Let me hand in my late pass in advance, because this topic has already been chewed to death out on the “Internets.” As you may know,
Vibe.com conducted a very elaborate, NCAA-style, bracketed and seeded tournament to determine the best rapper alive, based on votes. Who won, you ask?
Eminem, which as you might imagine, raised some eyebrows, especially since it came down to him and Jay-Z. Allegations of racism flew, as did the argument that Eminem, who has basically been inactive since 2005, is largely irrelevant commercially.
But that’s not what concerned me.
What concerned me was the inclusion in the tournament of a Mr. Carlos Walker, better known as Shawty Lo.
Shawty Lo is best known for giving the world the stripper masterpiece “Laffy Taffy” as a part of the group D4L, for beefing with T.I., and also for his single “Dey Know.” He’s only released one solo album, and on top of that, he’s one of the worst rappers I’ve ever heard. I understand the whole molasses-slow Southern flow thing, but this guy is ridiculous: “Let’s get money/I got plenty/Dope Boyz let’s get get get it.” His cadence remains nearly the same, and his tone never changes. But here’s the thing: I love “Dey Know.” Despite the fact that Lo’s flow is deplorable, the beat is a certified scorcher from relative unknown Balis Beats, which makes it all worthwhile.
In any case, Shawty Lo’s inclusion would seem to suggest that, at least in the minds of Vibe voters, beat making or beat selection is part of the criteria for best rapper alive. However, there’s a fundamental inequality between the individual talent it takes to pick beats, and to make your own, although Nas makes picking them look pretty hard (I did like “Hero,” though). So by that logic, all rapper-producers should be way higher up the list anyway, ideally a final showdown between Kanye and Dr. Dre, with final four status for The RZA and Andre 3000.
In this case, it’s hard to judge rapping entirely separately from the beat because the two are fundamentally intertwined. After all, so much of a great hip-hop song is how the cadence, content and flow relate to the instrumental track. But still, the whole morass made me realize how thankless production is, unless you’re a rapper-producer, or a bonafide super producer like Timbaland.
I shouldn’t stick up for them too much because the elite producers rake in thousands of dollars per track, and I suppose that’s enough for most. But most producers go through their entire careers obscured by those who rap over their tracks. The fact is that the beats are the thumping heart of hip-hop. Without good ones, it’s dead. And while there are a lot of great producers out there, it’s only a select few that are household names, which just so happens to be dependent on whether or not they contribute vocals.
Think about it. All the famous producers are the ones who either rap, such as Kanye, Dre, and Pharrell, or the ones who barely mumble ad-libs during their tracks, such as Timbaland, all of which will usually get you a “featuring” credit. For example, Pharrell produced “Blue Magic” for Jay-Z, and the official credit for that song is Jay-Z featuring Pharrell. I can understand that, because Skateboard P sang the hook. However, a good deal of the songs on “FutureSex/LoveSounds” by Justin Timberlake are “featuring” Timbaland, even though he can barely string four bars of rapping together, as seen in “SexyBack.” It is credited to Justin Timberlake featuring Timbaland, although all Timbo contributes in the way of vocals is “Take it to the chorus,” and “Yeah!”
So let me get this straight. Timbaland produces “SexyBack” ““ admittedly a great feat ““ and mumbles a couple words and he gets a “featured” credit, while Just Blaze produces T.I.’s number one hit and absolute jam “Live Your Life” and he doesn’t get a “featured” credit? Clearly, the bureaucracy of crediting is totally based on vocals.
In any other case, this would seem just. But in hip-hop, where producers have at least a 50 percent shareholding in each finished track, it doesn’t seem right that producers don’t get an actual track listing credit.
I realize that some producers probably like it better it this way, eschewing the limelight for a steady paycheck and more freedom to move from project to project, preferring to stay in the studio, behind the boards and off the stage. But as someone who obsesses as much over producers as rappers, I think it would be a major selling point to look at the back of an album and see who produced each track. I’m much more likely to buy something if I know that DJ Toomp splashed his ride cymbal and gothic synths all over a track, or if I know that Madlib unleashed some gnarly Indian film sample.
Maybe I’m just trying to make a world more aware of producers so I don’t get blank looks when I go on and on about Polow da Don, but I think that in a genre so dependent on them, the music world should be more aware of producers, and not just the ones that ad-lib.
“Talk to me girl.”
If you want to talk endlessly about Polow da Don’s productions too, then e-mail Ayres at jayres@media.ucla.edu.