Elektronauts Hip Hop Beat Battle #9: Motherland edition [Phase 1]

The Lounge Mission Briefs
#58

Hey guys - I’m beaming over here on the outskirts of Nairobi Kenya as I soak up all your posts - it’s as though a new dimension is being shaded in for our collective, from all the stories being shared. Thx. :pray:t3:

So for my story…

I grew up in Guelph Ontario, a working class and university town 1 hr outside of Toronto, Canada. Growing up in the 80s/90s in Guelph was all about music and purpose. It felt like our city was full of young people so we adopted a DIY and home rock culture to make life fun. We created everything ourselves: We were all in (multiple) bands and a scene was created. We were able to attract some legendary bands to come play in our small town. We had radio shows, zines, music festivals and eventually venues to support our scene.

Personally, I’ve always associated music with the opportunity to raise funds and awareness for good causes.

My own musical influences (and many of us in our scene) flowed seamlessly between genres usually based on the message and movement behind the music. In one DJ set in the early 90s (on campus radio and warehouse parties) I could go from Fugazi to Public Enemy to Linton Kwesi Johnson to Chumbawamba to Disposable Heroes of Hypocrisy to Cypress Hill. I discovered so much music and history of genres just by standing up for what I believed in and then following the thread. It was a transformative.

Junior Relaxer (1997) by Guelph band King Cobb Steelie, the album that my samples are taken from, represent this blend of funk, punk, dub and dance music. The hit song off this album, Rational, was a protest song over the state execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian pacifist and environmentalist in 1995. [Note: King Cobb Steelie’s previous album was produced by non other than Bill Laswell - a big deal for a small town rock group!]

Here is that song.

However, I’ve decided to give you guys some samples from another monster song which I feel have more potential to get creative with:


In order to get the most of the 20 seconds I kinda chopped up the most useable parts of the song into an edit. The full track is here if you want to get the vibe:

Below is a google street view of the city block in which like 75% of Guelphs gigs in the 1990s happened: Ed Video, Van Gogh’s Ear, Trasheteria and the Albion

11 Likes
#59

A gentle nudge to our comrades - get your local samples in! @Doug @Synu @drrumble @garfield @LyingDalai @Penz413 @emadb @Kpucski @xyzer @FNKSTRNG

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#60

@Yabba @rennweg @Maisin and @DimensionsTomorrow (you know You wanna!).

Get those samples in! Anything local will do!

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#61

:thup:
I already know which one I have to drop.
Just haven’t had the time yet!

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#62

@LyingDalai
I unfortunately haven’t thought about it earlier… Is there a way to download all the sample uploads? Since everybody used the forum’s upload function…

#63

i don’t think I’m going to be able to get in this one this time around… way too much work on my hands :(. I’m still looking forward to hearing the results! Hope to get in on the next one!

1 Like
#64

Open google drive somewhere and we can drop them here also or you are in for right-clicking all the samples and “Save Audio As” for each our samples.

#65

Forget what I said. Downloading works just fine. I only tried on my phone before, where it doesn’t seem to work.
Thanks @tinara

1 Like
#66

My entry is probably a bit boring.

A bit of background…
During the first wave of the pandemic in the uk people were urged to come out of their houses at 8pm and cheer and clap shake a tambourine or drum on their bins as a tribute for the national health staff so I recorded a little bit of that, I guess you can get some atmosphere and maybe some percussion from it.

Anyway, I grew up and lived here in Streatham.
And the audio was recorded not too far away at the location where I live now.

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8 Likes
#67

I grew up in a village (or little town - don’t know the correct englisch word for that size), about 7000 citizens, in lower bavaria, Germany. About 80km away from Munich.
It’s typical bavarian. Pretty much in the countryside. Pretty boring, one could say.
My friends and I were among the first teenagers in that area that discovered skateboarding, hip hop and alternative music there. Of course not the only ones, but skateboarding was not a typical thing to do in the 90s in lower bavaria.
The village had small advantages over its neighbour villages. A swimming pool, a train station that made trips to munich and other cities possible, before we had cars, and an old bunker, which was build as a emergency hospital in world war 2. This bunker only served as storage rooms for various associations and clubs, like carneval clubs and other nonsense. But one room after the other, was made available for local bands that formed. Me and 4 close skateboarding friends, were given a room as well when we formed our band.
These rehearsal rooms were like a blessing. You could go there any time of the day, like 5 0 clock in the morning, play as loud as you want, and we didn’t have to pay anything. No rent, no electricity bill, nothing.
A real music culture established in our area, mainly driven from bands from this bunker.
Our band was totally addicted to Radiohead at that time. It was the main role model for everything we did. We had like 8 years before we slowly drifted apart, but it was one of the most exciting times for me in my early 20s and the main origin of all my musical thinking, taste and abilities.

