Greatest Beats In Hip Hop

[Barbro Faries]

Flavor in Your Ear" changed everything bro. It changed it all. Big shout out to Easy Mo bee Yo. That record was unlike anything you had ever heard from the blaring siren to the horn to the way Mack approached it.

Mo Bee is another producer that he changed the game. East Mo Bee basically taught us that we can make music out of different sounds. We can take one sound and make a whole different pattern and just make a whole nother just a section of music out of one sound.

I just want to say how honored I am to have Shook One's Part two by Mob Deep produced by myself, voted number one, Hip-Hop beat of all time. I remember being in the projects in Queensbridge, me and Prodigy just being there trying to make something for the world to hear our voice. And here we are this many years later, being saluted and held as the number one beat and hip hop greatest of all time. But I just want to say thank you to all the Hip-Hop fans, rest in peaces to my brother Prodigy. He would be just excited. As excited as I am, and I just want to thank all y'all fans, man. Salute.

From its humble beginnings in the Bronx to its current global impact, hip-hop has continuously evolved, with beats serving as the lifeblood of the genre. The greatest hip-hop beats of all time have not only provided the perfect backdrop for unforgettable verses and hooks but have also shaped the sonic landscape and influenced countless artists and producers in the process.

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Beats, Rhymes and Life: The name of the famous A Tribe Called Quest album. The reason "beats" comes first? Production. It's arguably the most important element of hip-hop. It's the cornerstone of every song, the foundation lyrics are built upon. They dictate the time-signature, the tempo, the tone of the lyrics. They're at the beginning and the end of the creative process that goes into each of these songs.

One of the biggest challenges in writing a list of the best beats of all time? The genre's soundscape is so wide-ranging and incredibly diverse that it creates some difficult calculation issues to work through. For example: How do you rank the disco instrumentals of early hip-hop with the layered samples and filtered bass lines of golden-era New York rap? How do you rank Too $hort's trunk-rattling bass against Swizz Beatz's erratic Triton keyboard swipes? There are unlimited measuring sticks by which production can be compared. Consider the clattering, found-sound effects of DJ Premier's best mid-'90s beats, or the raw, drum machine-oriented backdrops of '80s rap, designed to shock the system. How do you weigh those against, say, a lush vintage loop from the Hitmen or a crossover pop smash from Timbaland?

It can be broken down even further: Is the bigger, more-popular song the better beat? Or is it the underground smash that influenced the mainstream? Is it the track that best epitomizes an era, or is it the one that pushed the edge? To qualify the best beats, do we look at production that stands out apart from the verses and the hook, or is it the beat that complements those components perfectly?

Those factors and more were considered by Complex over a drawn-out process involving constant debate, strategically deployed rhetoric, diplomacy, and fist-throwing that went all the way to the top. Ultimately, we drew up a perfect formula to determine an unassailable list of the best rap beats ever, full stop. When dealing with 30-plus years of music, a hundred slots fill quickly. As a result, a lot of classics were cut, and some of rap's best producers may not be fully represented. Them's the breaks.

Ultimately, though, every production on this list is irrefutably essential to the advancement of the genre we hold so dear. They've inspired, they've influenced, and they've been the impetus for a million neck-breaking nods.

The Bomb Squad had already proven that they could bring the noise with chaotic, multi-layered symphonies of sampled mayhem, but this this solemn tale of busting out of the bing showcased a more subtle approach. Based on a piano riff from Isaac Hayes' "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic," the tension of this beat builds-up from verse to verse, with the live phone-in from Flava Flav adding an authentic clandestine atmosphere to proceedings. Just Blaze would later flip the same loop for The Game in homage to the original, which is still one of the most effective displays of the power of Public Enemy to this day.

Common was never afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, and here we witness a man deep in the throes of a serious case of "Baduizm." Crisp drums add a hard edge to the almost syrupy loop, before your boy Bobby Caldwell seals the deal on the sampled hook. For the video, Lonnie was joined by Erykah to demonstrate the sensual seduction that is mangoes and lava lamps. That's what happens when you blend Common at his most emo with J Dilla at his smoothest.

The combination of the Slim Thug vocal loop, a "William Tell Overture" sample, and Paul Wall informing us that he's "got the Internet goin' nuts" made this Mike Jones' biggest hit and a breakout song for the then burgeoning Houston rap scene. The original version with Chamillionaire featured the same vocal loop, but it wasn't until Salih Williams remixed it with the ill Gioachino Rossini loop that it reached its full potential. It turns out the Swishahouse crew was somewhat partial to classical music, as "The Nutcracker, Act 2, No 1: Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" is used on "Got It Sewed Up" from the same album.

