Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey y'all, Today we're bringing you part two of
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin's conversation with producer Kenny Beats. On last week's episode,
Speaker 1: Kenny broke down how regional sounds in hip hop have
Speaker 1: spread across the US and connected disparate cities Since his
Speaker 1: first conversation with Rick, Kenny Starr has continued to rise.
Speaker 1: In the past couple of years. He's produced songs with
Speaker 1: Ed Sheer In, The Baby and Staples. He's also taken
Speaker 1: several trips to the UK and produced over thirty songs
Speaker 1: with the British artists like f Ga, Twigs and Slow Tie. Today,
Speaker 1: Kenny explains how, for the first time in the history
Speaker 1: of hip hop, an American subgenre made its way across
Speaker 1: the Pond to the UK, only to come back to
Speaker 1: the United States and an updated form that is now
Speaker 1: influencing American rappers. Kenny and Rick also talk about why
Speaker 1: they don't care to understand English rappers slang, and how
Speaker 1: a group of German classical musicians are co producing some
Speaker 1: of the biggest hip hop records today. This is broken
Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmondtin.
Speaker 1: Here's Rick Rubin and Kenny Beats. How are you feeling, man,
Speaker 1: I'm good A long time, No see, everything been good,
Speaker 1: been good, staying hidden, working hard. Let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about UK hip hop. Yeah, one of my favorite topics.
Speaker 1: What do you see going on? Well, I think something
Speaker 1: happened since the last time we talked about this subject
Speaker 1: that has never happened in the history of hip hop
Speaker 1: And correct me if I'm wrong. But the UK we're
Speaker 1: influencing the US in such a way this year that
Speaker 1: we had never seen an RP pop smoke. But one
Speaker 1: of the newest hottest artists in the world is making
Speaker 1: beats that he looked up on YouTube under UK drill
Speaker 1: or UK trap beats or UK grime. He was looking
Speaker 1: for beats that sounded like stuff from over there so
Speaker 1: he could bring something to New York that was completely different.
Speaker 1: But the weirdest thing about this is that drill, what's
Speaker 1: going on right now in the UK, like in the
Speaker 1: streets unarguably what they refer to that sound as that
Speaker 1: comes from Chicago. So there's this weird lineage of like
Speaker 1: the Chief Kief era, the Young Chop era, the Chicago
Speaker 1: era that like happened in like twenty twelve, even before
Speaker 1: Kanye got on don't like with Chief keief that whole
Speaker 1: time was such an influential area production wise, like time
Speaker 1: production wise with like Lex Luger and all these people
Speaker 1: programming stuff very different and to see the UK kind
Speaker 1: of take Chicago, make it their sound, and then it
Speaker 1: come back to New York and break artists with that sound.
Speaker 1: Like I did a record this year for Fabi, who
Speaker 1: is like one of pop smoked bigger collaborators, another Brooklyn
Speaker 1: drill artists, great guy, and it's like I'm doing beats
Speaker 1: inspired by UK producers that were inspired by American producers.
Speaker 1: But the UK influenced this year has been undeniable, and
Speaker 1: I think that's the first time in history that's happened
Speaker 1: in hip hop ever. Yeah, I always felt like it
Speaker 1: was going to happen. I thought it was going to happen,
Speaker 1: even going back to death Jam days, just because of
Speaker 1: the history of the Blues in the United States and
Speaker 1: then the excitement of the British invasion where they would
Speaker 1: listen to American sounds and because of the distance they
Speaker 1: had a romantic image of it. Yeah, and they took
Speaker 1: it to an extreme that anyone who was doing it
Speaker 1: like any of the real bluesmen would hear what led
Speaker 1: Zeppelin did and think it was garish. You know, it
Speaker 1: was like it was too much totally. But because of
Speaker 1: the distance, they could take something that might not be
Speaker 1: cool for the people who invent it and take it
Speaker 1: to some new extreme that seems too far out for
Speaker 1: the people who have a clear vision of what its
Speaker 1: starting point is and take it to a new extreme.
Speaker 1: So the fact that that's finally happening in hip hop
Speaker 1: as an exciting things, just it gives us potential for
Speaker 1: things to grow in a deeper, faster way. It opens
Speaker 1: American hip hop and just American artists is saying, we
Speaker 1: don't know, let's take influence from somewhere else. It opens
Speaker 1: up an unlimited world instead of saying we started this,
Speaker 1: we run this. Here's how we dictate the pace once
Speaker 1: we say we're open to these ideas and these other
Speaker 1: sounds and types of production and tempos or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be. Yeah, it makes better music for everyone, and
Speaker 1: it creates some of my favorite bands and music and
Speaker 1: other genres too. That same concept of like there's this
Speaker 1: whole thaie funk thing that happened in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: and I'm not up on it enough to explain the
Speaker 1: artists and this and that. But what I understand is
Speaker 1: the meters and this whole funk movement or whatever that
Speaker 1: happened in America influence people in Asia. They started making
Speaker 1: all these records years later that, like you're saying, are
Speaker 1: exaggerated versions of all this funk stuff that was going
Speaker 1: on here. And then now, one of my favorite bands
Speaker 1: these days, it's a band called Krungbin And you ask
Speaker 1: them what their influences are their band from Houston, Texas.
Speaker 1: They say, well, we listen to old Thaie funk music amazing.
Speaker 1: But those Thai funk records were then trying to make
Speaker 1: American funk records from twenty years earlier, and it all
Speaker 1: becomes almost untraceable unless you're really trying to do your research,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, but it just goes through the filter
Speaker 1: of the new person making it. The influence doesn't always
Speaker 1: show so clearly in the in the new creator. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk more about drill music. Would you say, twenty
Speaker 1: twelve issues where where it got rolling? Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: the I can't. I can speak even more on the
Speaker 1: UK side of it than the Chicago side of it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, definitely, like it was early like Gi Herbo,
Speaker 1: Chief Keith, all this Chicago stuff that was influencing the
Speaker 1: UK that came back around and influenced every body here.
