straight through his end rhymes while simultaneously over-emphasizing his internal rhymes. At the end of a rhyming line, when you naturally expect a pause, Nas keeps going. And when Nas uses an internal rhyme, you just as naturally expect him to just flow on, but it’s then that he pauses. All of this throws off your ability to predict where his rhyme pattern is going. You’re forced to just lay back and follow his flow where it leads you.

Pay particular attention to the way this track begins. Even before Nas starts rapping, you can hear him setting up the vocal rhythm he’s about to drop. Those three ‘uh’s come just behind the ‘one’ beat (they’re spaced four counts apart, right at the beginning), creating a simple syncopation. And when Nas does come in rapping, after one bar of letting the beat play, he comes in at the exact same moment: just behind the one drop. It’s an interesting moment (although almost certainly unintentional) because it gives you an idea of what an MC is doing when he’s rapping. His syllables are like individual drum licks that he drops onto the primary beat, creating these complex patterns of rhythmic sound. Phrases are like drum patterns – memorize the words and you can even drum along to the words instead of humming. It’s not melody. It’s rhythm.

In any event, you don’t have to be a hip-hop fan to know this is a James Brown beat, something that you’ll hear over and over in classic hip-hop. In fact, Nas goes out of his way to make sure you know, going so far as to name the song after one of James’ most recognizable catch phrases. The thing is, this was 2002, not 1987. By the early Nineties, sampling J.B. had already become outdated. By ’02 though, it’d become sufficiently outdated that Nas bringing back those old beats was an intentional statement that he was going back to a classic style. You might even call this a ‘throwback’ beat. The acoustic guitar loop keeps the groove mellow, but the throbbing bass and hard snare is where the heart of the record is. If you listen closely, you’ll hear that Nas is always conscious of where that snare drops. If he has a word he really wants the listener to catch, he plays it off of the dominant rhythmic element of the track, that being the snare.


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GZA/Genius feat. Killah Priest – “Beneath The Surface” from Beneath The Surface (MCA, 1999)

The dominant element of this track is the strings. Every four counts, the strings are looped; every couple of bars, the string loop is extended to a crescendo. Given the dominance of the strings, you’d think “Beneath The Surface” might be an exception to the ‘beats and rhymes’ style of hip-hop, but not so, because the other significant element of this beat is, of course, the drum track. Like almost all hip-hop tracks, the bass drum and snare drum are mixed loud and up front, giving you the head-nodding 4/4 effect for which rap music is known. And the rapper, whether you call him Genius or GZA (pronounced ‘jizz-uh’), is one of the most rhythmic MCs around.

GZA is a highly precise rapper, even moreso than Nas, although he doesn’t flow nearly as smoothly. Then again, GZA’s style doesn’t depend on a smooth flow, so the comparison isn’t necessarily a fair one. In fact, GZA consistently breaks up his own flow in order to draw attention to not only phrases or rhymes, but also to individual words. (“I swing [pause] on you fake [pause] radio personalities.”) I’m convinced that GZA is obsessed with the way words sound – the sound pattern of a particular word seems as important to him as what that word might actually mean. He’s also one of the few MCs to consistently use adverbs (“Swarming unpredictably,” “Increase the force significantly,” “practically marred,” etc.), which lends his verses a conversational, almost instructive feel.

There is an exception here, and it’s the use of metaphor instead of simile. At the beginning of his verse, GZA talks about “a man-made lake” covered by “a sheet of thin ice where unskilled skaters cut figures eights twice.” The sibilance is beautiful: even if you don’t know what ‘sibilance’ means, it’s fun to repeat something like “unskilled skaters cut,” because of the way GZA makes three syllables in a row start with the same ‘sk’ sound. But the metaphor is just as beautiful. GZA isn’t really talking about ice or skaters. The lake is hip-hop. The thin ice is the rhyme page. The skaters, unskilled as they are, are unworthy MCs. And the ‘figure eights twice’ represents 16 bars, the (somewhat) standard length of an MC’s verse.


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Rakim – “The 18th Letter (Always And Forever)” from The 18th Letter (MCA/Universal, 1997)

In terms of the structure of the beat, this track is a virtual twin of the GZA’s “Beneath The Surface.” Here again is the dominant string sample that lasts one brief four-count, only extending to eight counts every other bar. Here also is the throbbing 4/4 drum beat with the snares rolled off to deemphasize the individual drum licks and instead give the listener an overall soothing feeling. Again, though this record depends on a melodic sample for its overall effect, there is no attempt to build on the melody – there is nothing to ‘sing along’ to. Instead, the melodic sound is a signifier of smoothness, mellowness and sophistication.

The use of the very recognizably (perhaps even stereotypically) melodic sample serves to establish a certain mood. That mood is one of calm, disciplined reflection, something that Rakim is a master at conveying. This record was the title track of Rakim’s first comeback album, his first album without his long-time partner Eric B. I remember the album being generally considered a bit of a let-down, but I disagreed. I was fascinated by every word. Echoing the sibilant style used by GZA, Rakim talked about how he was trained to MC, while lesser rappers “strained to sling slang.”