Most recently heard on Sean Price's "Figure Four," this unmistakable Lee Mason flute break first appeared on Pacewon's debut single in 1998 (which was also the same time it had been bootlegged on a Dusty Fingers LP and used by Madlib for a Lootpack song). Did Ski dig this gem up himself, or was he just the first to flip the bootleg? Regardless, it's a superb loop that does all the heavy lifting itself, sounding like James Bond, secret agent theme music. This former pal of Eminem impressed everyone on this and often forgotten follow-up, "Sunroof Top," before vanishing from all but the most dedicated New Jersey rap fan's radar.

DJ Premier's work with Guru had a slightly different sound than much of his outside production work, often having a simpler, less choppy structure to the compositions. This beat provides further evidence that few producers have the patience nor the ear of Premier, who discovered this snippet right in the middle of a song called "Horizon Drive" by jazz guitarist Vic Juris. Throw in some thumping drums and well-chosen scratch hooks and you've got another Gang Starr classic to add to their impressive resum.

"Come Clean" is the sound of raw rap. Armed with nothing more than loud drums and something that sounds like Chinese water torture, Jeru stepped to the plate to prove why he was the D. Original Dirty Rotten Scoundrel as he kicked his unique vocal science. Much like that other 1994 underground classic, O.C.'s "Time's Up," this track was also notable for featuring a scratch hook that makes no mention of the song title whatsoever.

A well-orchestrated replayed loop of "Rigor Mortis" by The Meters with a portion of "Boyz-N-The-Hood" from Eazy-E (a.k.a. Whodini's "I'm A Hoe") and a high-pitched synth provides Pimp C and Bun B a solid foundation to drop knowledge on all the car freaks. The remains the ideal soundtrack for all car-related exploits, from hitting switches, to a lazy summer drive.

This gritty Chicago joint creeps up with an air of menace worthy of Jeffrey Dahmer, as Twista fires off a barrage of verbal ammunition with his usual rapid-fire flow, weaving in and out of the bass-heavy beat. Yung Buk (not to be confused with Young Buck of G-Unit fame) contrasts Twista with his slowed-down, measured delivery to produce an air of murderous chemistry, which fits to the beat just as well.

Who would have thought that a humble indie rap record would be the subject of an entire electronic remix album two years later? This song that imprints itself into your subconsciousness the moment you first hear the haunting acoustic strums of the main loop, which originated from a Japanese live album recorded by American folk singer Odetta Holmes, who's regarded as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement" and was a major influence on Bob Dylan. Let's not forget the verses from Des, who unloads that East New York talk in a suitable "no shorts taken" technique. Recently, the instrumental found new life after it provided the backdrop to all of the freestyles at the 2011 BET Hip-Hop Awards cyphers, thanks in part to the urging of Eminem.

Despite being responsible for a mercifully short-lived trend of sampling showtunes, The 45 King's flip of this Annie cast recording provided Jigga with his first international hit. After seeing a commercial for a new Broadway run of the musical, Mark realized that the theme song would sound dope with some drums, and bagged the LP for 25 cents when he next spotted it during a digging mission at the Salvation Army. Originally intended for his own album, Kid Capri began playing a test-pressing of the beat while on tour with Jay-Z, who promptly contacted Mark James and purchased the track. Hard drums and an infuriatingly catchy sample gave S.C. the platform he needed to unleash the next stage of his plan for world domination.

In much the same way that Greg Nice used Tracey Chapman's "Fast Car" the following year, Brand Nubian took the unusual step of sampling the guitar and vocals from "What I Am" by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians (an "alternative rock jam band") for their cautionary tale of fast living. Offset by Funkadelic drums and some Kool and The Gang horns, Grand Puba and company carried on the eccentric Zulu Nation break tradition perfectly.

Marley Marl protege K-Def graduated from the House of Hits when he laced Lords of the Underground with a string of popular singles. Blending sweet horns from Jack Bruce and John Coltrane with a 1963 chant from Alvin Cash & the Crawlers, K produced a bouncy head-cracker of a rhythm for this New Jersey trio. When he used another Jack Bruce horn section that had previously been flipped for Showbiz & A.G.'s "Hold Ya Head" for the "Chief Rocka" remix, he inadvertently added fuel to the feud between Lord Finesse and LOTUG's Mr. Funkee, which resulted in A.G. warning, "Fake lords get strangled with mic cords/Stealing beats from my LP sure ain't healthy," on "Next Level."

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