Originally Posted by coolout

P.S. - Remember we're talking hiphop not R&B. Understand that really until Bad Boy and Timbaland there was a real difference between the sound of your average hiphop record and your average R&B record. I remember that most cats thought Teddy Riley produced rap songs sounded just like that...someone rapping over a soft R&B track.

I personally think that's the reason LL won the battle with Kool Moe Dee. Although Moe Dee had superior lyrics the clean sounding tracks Teddy did we're strictly for grown folk dressed up in the club, while LL had the swagger, gritty samples, 808 boom, and fresh cuts. He just sounded harder and more current at the time.

Most young cats don't understand that until the chronic and the first biggie record you really didn't hear hiphop during daytime radio nationwide. Once that happened the target demographic started to shift toward women. More singers started showing up on the hooks of rap songs and R&B drums started to hit harder to point we're at now where there's little difference in the average hiphop track and the average R&B track.

Originally Posted by E-Irizarry

Some cats be like "Yo Izz, your sh_t be sounding like Brian McKnight meets Kid Capri or Stevie wonder meets Primo".

A long as cats are telling me that, I'll never get into the industry.
izzy.

Originally Posted by Zacchino

I was really impressed with the beat in PDiddy's Last Night song... Awesome song btw.

Originally Posted by Joseph Reeves

what happened? :D

Originally Posted by coolout

Most young cats don't understand that until the chronic and the first biggie record you really didn't hear hiphop during daytime radio nationwide. Once that happened the target demographic started to shift toward women. More singers started showing up on the hooks of rap songs and R&B drums started to hit harder to point we're at now where there's little difference in the average hiphop track and the average R&B track.

Originally Posted by TonyBelmont

Off the top of my head....MC Hammer, Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock, Salt n Pepa, Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, Kid n Play, Biz Markie, MC Lyte, Run DMC, Fat Boys, LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, and so many others were tearing up the radio at least 5 years before the Chronic. You couldn't go 5 minutes without hearing a song from one of the above in the late 80's where I'm from.. granted this wasn't the Hip Hop radio station era of the late 90's... you could still hear Stevie B, and the freestyle/dance stuff on these same stations, along with R&B, etc. But, hip hop was in regular rotation.

Originally Posted by s.d.finley

Every Trend in Hip Hop Production is determined by the.......

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi

I thought this determined EVERYTHING!

Originally Posted by coolout

Honestly I believe that "Every Trend in Hip Hop Production is determined by the...."

F*CKIN' GEAR USED!!!

78'-82': Live band/disco breaks

82'-'87: drum machine/synth combo (808,909,dmx,linndrum)

87'-97': sampling drum machine/workstation (sp1200, MPC, ASR, etc.)

97'-01': workstation freakin' presets (triton, triton, and mo' trition)

01'-04': the return of the sampling drum machine (sped up soul and rock samples) and the "drum machine/synth combo" (various down south flavors) but really they both never really left.

04'-present: the virtual era a.k.a. anything goes...or as questlove put it "the age of irony"

Also understand that some producers are just beyond trends. Dre has been making hits since 87' (not including that World Class Wrecking Crew stuff) and still uses the same basic formula...sampling drum machine/synth/live bass with the occasional synth bass. Primo, Pete Rock, Timbaland pretty much stay using the same tools they always have. The only thing that changes is they make more beats.

Originally Posted by coolout

P.S. - Remember we're talking hiphop not R&B. Understand that really until Bad Boy and Timbaland there was a real difference between the sound of your average hiphop record and your average R&B record. I remember that most cats thought Teddy Riley produced rap songs sounded just like that...someone rapping over a soft R&B track.

I personally think that's the reason LL won the battle with Kool Moe Dee. Although Moe Dee had superior lyrics the clean sounding tracks Teddy did we're strictly for grown folk dressed up in the club, while LL had the swagger, gritty samples, 808 boom, and fresh cuts. He just sounded harder and more current at the time.