What it Takes to Make Real Hip Hop Beats

[Rodney Eddy]

If you want to make beats that people remember, you're going to have
to up your game a little bit. Everyone and their little brother's
little brother wants to make beats these days. It's the cool thing to
do - but for some reason these same people don't want to take piano
lessons.
If you walked in to a recording studio you would most likely find some
keyboards and synthesizers. Unless we're talking about The Roots here,
almost everything used to make hip hop is digital. The drum machines
will be inside the synthesizer. The violin and organ sounds will be
inside that synthesizer too. What won't be inside that synthesizer is
piano lessons.
You can have a lot of fun messing around on those fancy, expensive
studio keyboards. But unless you understand how to put songs together,
sequence the parts of your tracks, and how to even play a chord you're
always going to run in to the same brick wall that limits your
creativity.
I know you want to be the next Pharrell, and that's cool. But he
studied music and learned how to play different instruments and write
songs to get where he is today. All of popular music has built upon
itself which is why hip hop began sampling old jazz and soul records
in the first place. Go back and listen to the old school. Listen to
the dudes who probably started playing in church because their whole
family played in church. Those same people grew up to write and
recorded amazing soul and funk music. That's how you will become the
next great producer. Start from the start and learn your way from the
ground up.
Dust off your parents' (and even your grandparents') old records and
listen to - better yet STUDY - some James Brown, Little Richard, Al
Green, Sly Stone, Blue Note and Verve Jazz records, Herbie Hancock,
and a million others that have experience and skill to pass on to you.
If you want to grow in to a real hip hop producer you have to stop
limiting yourself to just hip hop and listen to where it came from so
you can see where it's going.



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