Speaker 1: But like, let me let me think of a good
Speaker 1: record to play. Is it as popular in Chicago as
Speaker 1: it was then? No, it's not. It's a sound that
Speaker 1: kind of um came and went. It was like it's
Speaker 1: a very specific, a kind of high hat pattern to
Speaker 1: drill shit. It's just very specific kind of bounce with
Speaker 1: the drums. It's like it's got this. It's a whole
Speaker 1: different kind of swing and the accentuation is like it,
Speaker 1: only it almost leans more to like the Afro Cuban
Speaker 1: thing and something than it does to like a two
Speaker 1: four rock thing that I think trap is like the
Speaker 1: hardest rock drums turned into break beat drums turned into
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, you know, and now we get trapped
Speaker 1: and now we have these huge ada weights. But the
Speaker 1: drill has these different kind of poly rhythms and little
Speaker 1: play play a good play a good example of classic
Speaker 1: drill Chicago drill, Chicago drill um. You know, a couple
Speaker 1: of niggas does down the RAF for a homicide when
Speaker 1: his drama tab run up on the nigga what the
Speaker 1: lumbus flatl leave his love was all trauma tasks one fifty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm really with it. I drop his task and they
Speaker 1: forget it what I mean? Yeah, it's really interesting how
Speaker 1: the percuss shouldn't pattern have a ab pattern of the
Speaker 1: percussion part feel like they're both halves are leaning in
Speaker 1: a different direction. So it doesn't seem like anyone would
Speaker 1: ever play it that way. No, And you have this
Speaker 1: two four thing. There is a snap or a clap
Speaker 1: or a snare. Normally that is one two three four.
Speaker 1: It's on those normal rhythms where you expect the clap,
Speaker 1: but the what dictates the rhythm is that that's much
Speaker 1: more what you're gonna dance to or move to or
Speaker 1: rap two or write too, I think. And that's what
Speaker 1: has been mangled and changed and turned into a million
Speaker 1: other things over the last few years. But it's really
Speaker 1: this movement that happened in Chicago first, and it obviously
Speaker 1: influenced even the radio here to the point where Kanye
Speaker 1: and Push a T And all of good music are
Speaker 1: getting on a Chief Keef song and blah blah. It's
Speaker 1: this local niche thing that got bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1: But I think the UK to this day are such
Speaker 1: fans of what we do, and they pay so much
Speaker 1: homage and have so much homework done before they even
Speaker 1: speak on the UK stuff, and we don't do that
Speaker 1: vice versa. We don't give them the same respect to
Speaker 1: talk about like their legends and the grime legends and
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, people like Dizzy and Kano
Speaker 1: and like all these type of people that have so
Speaker 1: much respect there that we just see as like oh
Speaker 1: UK thing instead of all these different iterations of what
Speaker 1: it's been. But when they saw what we were doing
Speaker 1: here with drill. You hear Giherbo talking about drilling in
Speaker 1: the song, you know what I mean, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a concept. They took that and they ran with it.
Speaker 1: And now we're in twenty twenty eight years later, and
Speaker 1: it turned around. It came back to us and we
Speaker 1: have artists here googling tight beats of UK producers to
Speaker 1: get their sound, and then they're covering the radio and
Speaker 1: then Travis Scott's getting on their songs here. It's insane,
Speaker 1: and it goes back to house music coming from Chicago
Speaker 1: and turning into EDM in the UK. Essentially, yeah, that
Speaker 1: intercontinental when it goes back and forth, there's so much
Speaker 1: room for growth, like you get to hear you get
Speaker 1: to hear it through new ears when it comes back,
Speaker 1: you know, definitely. And I think my almost misconception when
Speaker 1: I first got there was this is something that you
Speaker 1: guys are doing that when I come here and get
Speaker 1: in the studio with artists, I shouldn't try to make
Speaker 1: drill beats or play drill beats or you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, get in on this UK thing. Because my
Speaker 1: first trips to the UK, working with a lot of artists,
Speaker 1: I didn't want them to think that I'm coming over
Speaker 1: here while you guys are having your first influential moment
Speaker 1: and trying to be a part of that to make
Speaker 1: myself seem more authentic to the root of it. It
Speaker 1: was more like, oh no, I just recognize how talented
Speaker 1: these artists are, and I want to see what they
Speaker 1: do on not drill stuff, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I released songs this year with Slow Tie, with
Speaker 1: sl with h with Heavy One, with so many different
Speaker 1: UK I was stormzy and then I also have released
Speaker 1: songs with Ed Sheeran and James Vincent McMorrow and all
Speaker 1: the Twigs and the whole other side of the UK.
Speaker 1: But when I went over there, it was much more
Speaker 1: about let me show you guys what I can do,
Speaker 1: not let me co out you're scene. But then I
Speaker 1: started playing drill beats once in a while and they'd
Speaker 1: lose it and it was like, oh, you guys are
Speaker 1: not the one who were gatekeeping whatsoever. It might be
Speaker 1: us a little bit. But when I say us, I
Speaker 1: say that lightly because I'm not from Chicago and I'm
Speaker 1: not part of the originators. But America, as you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, just like this, this hip hop institution
Speaker 1: were kind of being accepting and it's showing in the
Speaker 1: radio and it's showing an influence in the production, and
Speaker 1: that's a beautiful thing to me. Yeah. I had a
Speaker 1: conversation the other day with Scarface from the Ghetto Boys,
Speaker 1: and he was we were talking about when when I
Speaker 1: first heard the Ghetto Boys, they were really the first
Speaker 1: Southern rap group that I heard, you know, we heard
Speaker 1: New York was really everything for a long time. Then
Speaker 1: he started hearing some music coming from the West Coast
Speaker 1: and it sounded different, and in New York we didn't
Speaker 1: really like it. And then Ghetto Boys was pretty early
Speaker 1: in the you know, not from the East Coast and
Speaker 1: not from the West coast. The only the only maybe
Speaker 1: thing before that might have been Luke. And I think
Speaker 1: a luke more as a party, more of a party
Speaker 1: thing than like real rap. You know, I don't think
Speaker 1: of it as like, I don't know, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1: They never took it seriously as rap music. I thought
Speaker 1: of it more as like rock the party, yeah, whereas
Speaker 1: Getta Boys was more like, you know, hardcore rap wasn't
Speaker 1: deaf jam initially rocked the party. Wasn't that the origin?
