too much like someone else’s style. (Negus I 1998)
And such listening is not limited to hip-hop:
Joe: Do you listen to other producers to break down their method?
Domino: I listen to all music like that. Today I was listening to the Beatles. I was just peepin’ how they have things panned [where sounds are placed in the stereo field]. And the ways that they totally change the song, within the song. And how they have a certain type of effect behind the MCs’ vocals, or behind the guitar, or whatever.
Whenever I listen to music, I’m not the type of person who really has it as background music…. I gotta turn it on, and listen to it, and really listen…. That’s just how I am. (Domino 1998)
Domino’s telling slip—referring to the Beatles’ singers as “MCs”—suggests that he is actually listening to the Beatles as hip-hop music. While he may appreciate many diverse aspects of the Beatles’ music, the elements he cites (how instruments are set off from each other spatially, the structure of the song, the use of various effects) are all specifically applicable to hip-hop production. The producers’ aesthetic is such that innovations from other musical forms can be brought in to their own practice.
An important adjunct to the listening process is discussion of hip-hop music with other producers. It is not surprising that this often takes the form of ridiculing absent third parties. As I will discuss in chapter 6, ridicule plays an important role in maintaining the continuity of the hip-hop aesthetic; however, it is also an important pedagogical tool. Hearing another producer berated for something can lead a young producer away from it, before it even becomes an issue in his own music:
King Otto: I really don’t talk with that many producers about making beats, per se. We just talk about other people’s beats…. like make fun of someone else’s beat….
Joe: What types of things would you make fun of somebody for doing?
King Otto: There’s occasions where maybe somebody sounds like somebody else, ’cause everyone has their own distinct style, but sometimes you’ll cross the line and make a [DJ] Premier beat. I know I’ve done it. Or maybe a Pete Rock beat. ’Cause their sound is so distinct. If you get too close to it you can tell. (King Otto 1998)
This process has a secondary function in that by mutually criticizing other hip-hop artists, producers are implicitly complimenting each other on their knowledge and taste:
I think an interesting dynamic to that, too, is that that type of exchange is something that only happens with people that have relationships with each other where they know that [they both have] a degree of knowledge within music, where that’s even the point for bringing the conversation up. It’s like, “I know how you know mu sic,” so it’s like, “What’s up with this?”
But it’s not just something that you casually do, just every day. You don’t sit around and critique, or whatever. But, definitely. That’s almost like out of acknowledgement, you know what I’m saying? You respect the other person’s opinion, so you wanna see where they’re at, with the other music. That’s definitely true. MCs do it with MCs. MCs do it to producers. That’s the element within the culture where it’s like, “Is it fresh, or isn’t it?” (Wordsayer 1998)
The producers’ educational process is not only practical and historical; it is also deeply ideological. Specifically, it promotes the mythological deejay as the cornerstone of the musical form and, by extension, the community itself: “When you learn as a deejay, you learn what the break is about. That’s really like what sampling is about. It’s about the break. And it’s not really about playing music. It’s more of doing what a deejay does” (DJ Kool Akiem 1999).
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