Rakim was always a master of imagery and here he continues that legacy, talking about how he “split seas for Moses” and “made waves for Noah.” Then he takes it from the Biblical realm to the outerstellar, claiming that “some of [his] rhyme patterns still surround Saturn.” And when Rakim boasts, “I roam through battlezones with chrome for chaperone,” he could be talking about ghetto streets and pistols or, just as easily, rhyme ciphers and microphones. It’s this sort of verbal facility and memorable imagery that pushed Rakim to the top of the list of all-time greats. And, of course, you can’t forget that powerful flow. Rakim’s flow combines the smoothness of Nas, the vocal command of GZA and the relentlessness of Melle Mel. He’s an MC without a weakness, and with apologies to L.L. Cool J, the true G.O.A.T., Greatest Of All Time.


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Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five feat. Melle Mel – “Pump Me Up” from More Of The Best (Rhino, 1996) (Originally released in 1985 as a 12" single on the Sugarhill label.)

Even though this is just a quick overview, nothing definitive, I wouldn’t have felt right without including at least one representative of the true Old School. (And I say that because I’ve seen references to artists as recent as Wu-Tang Clan being called Old School. That’s just silly.) Melle Mel was there at the very beginning. Some even say that Mel was the first MC to rap to the beat, that is, the first to go from repeating random, non-rhythmic phrases to actually reciting extended vocals to the rhythm of the accompanying music. I don’t know if that’s true or isn’t and honestly, I don’t think it’s possible to know. Suffice it to say, Mel was at least one of the first. He’s also a monster of an MC, even by today’s standards.

This track dates back to 1985, but the quasi go-go beat could still work today. It’s hype, but smooth, with the predominant sound being the non-stop tom-toms. That sound is a good audible metaphor for Melle Mel’s style of MCing – he’s not as tricky or scientific as later rappers, it’s just that he never, ever stops rapping. The biggest difference between Mel’s style and the more modern styles of MCs like Rakim, GZA or Nas is in the smoothness of the delivery and style of rhyming. Mel’s lyrics aren’t as technically complex as his successors and, partially for that reason, his words are much easier to understand. Mel comes from an era when almost all lyrics were recited live, not in the studio. The crowd could be distracted, high, dancing or oblivious. It was the MC’s job to not only attract the audience’s attention, but also to hold it. A lot of Mel’s skills – things like his authoritative voice, excellent breath control, percussive delivery and clear diction – are rendered less important once in the studio as opposed to live at a club or in a park.

Melle Mel’s most significant strengths though were his relentless flow and his story rhymes (a development in MCing that he is said to have invented himself), and even on wax, both survive intact. Listening to Mel spit his park-hardened battle rhymes, you feel sorry for any MC that might fool himself into thinking he could step to Mel. The ‘biting shark’ routine is a good example. Melle Mel talks about a shark named Jaws who “was biting my rhymes like y’all bite yours.” With each stolen rhyme, it seems, the shark grew bigger and bigger. But as the rhyme goes, Mel kept writing new raps until finally the shark ate so many of them, that the shark got sick, exploded, and was blown back to the sea, and, as Mel says, “The whole universe knew the king was me.”


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Boogie Down Productions – “My Philosophy” from By All Means Necessary (Jive, 1990)

In recent years, K.R.S. has done a lot to cause hip-hop fans to question not only his musical legacy but his sanity as well, but drop one of his classic records like “My Philosophy” and all debate has to cease. More than any other MC, K.R.S. is the rapper who took his work most seriously as an art-form. A self-educated man who spent part of his teenage years living on the streets, K.R.S. regards knowledge and learning as the supreme goals of an evolved individual. Of course, that philosophy of his is tempered by his quick temper and brutal about-faces, those the result of the education he received not in the libraries where he spent many of his days reading history and philosophy tomes, but on the streets, where he was simply trying to stay alive.

“My Philosophy,”
the lead single from BDP’s second album, is anchored by a long, bluesy sax line. But like the string samples we’ve previously discussed, the melodic sample is merely a foil, lending the buoyant, hyperactive beat a slightly smoother feel than it would otherwise have. The sample, like the Malcolm-inspired cover art, is also intended to impart a vibe of seriousness or intelligence. In 1988, jazz samples in hip-hop were unusual, therefore, the sound of a jazzy saxophone would communicate something other than, “Hey, check out this cool sample.” In this case, it probably means, “I’m about to drop some high-level thinking on you.”

