Hip Hop Beat Battle #44 Speak Ya Clout

The Lounge Mission Briefs
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Welcome to battle #44, I’m sure most of you all are familiar with the DITC crew (Digging In The Crates) and the affiliated Gangstarr collective of producers and MC’s… MC’s like.

Fat Joe
Big L
O.C
Showbiz
Diamond D
Lord Finesse.

Now while this mission is centred on D.I.T.C Premo produced a lot of D.I.T.C tracks and is considered an honoury member, also Guru helped get Lord Finesse his first record deal which kick started the whole D.I.T.C and both collectives recorded at D&D studios.

Speaking of Premo and onto business…

A track i always loved is Speak Ya Clout produced by Premier
If you don’t know it give it a listen and if you do know it give it another listen.

As you can hear it’s three different beats with three different MC’s in one track and we’re going to be doing something similar.

Me and @Doug have decided that your mission is to make three different beats and include a verse from any of the mc’s named above on the sections, I’ll include Guru as an honorary MC.
we dont expect anyone to use vocals on all three beat sections (but great if you do) but your first beat must include vocals.

                RULES

Beat based on the speak your clout track, produce in whatever style you choose but the format of the track is the important thing.

Three distinctly different beats.

At least the first beat must have an acappella verse, if you choose to put vocals over two or all three beats, each one must use a different MC.

Track must be same length as speak your clout 3:36 (it can be less but that’s the maximum)

Sample any songs used by DITC crew members/producers

Vocals from DITC crew and/or Guru only.

Scratches are encouraged and permitted and you can take those from any source (doesn’t have to be a DITC track) you can scratch from vinyl or any other method to get that sound, but you don’t have to use scratching if you don’t want to

No one hit drums from sample packs, drums must come from breaks used by DITC or Premo (nothing to stop you chopping them into onehits)

No other outside samples or instruments.

Bass must also come from D.I.T.C samples, However you want, straight loop, filtered out… feel free to sample a bass note or any other instrument for that matter from the sample choices and play it melodically.

Another reminder of the MC’s you can use.

Fat Joe
Big L
O.C
Showbiz
Diamond D
Lord Finesse.
Guru

And in the spirit of the last battle here’s a link to legendary DITC producer Buckwilds whosampled page, this is plenty… but you can use anything sampled by any other DITC artist/producer including tracks produced by Premo for them.

https://www.whosampled.com/Buckwild/samples/

Send your beat to me by Friday April the 10th and please include your forum name in the title of your beat.

Hope that’s all ok and I hope I haven’t missed anything, please ask if you have any questions.

15 Likes
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@malus_mons,
@schoolbabyboy,
@Klaus_Wuhan,
@proskynesis
@Lailai
@looms
@rockpapergoat
@electricthing
@KingDuppy

3

@Leonsarmiento
@jiffybox
@Kuro
@blaize
@emadb
@Unifono
@drrumble
@Maisin
@surfacescan
@LyingDalai

4

@NVVI
@Doug
@SierraOskar
@FNKSTRNG
@PineappleDave
@shigginpit
@philroyjenkins
@DimensionsTomorrow
@looms

5

@sezare56
@aarb420
@PeteSasqwax
@1-2
@Ooly
@Jedilicious
@polarfox
@waftlord
@Sleepyhead
@sleepside

1 Like
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@PineappleDave
@electricthing
@monquixote
@flipinfantile
@DK_Domino
@Anatta_Embe

Please @ anyone I’ve missed

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Cool battle mission! I’ll have a try at this one!

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Glad you like it and more than glad that you’re aboard :slightly_smiling_face:

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oh I like the artists in this one a lot!!!

but another x/y/z artist fan club battle, and I cant write my own melodies over the percussion!

good luck to all

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Nothing to stop you sampling a piano hit or string or anything else from a track and playing your own melodies with it if that’s what you want to do, as long as it’s from a track sampled by D.I.T.C that’s fine

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Cool battle, but I have to pass this one as I have an EP to finish + do some vox for another project.

