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Recreate Beats by Kanye and Dilla
Sample-Stitch is a diverting new website from Matt Daniels, creator of the fascinating ‘Rappers: Sorted by the Size of their Vocabulary’ project. It’s an intriguing look at some famous hip-hop beats, completely deconstructed. The tracks currently featured are J Dilla’s ‘Don’t Cry’, Kanye West’s ‘Otis’ and 9th Wonder’s ‘Impressknowsoul’.
Daniels has broken down the original samples that these tracks are constructed from in an attempt to get inside the heads of the producers and work out why they made the artistic choices that they did. The site essentially turns your computer keyboard onto a trigger pad that allows you to recreate the beats as the producers did, or come up with something completely new yourself from the same component parts. It is aimed at non-producers, but is an interesting enough project that most people will probably get something out of it if they are interested in how any of these hip-hop production powerhouses operate. Head over to Sample-Stitch to have a go.
Here is the thinking behind Sample-Stitch in Daniels’ own words; “I’ve been re-constructing hip hop songs from their original samples, and every time I’ve been fascinated by the producer’s choices.
Before we take a look at each sample, you might have noticed how weird it is to compose with milliseconds of a song. Producers are studying these moments for hours. They understand the minutia – the exact note at the exact millisecond that creates an interesting beat.
I wish that more people understood this process and gift, so I’ve re-created the process of chopping up a sample, just as a producer would. Note: I’m providing these samples to you on a platter. This is no way accounts for the hours/days spent crate-digging.”