So, long story short, when thinking about sampling anything local, I have to provide something from this band.

Here is the sample:

And here the full song, from the first one of our 2 albums if anyone is interested. We were young and still learning, but I still like to listen to these recordings.
On the cover was the little sister of one of my bandmates.
The strings were arranged by our drummer, and played by pupils from a local high school, where we went to as well.

https://goo.gl/maps/qnzWQtUdFv8kerck8

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#68

Apologies but I won’t be able to participate this time because of my schedule. Looking forward to hearing everyone’s stuff!

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#69

I am late sorry, had only little time. Great project!!! Had a hard time to submit a clip, I hope I am playing by the rules, so here we go.

In the 80s, I lived in Hanau, close to Frankfurt/Main. We had a really small squad house there, where I hang out most of the times. Many bands played there, most famous was probably Soul Side.
I did some improvised experimental rock back then, our heroes were Velvet Underground, Can, Neu, Caspar Brötzman. We made/recorded good old tapes, but I don’t have them anymore, wish I could share this.

In the 90s I went to Frankfurt, discovered Techno, electronic music and the Club Omen. Sven Väth, who is from Frankfurt, changed my life there on many, many Fridays over a period of 5 years. The audio snippet I submit is from Sven Väths album Accident in Paradise, called l `esperanza from March 1993. Nowadays I find it very cheesy, but back then I discovered a new type of music and it was exciting and besides that I became a dancer, I always hated dancing. I also chose this, because it should probably be pretty useable, I hope.

Well, I made it I think…

8 Likes
#70

So I’m from a little city called Oxnard, California. We’re about an hour’s drive from LA. There are some folks from here that you guys probably know like Madlib, Oh No, and Anderson Paak. You might also know about Los Retros. He’s on Stones Throw and he’s from here too. This video is him and his brother playing at their house in La Colonia, which is pretty close to me. But then again, Oxnard is small and everything’s pretty close.

Here’s the full video:

I chose the first part of this because if I were going to flip a piano sample, I’d want the least drums possible. Here’s the clip.

11 Likes
#71

I was born and raised in Ogden, Utah the home of the Osmonds, I wanted to use a sample from them, but fam comes first, so I am going to post a snippet from my younger bros band. We shared a house in the mid 2000s, and this entire album was recorded during this time.

This was a great time from the past. Where I’m from, and who I ran with.

Edit: swapped MP3 for WAV @surfacescan @Unifono

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#72

Ok here is my sample. It’s a sample from one of my first bands recordings, the band was called Ketza Coalt, it was in 2008. It was a childhood friends band, we toured most of the little stages around Toulouse (south of France), and finaly decided to record something before the band split because of the diferent projects of every members.
It was a great experience, a big melting pot of hiphop, reggae, rock, funk and electronic music. We losed every music contests we tried because people told us that we haven’t find our style, but that was our style, and we were very proud of it !!

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#73

Can’t give @Unifono and @surfacescan enough credits for this idea. Not only are people contributing awesome samples, but we also get to learn more about the stories of the great people in this community :slight_smile:

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#74

where’s the pack?!?!?! :slight_smile:
200

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#75

lol.

@waftlord and crew - check the forum tomorrow. Me and @Unifono getting things sorted and plan to kick out phase 2 tomorrow.

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#76

OK, here is my sample!

It’s a little pattern from A4.

I started playing electronic music in 2014, with a few Volcas, then OP-1, and it’s really this instrument that lead me to creating tracks, until I dived into Elektron world.
I used to live in St Etienne (45.45137464021999, 4.383391342077834) at this time, and I barely see my friends from that era anymore, I miss them.
So yeah, this little line is also filled with the nostalgia I feel and the warm memories I keep from that time.

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#77

Hey fam! Phase two of this Motherland edition of this beat battle is live and posted HERE

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