Hip-Hop Battle #19 voting and feedback

Pfff, awesome tracks as always, need to give this some proper listens before I can vote

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My votes are:

  1. Number 03. Clean mix, love the piano loop and the intro
  2. Number 15. Really rock!
  3. Number 10. Dark! The distorted guitar all along the track is great. And the vocals!

Anyway, as usual is difficult to choose since all tracks have something special.
For me is always a great source for learning!

bye

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Sorry, not much time, so I’ll try to elaborate later:

  1. 8
  2. 13
  3. 11

HM: 18, 3, 6, 16

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1st: 16
Top flight, makes me wanna move. Love the layered drums, the psych guitar section, the spooky string and organ, the structure generally. Nice work. (Also glad you found the Younger beat useful)
2nd: 08
What a groove! Great use of space, the dampened ride is just right, and plenty of psychedelic guitar licks. Maybe the best balance of rock and hiphop in the bunch
3rd: 03
God I love the whole rhythm section here. Smooth smooth bass, kick that hits just right, the bicycle spin. I’m impressed with how many melodic samples were stuffed in without feeling overcrowded or disjointed.
HM: 06, 07, 11, 12

Full Notes for All Beats

01 – Drum break is strong, rock intensity with hiphop sway. Echoed guitar hit lands nicely. For my taste, this is a little too spare – I kept waiting for a hard breakthrough moment that never came
02 – Lovely laid-back groove, from the breezy bass to the off-grid Rhodes (And I’m glad someone found the Younger beat useful!). Guitar is processed nicely, but its melody wanders in a way that hooks me less than the Rhodes.
03 – God I love the whole rhythm section here. Smooth smooth bass, kick that hits just right, the bicycle spin. I’m impressed with how many melodic samples were stuffed in without feeling overcrowded or disjointed.
04 – There’s a swagger to this bassline, and the bubblegum pop of the snare is really fun. My biggest problems with it are the mix (the Ugurdemir guitar solo is especially distracting, and the guitar and bass in the chorus sound muddy together) and that rock kinda crowds out hiphop in the second half.
05 – That high bassline (NIB?) is a star, and I love the way it and the drum kit dance around each other thr whole beat. Other sounds in the beat are nice and clean, but don’t feels as integrated with the rhythm section or each other
06 – Goofy fun! I love Rhodes line, the layered pop, the bassline trying to break through the static, hell, even the static from super SRRing that descending howl. The one thing I’m not getting much of is a rock flavor.
07 – An immediate vibe, like sitting in the coolest speakeasy. Drums are silk, and the combo of Floyd guitar, Ugurdemir guitar, and horn hit hypnotic without getting repetitive. Again, my only problem is not enough rock for my taste.
08 – What a groove! Great use of space, the dampened ride is just right, and plenty of psychedelic guitar licks. Maybe the best balance of rock and hiphop in the bunch
09 – That first 40 seconds is such a cool group of loops and layers. I really the the way the vibes play off the horn hit, the rhythmic displacement when the bass starts to enter, and the drum line generally. Later loops are a little repetitive for my taste (though I do really like whole-tone thing starting at 0:42), and the kick is a touch loud to me
10 – Total Kaiju beat with its heavy, stalking bass, driving kick, and intermittent screams. Nice work on that. It’s a little quiet overall for my taste, especially for a rock theme, and I wish the second half would’ve upped the intensity even more.
11 – I’ve gone back a couple times to try to highlight only a couple things I like about this beat, but there are too many. A foundational sway sits under the kind of obsessive editing you’d expect from FlyLo or 90s Warp. I’m gonna ding it a little for not feeling like a hiphop rock beat, but this is gonna go in my regular rotation
12 – SIlly and bold. Love the feel of that late late open hat. Doesn’t overstay its welcome, but I wanna hear what a 2 minute elaboration on this sounds like
13 – I really like nocturnal bass and keys loop, plus the two guitar solos. I wish there was a more of a B section hook to give this beat even more contrast
14 – Love the way you used rock rhythms without losing hiphop feel. The stutter guitar, smooth bass, and pad work really nicely together to fill out that space. Again, I wish there was more of a B section for contrast
15 – A real head-nodder. Great mix, fuzz bass, and a KISS beat that just works.
16 – Top flight, makes me wanna move. Love the layered drums, the psych guitar section, the spooky string and organ, the structure generally. Nice work. (Also glad you found the Younger beat useful)
17 – Slow burn beat. Love the panning, chippy kick, and acid-y bass. And what a payoff when the snare finally busts in! Wish there was a bit more rock in this one (though I would hear the argument that this is Madchester)
18 – I really like the hat pattern and the processing on the B section instrument. Ironically, I wish the ideas here were expanded upon more.
19 – Lots of great sounds in this one (smooth bass, echoed crunch guitars, that essential rimshot). Hook/melody-wise, it wanders a bit too much for my taste.
20 – Incredible drum part. Love the driving groove and the switchups and fills! I wish there was more contrast or interplay between the drums and the rest of the layers.
21 – I love the snare and the contrast between that squeaky melody and the hypnotic bass+pad. Without another section or layer (maybe an acapella was intended before rule clarification?), this is 1-1.5 minutes too long for me.

