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One for the treble, two for the bass

Saturday, June 5, 2010

I’ve been hearing this line in a lot of hip-hop songs: “One for the treble, two for the time” or “One for the treble, two for the bass” or some variation. I wanted to find out what everybody’s quoting. After some internet detective work, here’s what I’ve got. The phrase is a play on the [...]

Filed in Music, Sampling | Also tagged aceyalone, brand nubian, common, davy dmx, digging the crates, dj khaled, eighties, elvis presley, grandmaster flash, hip-hop, kurtis blow, memes, sergio mendes, seventies, snoop dogg, spoonie g | Comments (10)

The natural history of the Funky Drummer break

Monday, May 25, 2009

“The Funky Drummer Parts One And Two” by James Brown and the JBs is one of the most-sampled recordings in history. “The Funky Drummer” is a cornerstone of hip-hop and other sample-based electronic music, but for the first decade after its release it was an obscure tune. It’s a nice groove, but as a song, [...]

Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Evolution, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling | Also tagged algorithms, audio editing, black thought, copyright, digging the crates, eminem, freestyle, funk, funky drummer, godel, hip-hop, james brown, looping, memes, Music, programming, recursion, remixes, rnb, Sampling, soul, susan blackmore | Comments (5)