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That’s a pity you cant take part, but if you change your mind there’s plenty of time

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I always try to approach the artist-themed battles as a challenge to make something that sounds like my own style within a very limited set of possibilities. In some cases I turned single cycles waveforms sampled from some random sample into synth chords and melodies.

I dont think @Yabba intents us to try and sound exactly like DITC or Premier right?

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That’s right, you can sound like yourself or whoever you want, the three beats with at least one vocal all made from the themed sample selection is the mission :slight_smile:

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Is there anything you want people to share on the thread to keep it bumping?

I’ve thought about this way too much:

“Boom Bap” is DJ Premier, DJ Premier is Boom Bap. It’s his production style and his alone.

Ok hot take done, but here’s my theory. What makes his style different is there’s so much space between everything. I know this is also a result of pure economics, if you chopped up a beat into just one shot hits and shortened the envelope, you didn’t have to get the sample cleared. But I’ve always wondered how much Guru and Jeru tha Damaga’s cadence had an effect on Premiers evolution into “boom bap”, they also put a lot of space between their words. They both spoke which such an authoritative confident tone, they knew they were saying some profound shit, they were speaking the truth. So they let you think about what was just said. Same with the music, there’s a ton of space for you, the listener, to exist in it.

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I’ve always wanted Buckwilds drums. Ive always thought he’s one of the most drum forward producers. If you had to describe what drums sound like when they “Knock” id just play a Buckwild track. Just found this quote, thought id share it with. y’all

How did you go about the process of making a beat?

I just went on the feel and once I had the drums, if I liked the way the drums played out, I could add whatever else I wanna. Whether that was a bass note, a sound, or play with the multi level, or whatever. But the first step was always drums because with the 1200 the drums were always so hard because of the 12 bit sampler. There were certain things I wish i could take with it and, you know, put that into todays samplers, because it’s missing. There were less options but it made you work. Now you can just grab a loop and fill in the blanks. Even with Fruity Loops, and I’m not against it but hey, put the loop in, and you just … click on a computer and fill in here, here, here, here, and add a high hat here, here, here and here, and then just press the space bar and it plays the music. It’s less hands on than with the 1200. It was such an amazing machine that (you) could do so much with. Like on the Sp1200, the decay; we used that to tighten up drums, it was more like a compression. Some of the features on there made it the ultimate drum tool. Hip-Hop was always a drum driven form of music. Whatever drums you would chop, coming outta the 1200 they would sound so raw. One of my favorite tracks was “Reminisce” by Pete Rock. Hearing the way those drums were chopped and the way they played it just sounds so crazy. The song mode, patterns, features, you know, it has to be the most incredible machine, or the foundation of Hip-Hop. You could talk about the 808s or the 909s, but you know, our team, we used the 1200 more as our foundation than anything else. There was so much that you could do that its not funny. Take the record, play it on 45 with the pitch all the way up, sample that and then pitch it way down, truncate what you don’t need and keep copying that over and chopping, to keep that gritty sound. With that it’s like, OK now I have a loop in here, and my drums. Now, I can add horns, a bass note, whatever you want. Your limitations make your brain think more.

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Yes thanks for reminding me, my bad.
Please post tracks if you wish or any comments you may have about the artists were celebrating this time round.

One of my favourite Buckwild produced tracks sampled from a version of The Look of Love

And a great Lord Finnesse remix

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I’m in!
Also… since scratching is encouraged this round, I need to fess up something.
Last couple of months i’ve been building a macOS instrument that lets you perform scratch gestures. Some of the scratching in my recent battle tracks (including Dark Protocol) was made with it. If anyone is curious to experiment with it for this challenge, feel free to DM me.

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i’m SUPER in. Buckwild, Lord Finesse and Showbiz are some of my personal heroes in hip-hop, i wanna do this battle justice.

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Never heard of Celph Titled. This has got to be one of the most underrated hip hop albums ever.

1 Like