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Given that we’ve been talking about the various flips of “Blind Alley,” we figured: why not see what other creative steps people can take to work with this? Here’s the original stereo version of the song: The Emotions: Blind Alley For beatmakers out there: what can you do with it that hasn’t already been done? Submit your track here and we’ll try to put up the best ones for public feedback in a couple of weeks.
In Part One, Matthew Africa and I broke down The Emotions’ “Blind Alley” based on its production and arrangement. For Part Two, we look at how it’s been used as a sample source. (My comments are in plain text, Africa’s are in italics). In general when producers categorize samples, they often break them down into either “loops” or “breaks”. A “loop” is any sample that’s repeated end-to-end to create a continuous pattern. This is frequently done with basslines, riffs, drum parts or even a whole arrangement, but a loop can be anything that’s repeated. By contrast, a [...]
Continue reading BREAKING DOWN “BLIND ALLEY” PART TWO
It’s been ages since I had done a post over at Soul Sides/Sliced and I decided to put “Blind Alley” through the treatment, joined by Matthew Africa. Check it out: “Breaking Down ‘Blind Alley’” In Part 2, Africa and [...] Continue reading BREAKING DOWN “BLIND ALLEY” PART 1
This Exile/Blu collabo has been in steady rotation for a minute and it got me thinking about how signature and powerful Otis Redding’s voice is. Obviously, Ye and Jay’s “Otis” made this clear to but in enjoying “When Nothing’s Left,” it got me to thinking about other examples of Otis’s voice coming directly into a sample.1 One of my all-time favorite examples is this: Grand Puba: Check tha Resume The use of the [...] Continue reading OTIS
Head Warmers (1997). This was actually the sixth in a series of ’90s/indie hip-hop-driven mixtapes and it’s become the one I have gotten the most props for; DJ Shadow even has it as one of the mixtapes shown in the liner notes for Private Press.
Polyrhythmatic (1998). Another indie hip-hop heavy mix and personally, my favorite mix from this era, both in terms of the song selection and the segues I played with.
Continue reading FREE MIXES
“The above song is dedicated to the city and people of San Francisco” (decked out in red and gold…and not just for the Year of the Dragon). Just a random observation/thought but music and sports are, of course, intensely personal but they’re also appreciated even better when others around you are just as passionate about it. So this past few weeks have been fun as hell, with almost everyone I know in the [...] Continue reading DON’T GIVE US NO BAMMER WEED
Craig G: Take the Bait A Tribe Called Quest: Rock Rock Ya’ll (Dec. 2011: This is another repost/resurrection. First posted in 2007 but original comments were lost. Since I just wrote about this Wright/Watts 103rd song for the Oxford American, it also seemed totally apropos to bring it back. –O.W.) Original post from ’07: The original song [...] Continue reading MARLEY MARL/CRAIG G VS. ATCQ: WHO FLIPPED IT BETTER
KMD: Plumskinzz Eric B. and Rakim: Keep the Beat (This was originally posted four years ago but because of how my commenting system has changed since then, I lost all the original comments about it and that seemed like a shame. As it was, I was listening to “Plumskinz” again – I never can get enough of this song – and I figured, “hell, why [...] Continue reading KMD vs. Eric. B and Rakim: Who Flipped It Better? |
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The Emotions’ “Blind Alley” is one of my favorite Stax/Volt songs of all time and it’s been nearly eight years since I’ve written about it. I’ve been meaning to revisit it and do up something more elaborate after seeing how it got reissued in that Never To Be Forgotten boxset I just wrote about.
Double Flip (1999/2000). This was a [...]
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