Speaker 1: Or was it just make it feel like what's going
Speaker 1: on outside? It was more like, yeah, make it feel
Speaker 1: like what the club feels like. But it wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: rocking the party because it wasn't really a The early
Speaker 1: hip hop scene wasn't really necessarily a dance scene. It's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like Public Enemy is not like rocking the part, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. No, And most people didn't dance, you know,
Speaker 1: like they'd be breakdancing, but that wasn't so connected to
Speaker 1: the music. It happened during the music, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily to the beat, you know, it was a different
Speaker 1: It was just a different thing. It was simultaneous more
Speaker 1: than inspired by the music. But Luke and Miami and
Speaker 1: Booty Bass and Two Live Crew, everything was about make
Speaker 1: people shake what they have, make people go fucking crazy
Speaker 1: in the club. And you know, like Benny Blanco's like
Speaker 1: one of the first things that he did that went
Speaker 1: super crazy was this project was Spank Rock that was
Speaker 1: sampling a shit ton of Two Live Crew. He's one
Speaker 1: of the biggest pop producers in the world right now.
Speaker 1: You know, like this happens in so many areas, but
Speaker 1: with ghetto boys. Look at that where that lineage ended up.
Speaker 1: Mike Dean was helping engineer some of those records and
Speaker 1: working on some of that stuff, and now he's working
Speaker 1: under the Travis you know what I mean, biggest records
Speaker 1: in the world. All the stuff you're hearing now, it's
Speaker 1: like there's so many things that we're paying homage to
Speaker 1: without even knowing, and that's myself included in it. But
Speaker 1: I think that's the beauty in it. And oh my god,
Speaker 1: I saw something the other day, Rick, I almost had
Speaker 1: to text you because I was freaking out. I felt
Speaker 1: so old, and I felt so like I'd had my
Speaker 1: finger off the pulse for a second. Killed me. I
Speaker 1: was on Twitter and Timberland was the number one trending
Speaker 1: topic on Twitter. Shout out to Tim, and I go, oh,
Speaker 1: they're probably just giving him his flowers. There's this thing
Speaker 1: every once in a while where just a producer and
Speaker 1: artist comes up, or someone has a birthday, and everyone
Speaker 1: talks about all the songs they love that made them
Speaker 1: feel so great. Timbo was the number one trending thing,
Speaker 1: and I went to go see what was trending. Was
Speaker 1: it his birthday? Was it about a song? Was an
Speaker 1: Aliyah thing? Missy thing? People were saying exposed, Timberland stole
Speaker 1: these old Indian records for all his biggest songs, big Pimpin.
Speaker 1: And then they show the Indian song it came from,
Speaker 1: or the Bollywood sample or whatever it might be. Then
Speaker 1: they show an Aliah record and they show this, and
Speaker 1: TikTok was going nuts saying no dalent and you're exposed
Speaker 1: and we found this out and da da da and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and it's like, are you guys losing it?
Speaker 1: Am I losing it like some of my favorite records
Speaker 1: of all times are loops of old samples like let Alone,
Speaker 1: adding something like Timbo. That's what hip hop is. Hip
Speaker 1: hop is taking from existing things and montaging them together
Speaker 1: to make something new. And that's something that you've never
Speaker 1: heard before. It's always been that's what DJ culture is.
Speaker 1: DJ culture starts with records. Kids were freaking out about
Speaker 1: just the idea of sampling, just the concept like showing
Speaker 1: an alias song and then showing the sample like they
Speaker 1: like they had discovered some you know, a great whale
Speaker 1: of like a secret. But it was It was so
Speaker 1: crazy to me because like I'm having this moment right
Speaker 1: now of of sampling so much again and getting back
Speaker 1: into it. A lot of it came last year randomly
Speaker 1: and then Dooms passing RPMF Doom has really just thrown
Speaker 1: me back into it. So to see that I'm going
Speaker 1: the opposite way and sampling more and people on the
Speaker 1: internet were taking it like that, it really threw me
Speaker 1: for a loop for a second. I had to get
Speaker 1: off to it. Or for him that's crazy, Well, just
Speaker 1: it really is just a misunderstanding or um or. Times change.
Speaker 1: Time's definitely change, but like it's it's weird for me
Speaker 1: to see on the side of it, where I'm producing
Speaker 1: records now that sample these guys who've been through hell
Speaker 1: clearing samples or even with the recognition of people calling
Speaker 1: you out for taking a record or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: when people are getting paid behind the scenes and everything
Speaker 1: is fully worked out. Like I literally, like I saw
Speaker 1: people tore down James Blake. James Blake tried to sweet
Speaker 1: if you want to know what Timbo did to the sample,
Speaker 1: tried dancing to the original. You think people and in
Speaker 1: these countries couldn't dance to these samples before timbol it.
