Saturday, May 9, 2009

Behind The Beats, Vol. 7: Jake One's "The Truth ft. Freeway & Brother Ali"

Jake One dropped one of the best-produced albums of 2008 with his Rhymesayers-released album, White Van Music. The entire record featured track after track of sublime beats, whether they were sample-based or not. Jake One has an incredible knack for capturing the mood and theme of each song in his beats; it seems like each one was tailor-made to tell a specific story for evoke a certain emotion. One of the album's ndeniable highlights, however, was the lead single "The Truth ft. Freeway and Brother Ali." Besides boasting two of rap's finest emcees dropping knowledge to the finest degree, Jake One crafted an absolute masterpiece of a beat. Sampling Johnnie Taylor's "At Night Time (My Pillow Tells a Tale on Me)," the beat is the epitome of the call and response element of sampling old records in hip-hop production. Taylor's wistful, meloncholy piece was chopped and sampled by Jake One in to a beat that exemplifies the heavy blues influence on hip-hop. Check out the link below to hear Taylor's original piece, and then give Jake One's track a listen to check out some of the finest production work of 2008 (I included both the original and instrumental versions).

Johnnie Taylor: "At Night Time (My Pillow Tells a Tale on Me)"



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