Nice work, everyone!

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I’m stunned at this eloquent and thoughtful post @sleepside. It’s like you and I had almost identical thoughts on this whole tape and I no longer need to type up my notes, though I probably will anyway. Just wanted to say thank you for this. So cool.

Edit: weird that my top three are all different ATM… One more rinse of the whole tape is in order, then voting.

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I lied. This is gonna take two more rinses.

me too. good thing with the file download, I can tag them now

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My god. I don’t think I’m gonna type all this up. Will pictures work?

Handwritten notes




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The important stuff:

#1 - 17
#2 - 18
#3 - 10

HM - damn near everyone
Bangers - damn near everyone
Just wow to the whole tape
Can’t wait for the next one.

Big ass shout outs to Cool Doug Love even though he slacking on his dm. This battle was crazy fun bro! Thank you so much for hosting and coming up with the potion.

Also, extra special props to @BLKrbbt AKA Doc McCoy coming through with tha certified ju-ju with tha SC. :purple_heart:

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On Russell Simmons

I totally missed the Russell Simmons accusations. For anyone else looking, that documentary is called On the Record and came out on HBO Max in 2020.

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Not sure what you guys were referring to, but if you’re talking about the Russell Simmons sample I uploaded, that’s from an ancient youtube clip from whayback! He’s not the greatest person, but I thought he was honest in what he said in that short clip. I wish I could find that mini series because it had a section with Chuck D saying that his “test” for early day Public Enemy beats was to let his girlfriend listen to the song, and if she didn’t approve/like it, it was a winner. :tongue:

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Yeah. I don’t wanna re-litigate the “art from the artist” debate, but for a little battle where the accused artist in question isn’t seeing a dime, I’m fine

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Your right. I pulled my post to stay on topic.

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I tried to submit something but I didn’t found enough time to make something decent…i have some musical projects in progress that take me a lot of time and I have to prioritize if I want to finish something in the end :expressionless:

Anyway, as always I listened to your productions, that’s solid :fire: :fire: :fire:
Props guys!

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#1 track 8, it rocked and it knocked. Very good song structure with the guitar solo exactly where one would be.

#2 track 13, because Jimi… great job with chopping that.

#3 track 10, love the sludgey darkness of this track, can hear MF Doom rapping on it, maybe you should do that!

great job as always y’all :metal::metal::metal:

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-=[1]=- 11 - Feels like going on a voyage. Just a big hats off to whomever pieced this jam together because it feels like everything was made for this beat to exist.

.:[2]:. 10 - That intro is :candy: and could be a beautiful beat on it’s own. It’s worthy of trying to seduce a chick with that intro (and I promise I’m not biased on this one for the sample usage). The following beat feels HEAVY and agree with the others who are comparing it to MF Doom/ the Godzilla sample because it reminded me of Simon Says!

[3] 20 - Just a cool ace vibe all around. Nice and smooth :sunglasses:

Tracks that battled hard in my head: 01 (reminded me of the Illmatic intro), 03 (nice clean construct and lots of emotion on this one), 06 (amazing transitions within the whole beat build and this was difficult not to choose), 08 (hard head bobber), 12 (thanks to whoever made this because it’s really fun), 13 (nice gritty tone), 16 (love that main sample in there), 17 (starts slapping hard towards the end, nice snare).

It feels like a lot of your tracks are tied for first place. So many great examples to choose from, and it’s really hard to pick just 3 because it feels like we’re at a buffet :older_man: Thanks for the fresh jams (and samples) @everyone the beats are refreshing to relisten to yet again this evening! On my 10th listen of each already by now :beers:

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Just a quick vote here but longer write up to follow:

1: Beat 4. Driving guitar and tambourine keep things moving and grooving.

2: Beat 8.

3: Beat 20.

Great job all. As usual, a completely difficult choice with too many bangers to choose from.

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  • 18: awesome; like non-electro electro
  • 21:
  • 14: these 2 were minimal yet interesting, a little odd; Lego Feet vibes
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Running short on time tonight (something to do with the countries of Scotland and Spain) but I’ve got a good few listens under the belt and been really impressed with the quality through-out. I’ll come back in a day or two when I’ve time to go into a bit more detail. But for now, here are my votes:

1 - Beat 8
2 - Beat 3
3 - Beat 6

Honourable mentions - Beat 5, Beat 11 and Beat 17

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I go with

  1. 16
  2. 13
  3. 3

HM: 4, 5, 11, 19, 20

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