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, we understood, we know, we know, we
Speaker 1: know that, and I know James probably would have reworded
Speaker 1: it if he could have, But like, it was just
Speaker 1: crazy to see how people were perceiving that when that's
Speaker 1: like the root of why I love doing what I do,
Speaker 1: and when I sample these guys, when I've sampled Farrell,
Speaker 1: when I've sampled Timbo, when I've sampled these huge records
Speaker 1: that they've done for artists I'm working with. Rico Nasty
Speaker 1: said I want dirt off your shoulders, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we can do something like that, and she's like, no,
Speaker 1: I do that, And I was like, all right, I
Speaker 1: could say. I don't feel uncomfortable saying they were so
Speaker 1: fucking cool about clearing shit or about whatever like percentages
Speaker 1: or whatever back like back end bullshit there is. They
Speaker 1: were all so cool and I've dealt with that firsthand,
Speaker 1: so to see like what Frell has gone through with
Speaker 1: Marvin Gay or what Twitter is just going through, even
Speaker 1: in just perspective right now, Like it was wild to
Speaker 1: me because I wouldn't have got into half of the
Speaker 1: really interesting music or cultural things I know about if
Speaker 1: it wasn't via sampling, Like if people thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna be listening to sun Ra without Madlib, there's no way,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And it's like it's what's
Speaker 1: helped me understand so many cultures and so many things
Speaker 1: that I should be paying respect to and that I
Speaker 1: should be speaking on. And it's instead of the opposite,
Speaker 1: which people think, it's like you're trying to hide the stolen,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it's exactly the opposite. It's
Speaker 1: always paying tribute, and of course they're cool about when
Speaker 1: you do it, because that's what the culture is built on.
Speaker 1: It's like they built their culture on it, and they
Speaker 1: know if you understand how it works, that there's this
Speaker 1: pool of in the old days, like the Beatles would
Speaker 1: listen to Roy Orbison and then they would learn the
Speaker 1: guitar parts like Roy Orbison. Then they'd either speed it
Speaker 1: up or slow it down, and then they'd make it
Speaker 1: their own or a chuck Berry song, and then they
Speaker 1: would make it into their own song. That's what sampling is.
Speaker 1: It's now we'd do it without instruments. We sample and
Speaker 1: speed it up or slow it down, or loop it
Speaker 1: or chop it in a particular way, or combine several
Speaker 1: pieces together, or pick a very tiny little piece of
Speaker 1: a piece of music that's not representative of the other,
Speaker 1: of the entirety of the music at all. You know,
Speaker 1: most breaks are not representative of the thing that they're
Speaker 1: a break of at all. Yeah, it's like there's a
Speaker 1: saw and there happens to be this moment in the
Speaker 1: song that you find a way to flip and make
Speaker 1: into something new, but it has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the original song. More often than not, I always found
Speaker 1: it so interesting, how how big that that Mountain break
Speaker 1: was Mississippi Queen, Because Mountain is like such a hard
Speaker 1: Southern rock group. It's such a like it's almost like
Speaker 1: a Leonard skinnerd level Southern you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But Mississippi Queen is one of the most used like
Speaker 1: vocal samples and sample packs and like it when people
Speaker 1: say like, oh I want that, like that that he's
Speaker 1: this vocal scream thing. It's like a lot of that
Speaker 1: is from like these rock records in the fifties and
Speaker 1: sixties and stuff like The Break ended up being like
Speaker 1: the hardest rap thing you ever heard, you know. It's
Speaker 1: like that's that's what's beautiful about it to me, because
Speaker 1: that's what gave me so much of like my history
Speaker 1: and my background was finding shit through other shit, you know.
Speaker 1: The the guitar player from Mountain just passed away within
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks, Leslie West sad sad to
Speaker 1: hear yet oh Man all Ip. I saw him live
Speaker 1: at the Ridgefield Playhouse with my dad at twelve years old.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. One of the greats, one of the greats. Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: we'll be back with Rick Ruben and Kenny Beats. After
Speaker 1: a quick break. We're back with Kenny Beats. So since
Speaker 1: Drill has moved on in Chicago. Has anything replaced it
Speaker 1: in Chicago. I think Chicago's kind of always set trends,
Speaker 1: But I don't know if I can say there's been
Speaker 1: a specific niche genre like drill to come from Chicago
Speaker 1: or really anywhere that's influenced the world and come back
Speaker 1: the way that has, like Chicago's evolved so much, and
Speaker 1: like Little Dirk is on the newest Drake single, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, And like Little Dirk comes from
Speaker 1: exactly the air I'm talking about in the video shoots
Speaker 1: in the middle of some house in the middle of
Speaker 1: some part of Chicago that people don't want to go do.
Speaker 1: And that was like this cool thing on YouTube that
Speaker 1: turned into influencing the charts, that turned into now huge artists,
Speaker 1: huge legitimate artists, And like there's still someone every single
Speaker 1: year coming from Chicago that's influencing people in a major way.
Speaker 1: The last time I was like blown away by someone
Speaker 1: from Chicago was Valet. Valet was so unique and so
Speaker 1: singular and different to me. When he came out play
Speaker 1: us a great Valet track. Oh that's so easy, I'll
Speaker 1: do sisty at Syndey came back, I was getting some
Speaker 1: net from a net gave up rain bat pace. Don't
Speaker 1: ask me if his pocket the simplicity like how brash
Speaker 1: he is. But as much as Valat is influencing people
Speaker 1: on the way that a lot of artists, I will
Speaker 1: tell you, will not speak on how much they listened
Speaker 1: to his ship at the time he came out and
Speaker 1: how much it was influenced them. But like Juice World
Speaker 1: is Chicago, r I P. Juice. You know who's bigger
Speaker 1: than him on the charts? Like who in fluence more
Speaker 1: kids than that? You know, him and X and Peep
Speaker 1: and all this stuff, Like Chicago is part of every
Speaker 1: historical hip hop era that I can remember since I
Speaker 1: was really young in some way. But I feel like
Speaker 1: drill is one of those things that like will represent
Speaker 1: the Chicago hip hop sound the way like ninety bpm
Speaker 1: breaks represent hip hop, the way like a Battlecat swing
Speaker 1: can represent the West Coast. I think it's it's something
Speaker 1: that is singularly theirs. And it's crazy because so much
Speaker 1: of the other things I just mentioned happened early on
Speaker 1: in hip hop, within the first ten twenty years, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? That people found like this dictates
Speaker 1: the South. These kind of eight to weights and these
Speaker 1: kinds of drum patterns, and you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: what what three six Mafia did, from what Ghetto Boys
Speaker 1: did and from blah blah blah, and then the East
Speaker 1: Coast was like the sampling thing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And then Chicago and like Detroit in that whole year,
Speaker 1: like you have Dilla and you have all these people
Speaker 1: right in this other area of the country that created
Speaker 1: so much stuff. But street shit in Chicago has never
Speaker 1: been represented and respected around the world the way I
Speaker 1: think drill was, because how often can you say a
Speaker 1: whole other country has most of their biggest hits in
Speaker 1: a genre because they were listening to us. It's crazy amazing.