In terms of his style, K.R.S. is probably the most percussive MC since Melle Mel. He raps in hard bursts of rhythm, creating rhyme patterns out of whole chunks of words. He’s less concerned with the way individual words or syllables sound (like the GZA) or with how seamless or smooth his flow is (like Nas or Rakim) and more concerned with the power of his delivery and the sound of whole phrases. K.R.S. is also a brilliant wordsmith. By defining and redefining his own words, he constantly gives the listener knew ways to think about words and concepts. On the subject of the then-burgeoning pro-Black movement in hip-hop: “I’m not white or red or black, I’m brown.” On rappers selling out: “The way some act in rap is kind of wack and it lacks creativity and intelligence / But they don’t care, ‘cause their company’s selling it.” On health: “[I’m a] vegetarian / No goat or ham or chicken or hamburger / ‘Cause to me, that’s suicide – self-murder.” For me, “My Philosophy” was aptly named, because listening to K.R.S. rap was like listening to a philosopher philosophize. Of course suicide is ‘self-murder,’ but had I ever thought about it in quite that way? Probably not.

* * *

For the uninitiated, I hope this brief overview of classic hip-hop tracks, styles and MCs helps to illustrate how and why hip-hop is rhythm-focused music. For the rest of us, it’ll be nothing more than a nice trip down memory lane. These tracks span nearly twenty years and at least three distinct eras. The elemental nature of beats and rhymes in hip-hop has nothing to do with a particular style, era or preference. It’s simply the essence of the manner in which the music is created and enjoyed.

A couple of notes though. If you’re into hip-hop, you’ll notice that all of these MCs are from New York, the birthplace of the music. I’ll be back next week with a batch of very different hip-hop tracks, these from places South and West of NYC. Again, I’ll be pointing out the emphasis on beats and rhymes and attempting to show how and why that emphasis is central to the music. However, I’ll also point out how MCs from other areas of the country tend to create hip-hop that is less ‘pure’ in style. (Although I see that as neither a plus nor a minus – just a difference.) A second thing that you may have noticed is that all of these tracks—to one extent or another—include elements of smoothness or melodicism. I did that intentionally in order to show some of the ways that hip-hop uses melody as a spice, signifier or additive, but almost never as a central theme.

—Mtume ya Salaam

 

          I heard that           

I took notes. Maybe I’ll get a “C” on the exam, that is, as long as they got some old skool questions. Rakim is, of course, the pinnacle of lyrical wordsmithing. I remember when Nas first hit the scene, I thought his debut album was the bomb; really like his narrative drive—how Nas could tell a story in rhyme but I have not been so impressed by his subsequent material. In accessing the body of Nas' work I hear a rapper focusing on material way below his abilities, not to mention his potential. GZA flies below my radar, even after checking this track, I'm not compelled to want to hear more. KRS is both a philosopher and a fool, sometimes both at once but still there's no doubt he was the most serious rapper ever—remember his lecture tour? And, of course, "Mr. Don't Push Me" Melle Mel was the first rapper I consciously listened to, moreover, I'm convinced that Melle Mel is the stylistic model for megaphone thorat himself, Chuck D. Mtume, you've dropped a brief but brilliant overview.


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Now check “Homesick” (from Holy Terror) by the Last Poets (this particular version of the Poets is Umar and Abiodun). "Homesick" features Umar and guest artist Melle Mel. This is the track I use to help my peers hear the difference between what is popularly called spoken word and rap.

Umar is up first and then Melle Mel follows and they alternate verses. No sooner Mel starts you can tell he’s doing something completely different from Umar.

Looking forward to next week. Hopefully, I can graduate. Anyway, I’m listening, taking notes and learning a whole lot.

—Kalamu ya Salaam
  

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 12:04 am and is filed under Classic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


2 Responses to “BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS / “My Philosophy””

hamadi Says:
August 12th, 2007 at 12:04 pm

I was happy Gza was included, and especially that song. His entire second lp, Beneath the Surface, was not a record that moved me.

I’m posting about that line you cite, which I had overlooked, like most of the verses on that record which had no appealing music. When Gza notes unskilled ice skaters are doing figure 8s on thin ice,twice, he means that they have carved too deep in the surface, implying they will drown in the “manmade” lake of another cold industry(more than another way of sugnfying a 16 bar verse). The joy of being able to visualize rappers thrashing in icy water until they die (wearing ice skates no less) is one of the dopest things a rapper, or poet can do: say just enough to create an idea in the audiences’ mind. Gza didn’t have to say “mc’s lungs fill with chlorine slushee, hands reaching up to god slowly descend to a cold hell” – I thought of that.

Nas always had those kindc of mc powers. ‘The World is Yours’ was the first song I heard by him and is still my favorite.
his couplets ‘sample’ snatches of memory. he oscillates between describing what’s right before his eyes, what that reminds him of from his past, declarations artfully filtered through metaphor. The result, thanks in part to pete rock’s pian, drums, horn, is a moody piece that is both hopeful and desperate.” Maybe this song contains the same dynamics people find vital in good 2pac. Well-worded writing that seems emotionally honest by men who are neither good or bad. “check the chipped-tooth smile/plus I profile wild”

black art in full effect


Tuta Says:
August 15th, 2007 at 10:39 am

I’m sitting here at work bopping to “My Philosophy”, and it is amazing to think that this song is *TWENTY YEARS OLD*, but it really hasn’t aged. Pretty much everything KRS-1 said is relevant today, and to me the beat also can easily hold it’s own against current beats. This is definitely one of the best rap songs ever.


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