A Quiet Reminder of Why I Love Rap Music

Years ago, I wrote a post asserting what seemed like an overlooked hip-hop reality: Pete Rock makes the best remixes. The dude might as well have invented them.

I returned to the sentiment on Sunday as I closed out my weekend first by cursing Chris Bosh for missing that three, and then by playing a collection of rap samples and original material for a friend. All week, we had been trading YouTube clips over email trying to stump each other. He had chosen some great source material, and I had to clap back. We got lost in the weeds while untangling old Artifacts and De La Soul records. Suddenly, it was late and our All-Star Game party had to be wound down. To finish off the evening, I threw on "You're No Good" by the Harvey Averne Dozen:



The song knocks on its own accord. I don't want to sell it short. But I also can't profess to being the world's largest Harvey Averne fan. Rather, the bass that carries the song from 0:09 to 0:19 has rattled around in my head for years thanks to Peter Rock, who took it, threw it underneath some of those horns he plays with so well, and decorated House of Pain's "Jump Around" with a second aesthetic that has preserved the track. I usually want to kill myself when I hear "Jump Around"; I don't even have the standard MP3 on my computer. I especially hate watching the kids in Madison, WI dance to it. But I will never stop riding for Peter's version. That Averne bass is like formaldehyde, keeping fresh something otherwise long gone. Listen:



The "Jump Around" remix tells an important story about rap music, about why the genre endures.

Trading samples all week--and obsessively hunting them down ever since I learned about high-speed internets in college--made hip-hop's derivative nature inescapable again. So much of the best rap music is created from the works of others. It's practically genetic: the seminal record of the genre, "Rapper's Delight," is just a Chic loop. We've moved on since then, and just as rhyming has become more complex, so has beat making. The most basic samples, those that are unembarrassed to serve as royalty checks, don't amaze people anymore. That's why no one ever felt that Will Smith was making great music when he was repackaging Patrice Rushen, no matter how catchy. Instead, the best producers, many of whose names are canonical, taught hip-hop fans to appreciate real sampling. And not just real sampling, but real music making. Far from straight rip offs, the great sample-driven beats showcase innate musical talent, intricate craftsmanship, and singular creativity. Forever and ever, through trends and cycles. It never stops. Long a venue for new expression, rebellion, and irreverence, rap could never ask for a better ambassador than the expertly made sample, no matter how initially confusing that might seem to the uninitiated. Thankfully, there is no shortage of them.

Rock's "Jump Around" is a prime example, with the original rapping set to new drums, new bass, new horns, and new atmospherics. It's like stripping a car down to its chassis and then throwing on a new body, wheels, interior, and paint job (ice cream or otherwise). Really, it's the meta rap song, not only demonstrating the genre's power to repackage other music, like Averne's, but also itself. That's what a remix is, after all, and no one has ever made them as consistently well as Peter. Just ask the Clipse and Slim Thug, who got the Pete Rock treatment this week:



I prefer this "Wamp Wamp." Just more Pete Rock doing what he does best.