Speaker 1: Now has grime moved on in the UK ors grimes
Speaker 1: still has it switched in my mind when I get
Speaker 1: in rooms and the concept of grime or just the
Speaker 1: topic of grime comes up, I've had like an AJ
Speaker 1: Tracy or a Skepta or certain people like stop the
Speaker 1: conversation in their tracks and make sure like everyone's putting
Speaker 1: their respect on those like Foe Fathers, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, kind of like UK hip hop and what
Speaker 1: they did and how that led to everybody now who's
Speaker 1: having so much success. And on the other hand, I
Speaker 1: work with really young artists in the UK. I work
Speaker 1: with kids in high school, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And like h is someone we put out a record
Speaker 1: this year I really love and he never really listened
Speaker 1: to grime and never really was on like that and
Speaker 1: says like maybe he did at one point. I might
Speaker 1: be miss speaking, but he said, none of my friends
Speaker 1: listen to it now and no one's on that, and
Speaker 1: he said it out loud. And he's also a white
Speaker 1: kid who raps, so they're gonna get at him regardless,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And he spoke on Yeah,
Speaker 1: to be honest, me and my friends really not listening
Speaker 1: to grind. We have never really were on it like that.
Speaker 1: I just make the music I make. And because he's
Speaker 1: up such a successful drill artist and big rapper there,
Speaker 1: people were shocked by that. But Vinn Staple said, I
Speaker 1: don't really give a fuck about old hip hop, and
Speaker 1: people lost it, you know what I mean, And like,
Speaker 1: I think it's hard for people to understand that we're
Speaker 1: fucking old now or like you're old now or whoever
Speaker 1: it is is old now because these kids don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to understand where to pay homage, or it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they won't at a point for sure, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter. It's like if
Speaker 1: somebody makes something new and great, I'm all for it. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So whenever they set people love to those questions, like
Speaker 1: you're a young person making a young sub genre and
Speaker 1: they go, well, how do you feel about all these
Speaker 1: four fathers that it's like if you were born in
Speaker 1: two thousand, you probably don't know about them, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's fine, because you are making great fucking music,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure at a certain point it's gonna be
Speaker 1: interesting for you to go back and look at that.
Speaker 1: And if it's not fucking who cares. Do you want
Speaker 1: a plain example of the UK drill that's going on now? Yes,
Speaker 1: I would love to, And then we'll compare that back
Speaker 1: to a grime track, just just for the difference in
Speaker 1: sound from the UK. Okay, let's do it. This is
Speaker 1: someone that I just put out some music with recently,
Speaker 1: we got some more stuff coming. Hetty One running shit
Speaker 1: in the UK. You can't tell me different, can't tell
Speaker 1: anyone different. Drake went over it did a video with
Speaker 1: him da year, he did a song with him this year.
Speaker 1: Drake's done stuff with skept that He's done stuff for
Speaker 1: an artist called Dave. He's come over there once in
Speaker 1: a while. But you can tell like Hetty's influence and
Speaker 1: really like how crazy different he is kind of in
Speaker 1: the drill scene, but how much he's kind of one
Speaker 1: of the frontrunners that people can understand in America and
Speaker 1: really latch onto. But here's a Hetty song called both
Speaker 1: Trust how many times until was the president? So I said,
Speaker 1: I'm the King of Joe Rob. I'm doing it everyone.
Speaker 1: I never went against Smokey. Let the gang bring it
Speaker 1: on tool. He said, I'm the king of drill. I'm
Speaker 1: the king. He said, that's great. You know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna leak some unreleased Heady right now just
Speaker 1: because it's broken record and why and I because we can.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. Hold this is something something being Heady
Speaker 1: made recently spending up smokers. Oh yeah, Rod and I
Speaker 1: was ready for comback dot Drid just one signed that contract.
Speaker 1: So good, so good, Broken record exclusive, exclusive, exclusive, exclusive exclusive.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Kenny Beats after a
Speaker 1: quick Break. We're back with Rick Rubin and Kenny Beats.
Speaker 1: On the first track, you played this guitar, and I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the use of guitar in current
Speaker 1: hip hop because it feels like it's pretty ubiquitous. We're
Speaker 1: hearing a lot of guitar and hip hop right now,
Speaker 1: hundred percent in my mind. And the first person who
Speaker 1: comes up when you say that, the first people who
Speaker 1: come up when you say that are Atlanta. And it's
Speaker 1: definitely like the term on Reddit or the term in
Speaker 1: the in the twitch chat or in the YouTube chat
Speaker 1: right now would be Gunna type beats. That's what people
Speaker 1: would say if you're using just like we heard those
Speaker 1: kind of real pretty acoustic, kind of strummed things or
Speaker 1: kind of almost beautiful Flamenco type or Brazilian type chords,
Speaker 1: but they're kind of just spaced out in the drums smack.
Speaker 1: That's something that Gunna little Baby thug a lot of
Speaker 1: people in Atlanta, I think were the ones that people
Speaker 1: were looked to and they took from that recent trend.
