Last week DJ Kper sent me a mix called A Boom Bap Continuum... ten years of beats from '99 to '09, which he and DJ 2Tall spent almost a year pulling together, with help from DJ Clockwork. This is one of those classic mixtapes that will go down in history - genre defining, thoughtful & insightful, and mixed to perfection. So many friends have sent this over telling me I'll love it (the playlist is a real dream come true for us beat-nerds) and they were right- so I had to shoot the guys some questions about what this Boom Bap Continuum means...
You put this impressive and definitive mix up a couple of weeks ago and it has been a big hit already - any producers you're kicking yourselves (or who have kicked you), for missing them out?
Kper Even though we tried our best to include most of the producers we wanted to have on the mix, the thing about restrospective mixes like this is that you're always going to miss someone out - getting it 100% right for everyone is impossible. We had some funny moments in the last few months calling/texting each other every other day to check if producer X or Y was included in the other's mix (we worked on our mixes separately for most of the process). For example Joker was added at the last minute as we'd forgot him, and I somehow managed to slide in 15 seconds of one of his tracks on top of the mix which was already done. So yeah there's a lot of people I guess you could say I'm kicking myself for missing but that's the way it goes! Top of the head we missed guys like Edan, Mr Chop, Just Blaze... there's a few! And no one's kicked us yet for missing them out no! I'd like to think they'd understand why people are missing :)
2Tall Yeah Edan for sure, maybe a few more from Vadim, Spinna, Alchemist, and Pete Rock from my end. Also I'd like to have had some more UK producers in retrospect, people like Evil Ed, Lewis Parker, Last Skeptik, Ghost, IQ, Mentat, Stereotype and some of the other more new school guys - the list is long on that front, it'd be a good time for someone to follow suit with something exclusively UK maybe?
It's interesting you feel boom bap is an aesthetic rather than a genre - if you had to describe that aesthetic what would it look like?
Kper Ah that's the can of worms right there! For me the description of boom bap as an aesthetic rather than a genre stems from the work I did last year on a series of articles centered around the idea of a 'Return of the Boom Bap' in hip hop productions, looking at people like Flying Lotus, edIT, Nosaj Thing, LuckyMe collective etc... When we were going over the text for the website last month I think I wrote, unintentionally, something to the effect that boom bap was a genre and Jim pulled me up and was like 'nah'. Which is where I consciously started to write, and refer to, boom bap as an aesthetic because that's what it really is to me, in my head.
I dont know what it would look like, I don't see it visually but one of the defining things of a boom bap aesthetic for me is the headnod, or the head snap in some cases, that automatically happens when you listen to certain productions. That to me is the physical embodiment of boom bap and why it's not a genre, but rather something which transcends genre if you will. Classic 80s/90s hip hop productions have that boom bap, that neck snap, and to me the new generation, the one we've traced in this mix, has that same element in their music. So Premo or Marley Marl or Pete Rock made boom bap with their influences (soul, funk, etc...) and now people like Flying Lotus or Hudson Mohawke make boom bap with their influences (80s, video games, etc...)
If we take one of the dictionary definitions of aesthetic (the noun) as 'A guiding principle in matters of artistic beauty and taste; artistic sensibility' then to me boom bap is a guiding principle for production and beats - if your beat has that boom bap in it, chances are people's head will nod without them thinking, their bodies will start moving, there's just something in the music. And I hope we manage to translate that to the listeners with the mix, as for me every track in there has that 'je ne sais quoi' which is the boom bap aesthetic for me.
I dont know what it would look like, I don't see it visually but one of the defining things of a boom bap aesthetic for me is the headnod, or the head snap in some cases, that automatically happens when you listen to certain productions. That to me is the physical embodiment of boom bap and why it's not a genre, but rather something which transcends genre if you will. Classic 80s/90s hip hop productions have that boom bap, that neck snap, and to me the new generation, the one we've traced in this mix, has that same element in their music. So Premo or Marley Marl or Pete Rock made boom bap with their influences (soul, funk, etc...) and now people like Flying Lotus or Hudson Mohawke make boom bap with their influences (80s, video games, etc...)
If we take one of the dictionary definitions of aesthetic (the noun) as 'A guiding principle in matters of artistic beauty and taste; artistic sensibility' then to me boom bap is a guiding principle for production and beats - if your beat has that boom bap in it, chances are people's head will nod without them thinking, their bodies will start moving, there's just something in the music. And I hope we manage to translate that to the listeners with the mix, as for me every track in there has that 'je ne sais quoi' which is the boom bap aesthetic for me.
2Tall For me its just a taste thing, a lot of modern hip-hop or rap music production is centred around a straight 16th feel - i.e. its syncopation is based on triplets - so it looks more like a jagged angular design in my mind. The 'boom bap asthetic' is more of a loose thing, it's swinging and its heavier with the kicks and snares, the format has more freedom - it's more chaotic. Something about the unquantized groove to me engages you on a different level, my whole love for the style which has been sadly termed 'wonky' is that it forces you to listen and feel it, it's not so obvious and throwaway (although already the 'beat scene' has a stylised feel perhaps) - let's be honest, Dilla pushed that to the table, Madlib followed suit and between those two guys the whole world has taken note and ran with the ball to where we are now in this 'post Dilla era'.
For me its just 'the funk!' - when I was working with Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins on 'Beautiful Mindz' back in 2007, we would constantly be evaluating what they termed the 'fonk' which apparenly paraphrases an African term for the same meaning, i.e. the groove. For them and myself I feel rhythm is part of our spirituality as people, and it should be explored. So for me the idea of a heavy humanized groove is more of a deeper design. As someone who has taken part in shamanic drum rituals and the like, I can definitely see similarities between some of the more complex earth-based spiritual rituals and the music of Flying Lotus for example. So to me 'wonky' has more meaning than that - its design is more colourful - this is why people seem to approximate some of the new styles with 'cosmic funk' or 'space music'. I should add that to me a straight 16th pattern does not really engage me on that same level, and to me seems to be why the more club based 'banger' format doesnt either.
For me its just 'the funk!' - when I was working with Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins on 'Beautiful Mindz' back in 2007, we would constantly be evaluating what they termed the 'fonk' which apparenly paraphrases an African term for the same meaning, i.e. the groove. For them and myself I feel rhythm is part of our spirituality as people, and it should be explored. So for me the idea of a heavy humanized groove is more of a deeper design. As someone who has taken part in shamanic drum rituals and the like, I can definitely see similarities between some of the more complex earth-based spiritual rituals and the music of Flying Lotus for example. So to me 'wonky' has more meaning than that - its design is more colourful - this is why people seem to approximate some of the new styles with 'cosmic funk' or 'space music'. I should add that to me a straight 16th pattern does not really engage me on that same level, and to me seems to be why the more club based 'banger' format doesnt either.
The tracklist is heavily peppered with Madlib & J Dilla right up until 2006 where they both disappear, and the baton seems to pass over quite abruptly to names like Flying Lotus & Hudson Mohawke. Was the death of J Dilla in 2006 an intentional part of the narrative of your mix, or do you feel it reflected a natural watershed moment musically?
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