Speaker 1: And I know within my friend group or with the
Speaker 1: producers I talked to, that's what you refer to when
Speaker 1: you hear that sounds like all it sounds like some
Speaker 1: gunna shit and that's Wheezy on the production there shout
Speaker 1: out to Wheezy. I feel like also, Frank Ocean really
Speaker 1: inspired some of that, even maybe even before that, I
Speaker 1: felt like Frank had a lot of guitar in his
Speaker 1: music when nobody did. Definitely, And I think Frank's raw.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the things that so many
Speaker 1: people are referring to when they say things that sound
Speaker 1: like Frank or feel like finger this. It's the fact
Speaker 1: that Frank can do so much with so little. But
Speaker 1: you put him in the same area in your brain
Speaker 1: where you put Tyler or someone like that because of
Speaker 1: the time he came out, in the era where you
Speaker 1: heard him. So it seems kind of like shocking for
Speaker 1: you to think, like, oh wow, like I have an
Speaker 1: artist of my time period who is down to do
Speaker 1: a ballad that I can really relate to, and this
Speaker 1: and that, And I think Frank holds that place in
Speaker 1: so many people's arts because his music is just that
Speaker 1: guitar and him, or just that piano and him, or
Speaker 1: just so to the point, have you noticed flute being
Speaker 1: popular huge? It's a ton of my beats. What is it?
Speaker 1: Why is it? I mean, I love the flute. I
Speaker 1: was so happy to hear it make its re emergence
Speaker 1: within the beat maker subculture. After Future did this song
Speaker 1: called mask Off, people kind of put an X on
Speaker 1: the flute because it was so prevalent and everybody was
Speaker 1: putting it in every beat at this one point in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen two eighteen, there's this one Omnisphere patch that
Speaker 1: has been wasted on so many millions of songs now.
Speaker 1: But I will say one production thing that was very
Speaker 1: interesting about the use of flute and all these beats
Speaker 1: that you hear is there's these producers and Q Beats,
Speaker 1: and they're German. They don't come over to the States much.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, they don't want to be in
Speaker 1: the session. They're not trying to hang out with everybody
Speaker 1: with their unbelievable instrumentalists. And they work with a lot
Speaker 1: of unbelievable instrumentalists, and so many of the biggest, most
Speaker 1: amazing rap songs you heard in the last few years
Speaker 1: trace back to Frank Dukes and trace back to Q Beats,
Speaker 1: and these German producers and musicians are making these almost
Speaker 1: classical esque kind of little compositions and samples and things
Speaker 1: and setting them back, and they're using bassoons and flutes
Speaker 1: and cellos and strutting. Are they putting beats on it
Speaker 1: as well, or or people are sampling that and using
Speaker 1: it in conjunction with new beats. They're sending them as samples.
Speaker 1: And when I was when I was eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: I met Frank Dukes at a record fair. I was
Speaker 1: selling vinyl records for my girlfriend at the time's older brother.
Speaker 1: I met Qute Tip, I met Rock Marcy, and I
Speaker 1: met Frank Dukes. And Frank Dukes had recently been in
Speaker 1: this magazine's producer magazine that no longer is around. But
Speaker 1: they were talking about how he did all these beats
Speaker 1: for a fifty cent and this and that, and he
Speaker 1: told me, as a young kid, I'm starting to work
Speaker 1: with these bands, which at the time was bad, bad,
Speaker 1: not good, And I didn't know this, but I'm working
Speaker 1: with all these bands and all these musicians, and then
Speaker 1: I'm sending these compositions I make out to a lot
Speaker 1: of producers that I'm friends with it that I know,
Speaker 1: and they're flipping them like samples. And he told me
Speaker 1: this literally eleven years ago, and I think it's really
Speaker 1: what hip hop production is now for a lot of
Speaker 1: people is you get this sample, you get this thing
Speaker 1: from Spice, you get this thing from another producer, and
Speaker 1: then you flip it, you do drums on it, and
Speaker 1: or you make a sample, you send it someone, they
Speaker 1: flip it. And it's such the norm now that to
Speaker 1: see like these kids from Germany thinking let's go a
Speaker 1: little more classical, let's go super musical blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and let's just send it to people like samples, and
Speaker 1: we'll let these people treat them like samples. That's a
Speaker 1: big influence on you hearing certain things like a flute
Speaker 1: or an accordion or some weird shit that becomes a
Speaker 1: trend in hip hop. It might be because like there's
Speaker 1: this circle of sample makers or producers at blah blah
Speaker 1: blah are kind of hearing this next wave and saying, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna lean heavy on acoustic and send that to
Speaker 1: every big rap producer right now. That's the honest truth
Speaker 1: of a lot of a lot of records getting made.
Speaker 1: And I have someone whose name will not be spoken,
Speaker 1: who is the most amazing flute player ever, And when
Speaker 1: I need a flute. I got a guy. Do you
Speaker 1: have any samples of what you might get from Germany? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's pretty like it. I was almost
Speaker 1: insane how much stuff Q beats have done. But there's
Speaker 1: a Q beats samples playlist. Hold on, let's see. But
Speaker 1: this is the same basically as in the old days
Speaker 1: of you know, create digging. It's the same. It's the
Speaker 1: same thing totally. Like here, here's a good, great example
Speaker 1: that I don't want to be so I believe goosebumps
Speaker 1: Travis Scott um Cardo and Q Beats. I get those
Speaker 1: goosebumps every time I need the time that to the side.
Speaker 1: I get those goosebumps every time when you're not around.
Speaker 1: Those strings make me feel like eleanor Rigby strings run
Speaker 1: through a broken cassette, run through a burnt out VCR
Speaker 1: or something. It has the harmony of classical things or
Speaker 1: of things that are like really almost out of reach
Speaker 1: for even me, and a lot of like normal listeners
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about what am I gonna go sample
Speaker 1: or normal producers? What am I gonna go take from?
Speaker 1: I don't lean classical. That's just me. I didn't grow
Speaker 1: up really listening to jazz and classical, so those were
Speaker 1: things I've had to educate myself on. So for people
Speaker 1: who really do play that kind of music or make
Speaker 1: that music, or understand that harmony, when they send me
Speaker 1: a pack of things like that, it's like this world
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to tap into, and it makes me
Speaker 1: take it a whole different place than I'd be able
Speaker 1: to if I was making those strings myself. Yeah, so great,
Speaker 1: so great. It definitely sets up a mood to build from,
Speaker 1: and interestingly, as soon as the beat comes in, the
Speaker 1: mood really shifts. Like when you listen to the piece
Speaker 1: as it's in its non beat form, it gives you
Speaker 1: one mood, and then when the beat comes in, it
Speaker 1: really changes, and in a beautiful way. And that's Cardo,
Speaker 1: that's America, that's Texas, that's our drums, and like that's
Speaker 1: a song right there where people stole Cardo's drum flow
Speaker 1: for the next six months after that became the biggest
Speaker 1: record in the world, and then producers over here we're
Speaker 1: trying to steal those sounds from Q Beats. But it's
Speaker 1: that weird amalgamation, like these people from another world who
Speaker 1: make another kind of music. They're sending stuff to this
Speaker 1: hip hop producer and then he's so inspired that he
Speaker 1: inspires this artist that inspires his huge record. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a really cool thing. And that's like given a
Speaker 1: lot of people a shot who aren't necessarily the drum guy,
Speaker 1: the beat guy, blah blah blah, but play beautiful instruments
Speaker 1: and want to be involved in these records. And for me,
Speaker 1: the only thing with this new shift in the dynamic
Speaker 1: of like people accepting so many samples and flipping samples
Speaker 1: from other producers rather than records is it's the same
Speaker 1: with a record, and you got to make sure that
Speaker 1: things are cleared in the businesses right and beyond that,
Speaker 1: you gotta give him a copro. And people try to
Speaker 1: treat things sometimes when it's a sample like our old record,
Speaker 1: it's you're not co producing with like the thousand people
Speaker 1: who might have played strings in an orchestra that you
Speaker 1: took from. But now if it's somebody who sat there
Speaker 1: and they made this thing at their home studio or whatever,
Speaker 1: with the musicians that they know, and they sampled it
Speaker 1: to you and you use that and you flip it,
Speaker 1: I think copro is the best way to show someone like, man,
Speaker 1: I really respect this thing that you did in the
Speaker 1: fact that all of the harmony and all of the
Speaker 1: chords and all of the sounds and all these things
Speaker 1: are this person who's sending me stuff. And even though
Speaker 1: our producers over here who have the names or have
Speaker 1: everything might be able to just flip something really quick
Speaker 1: and have it go to be a big placement, you
Speaker 1: gotta make sure you give people that love because their
Speaker 1: producers too. They're not just samples the way we think
Speaker 1: of old samples. You know, they're your co producer. We
Speaker 1: were going to go backwards and talk about grime in
Speaker 1: relation to what's going on now in the UK, just
Speaker 1: for reference, because I feel like grime never really broke
Speaker 1: in the US. I think the closest grime came was
Speaker 1: Dizzy Rascal, and they consider it Dizzy Grime for sure,
Speaker 1: But he was someone over here who I think what
Speaker 1: the album is called, Boy in the Corner. That was
Speaker 1: something that I remember listening to it as a very
Speaker 1: very young kid and being like, what is this sound?
Speaker 1: What is this slang? What are these beats? Blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: And it's the only time I remember feeling way until
Speaker 1: like years and years later where I found like a
Speaker 1: skepto or I found someone else. But I think rather
Speaker 1: than all the drill stuff, we were talking about one
Speaker 1: of the people who's really influenced by like the energy
Speaker 1: of grime more so than the beats necessarily whatever, it
Speaker 1: is someone like slow Tie. And that's someone who I
Speaker 1: work with very closely and someone who I really love.
Speaker 1: But slow Tie is so foreign and weird. He's not
Speaker 1: even from London. He's from way outside, a couple of
Speaker 1: hours outside in Northampton. He's very unique. He gets on
Speaker 1: things that sound closer to talking heads than UK beats
Speaker 1: half the time, and there's no place to put him
Speaker 1: in the UK, So when he comes over here, there's
Speaker 1: just this little of a place to put him, and
Speaker 1: that makes it almost easier for him to kind of
Speaker 1: like acquiesce with the trends here and find his way
Speaker 1: in the States. Then someone who's so routed in a
Speaker 1: scene of drill, the UK scene this and that Tie
Speaker 1: is like a Dizzy Rascal. To me, Dizzy Rascal was
Speaker 1: just so weird and so different. I think that it
Speaker 1: worked anywhere because he couldn't really place him or his
Speaker 1: voice or anything, and grime much like Drill at the time.
Speaker 1: I think he had to kind of be a fan
Speaker 1: of the UK or dig deeper to understand how the
Speaker 1: subgenre works. What the the things that you have to
Speaker 1: stick to to make a grime record are I think
Speaker 1: in the in the US, it's like, who's this weird
Speaker 1: new artist from the UK and they don't think into
Speaker 1: the title? Do you want to play something from SOLTI? Oh, definitely.
Speaker 1: This was the original thing that put me on the
Speaker 1: slowtai a couple of years ago. I heard this. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I don't know who the fuck this is.
Speaker 1: I had a UK beat, but it was nothing like
Speaker 1: anything else. So long a back phone on and how
Speaker 1: much of the flow gets silly with it my spirit
Speaker 1: and really bad to the bone. Is a legend, such
Speaker 1: a cool voice, so fucking cool. But even what he said,
Speaker 1: like the class Count Dunce, like Dizzy Rascal was the
Speaker 1: boy in the corner. It's just the kind of Dennis
Speaker 1: the Menace persona. They don't really fit in almost anywhere,
Speaker 1: but they're the link for a lot of people to
Speaker 1: dig into the UK because they're such a weird old
Speaker 1: people go oh, I like this, and then you start
Speaker 1: to find find out like what the norm is there,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, this wasn't even the norm where
Speaker 1: they're from, but it led me to where they're from,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's true of Tie for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and for Dizzey a lot of people. But
Speaker 1: Tie is not associated with something the way Dizzey's associated
Speaker 1: with grime. I don't think anyone calls Slow Tie a
Speaker 1: drill rapper. Who would you say is the premier drill
Speaker 1: rapper from the UK heady one? Yeah, I would say,
Speaker 1: I mean he's He's the one that people over here
Speaker 1: can immediately pick out and talk about and know the
Speaker 1: Drake song and can you know what I mean, say
Speaker 1: he had a song come out with FK Twigs, Just
Speaker 1: like he's very much in the conversation in the US
Speaker 1: now in a way that people who are having platinum
Speaker 1: on platinum on platinum records in the UK are not
Speaker 1: some of the time. And it really bothers me. And
Speaker 1: it's something that I've really like tried to use my
Speaker 1: platform for non stop over the last year, because I
Speaker 1: took about five trips to the UK in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: and I was there even in February in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: right before Lockdown and put out about thirty songs with
Speaker 1: UK artists in the last year, and so it's it's
Speaker 1: it's really a place I really care about and I
Speaker 1: think really has so much influential music. It's so many areas,
Speaker 1: but rap, especially right now, that's really exciting and it's good.
Speaker 1: It's good for the world for the UK hip hop
Speaker 1: seeming to blow up. I think the same thing. I
Speaker 1: think it leads us to the next one. I can't
Speaker 1: wait till like I can't I can't wait till. It's
Speaker 1: a language that none of us can speak that influences
Speaker 1: us the way that has. Because it's English, you know,
Speaker 1: we can still get in there. Even if there's a
Speaker 1: lot of slang terms about man on road and this
Speaker 1: and that and things that people don't understand mean the
Speaker 1: trap and mean this and that here, you can still
Speaker 1: kind of get the gist of it. When Slowti says,
Speaker 1: I'm like Christmas Wabi Scrooge, like, yeah, you're you're following it.
Speaker 1: But I think that's as far as it goes for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I don't think a lot of
Speaker 1: people can really understand the deep slang terms and the
Speaker 1: deep things that go on in the UK, let alone
Speaker 1: a country with a different language. So I think once
Speaker 1: a group like P and L from France or like
Speaker 1: someone from Japan can come over here and have a
Speaker 1: record that people can really fuck with. It's like, think
Speaker 1: about what was that ninety nine man Blue Balloons? That
Speaker 1: ship was a huge hit in the States, not even
Speaker 1: in English. That's like, I think there's a world where
Speaker 1: the energy from someone even like a keyth ape, Like,
Speaker 1: there's so many people from across the world that could
Speaker 1: have that same effect. But the UK is a start.
Speaker 1: The UK is a good start. Yeah, And I honestly
Speaker 1: I don't want to understand the slang. That's what makes
Speaker 1: it feel like it's coming from somewhere else. If it's
Speaker 1: when I hear English English rappers using American slang, I
Speaker 1: feel like, why am I listening to this? It completely
Speaker 1: defeats the purpose if you do. Do you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, It's like I want it to be their music.
Speaker 1: I want their music a thousand percent. I think that's
Speaker 1: the truest thing ever. But but what's crazy is, like
Speaker 1: I was saying before, they have so much respect for
Speaker 1: what we do over here, and they're very very much too.
Speaker 1: In a lot of those guys. I was mentioning those
Speaker 1: drill rappers, like, I've had conversations with them about US
Speaker 1: hip hop and who they're listening to and the trends
Speaker 1: and this and that, but they still do their thing
Speaker 1: and they they are not trying to emulate it. Even
Speaker 1: if they are the biggest fans. Even if they could
Speaker 1: talk about how much they like some record, you don't
Speaker 1: hear that slang term popping up, you know. And that's
Speaker 1: something that US rappers are the most guilty of a
Speaker 1: US artists in general. It's like, if there's a popping
Speaker 1: song with someone from a specific part of the country
Speaker 1: and they use that slang term, trust me, you're gonna
Speaker 1: hear it in Florida and in New York and everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gone. It's like Jay Electronica had that bar about
Speaker 1: New York rappers calling us lame but day Jack and
Speaker 1: are slang, and that was like a Ghetto Boys era
Speaker 1: you were talking about. It's like New York at one
Speaker 1: point was like, well, we don't know what this is,
Speaker 1: we don't understand any of this, and then you end
Speaker 1: up taking the slang terms and a lot of the
Speaker 1: Bounce and this and that, like once Little John's on
Speaker 1: the radio. Trust me, there's some Kruk music getting made
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. I promise you. Absolutely cool man. Thank you
Speaker 1: for doing this. Of course, thanks to Kenny Beats for
Speaker 1: taking a time out to talk with us again. Be
Speaker 1: sure to check out a playlists of songs mentioned in
Speaker 1: this episode at Broken record podcast dot com. You can
Speaker 1: subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 1: broken Record Podcasts, where can find extended cuts of new
Speaker 1: and old episodes, and you can follow us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at broken Records. Broken Record is producers helpful Lea Rose,
Speaker 1: Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez Sandler, Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help
Speaker 1: from Nick Chason, and our executive producer is being a Bell.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries, and if
Speaker 1: you'd like to show please remember to share a rate
Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast at the Music's By
Speaker 1: today's guests Kenny Beats, I'm justin Richmond, bas