Category: Portfolio One

On my way back from seeing my family in Portugal I used the time in between events to create more instrumentals, for the first instrumental I created using only the stock sounds within Ableton. Layering a Wavetable synth, bass and synth drums. I layered sends and returns of time-based effects. Something I learned in mixing secrets.

The following two beats were quick and intuitive. I didn’t try to think too much but I just used samples within my MacBook as I was flying at the time, and I didn’t have any internet.

The first one was funky, and I looped up a rough section and another part of the same sample, I didn’t try and keep it to the grid, I just looped what felt right. I then added a drum loop and extended it. I really liked it.

The last instrumental called ALLL RIGHT was chopping up in the same way J Dilla did in Donuts, picking sections at 1/8 chops and playing these back in a different order. After layering it up and finding the right sections I was really happy with the progress.

Since I now have 7 beats on the SoundCloud project group, and a few more not on there I want to make last few ones and then commence writing, recording, mixing, mastering.

I decided to share my work during the WIP for the university, I was not prepared but I felt it would be useful to show my work in progress and have something to help me with reflecting and improving my work and greater contextualising it. I decided to go for something simple, put the ten instrumentals I’ve made so far into one file, each a minute long, influenced by the Madlib Beat tapes he gives to artists and then the graphic score which I’m yet to perform with or do anything with.

This was the final outcome and the bench felt nice, when listening to I felt like it really connected well with the graphic score, even though it was not used to the composition, I also had mixed feedback, some people called it lo-fi hip hop beats to study to, and others completing getting what I was doing, and that my sample choice was great. I discussed this with someone with my ideas about copyright law and I felt perhaps the next thing I can do is create a copyright graphic score, using copyrighted photos and images as the score for my composition.

As well as this I felt the beats needed rapping, now is the time to start!

As we had the WIP coming up, I felt it would be a good time to get feedback and see what people think and test a few things out. I decided to paint a graphic score, as I had a canvas I had not used yet, and play the drums on it. I don’t have enough time yet to actually play the drums, but I will hang up the canvas with some music for my WIP show.

I started by making a few trials on my small notepad, exploring more chaotic versions, circles and lined graphic scores.

At first, I decided to add masking tape to add some straight lines and texture and then I felt like I was overthinking it. I have been reading about Basquiat and the way he would paint, I read he would think quickly and intuitively so I decided to stop being methodical and just go with the flow.

This was the outcome.

Again perhaps not the greatest painting but I did enjoy the process, I thought it went really well and I can totally imagine painting to this, I went with what I felt, and I can see different sections of chaos, calmness and rhythm within this. I will now go and hang this up alongside the current instrumentals I’ve been working on.

After looking into Christian Marclay I saw he had released a graphic score work titled Ephemera in 2009, which only had 100 copies I can not find all the scores online but I did find a few, here are some examples.

I’ve been really interested in this and I feel like I want to try a graphic score and see what I can do with it, perhaps use it to compose some drum performances? Or a collage version?

I was looking for further context into Madlib as an artist. Through research, I found this thesis online which helped me understand the relationship between samples and sample-based musical works such as what Madlib is doing on his label Madlib Invasion.

Here are some quotes,

David Hesmondhalgh argues copyright has become the main means of commodifying a culture.

Copyright is to own something as property, to commodify culture one has to claim it as their own, using copyright is the worst way to dominate culture, this is what record companies are doing.

If we focus on the problems surrounding commodification in relation to copyright, the main issue is not the abstraction and concealment of labour and exploitation, which can be located at the production side. Rather, there is the limiting of access, which happens through consumption, as “commodification spreads a notion of ownership and property as the right to exclude others.

Exclusion, when everything is sitting on top of the shoulder of giants is a huge negative, to focus and understand it shows and gives us a revelation of thought within this.

Copyright holders use their bundle of rights to exchange access to their works for money. However, copyright is also used in order to maintain exclusive ownership over a work, and copyright holders use their rights to only permit adaptive or derivative works when properly licensed 

so it’s this idea that only if you can afford it, or if I like you, can we collaborate and work together, this gatekeeping mentality does not push forward the idea of creativity.

Kimbrew McLeod and Peter Dicola argue in Creative License (2011) that through the current copyright regime, sampling hip hop artists are pushed to the margins of the music industry and forced to release their music in a more ‘underground’ fashion. In doing so, unestablished or lesser known artists have found a way to release their music that possibly keeps them from being sued, or at least minimises the risk of litigation 

It’s sad to think and realise that these hip-hop artists are pushed to the margins of the music industry and are forced to operate in this way in order for it to be a functional way of working, to limit the ways of being caught and sued.

Jackson confessed to not having a mission statement for his label, describing his approach in a 2016 interview as: “Just putting out stuff I want to hear and it has nothing to do with anybody else.”11 The label’s first release, Madlib Medicine Show #1: Before the Verdict (2010), does indicate an off-centre approach, stating that: “Madlib Medicine Show is a music series by producer Madlib consisting of experimental hip-hop, jazz fusion and electronic music, produced, marketed and released with little concern for traditional norms of the commercial record industry 

So Madlib in his work does acknowledge this in his work, he’s self-aware, and he knows that he has little concern for the commercial record industry, this is what he likes, but is this because the industry does not allow room for people like him?

Furthermore, the booklet to the CD Madlib – Madlib Medicine Show #13: Black Tape includes a reprinted review of an earlier Madlib release, which critiques Madlib over his use of other people’s work, with the only given context that the review is reprinted without the author’s permission.15 Together with the extensive use of uncredited sampled material, it becomes clear the Madlib Invazion label does not operate along the guidelines of copyright law. This is why the releases as found on the Madlib Invazion label are used as object of study, since they show an obvious neglect of copyright. 

When Madlib includes a sampled review saying that he does nothing and just steals people’s work, and then includes that in the booklet of his CD, you know what he is saying is exactly that. I’m here to do my art and not care about the industry.

How does the use of copyrighted material by practice of sampling as issued by Madlib Invazion problematize the commodification of music through copyright? 

This a great question to ask, and I think this Is the main idea presented in this thesis.

Sampling practice, copyright laws and commodification of music 

So this book questions these three main questions and three main points, it discusses sampling practice, copyright laws and commodification of music.

I will predominantly draw on the writings and theories of Vanessa Chang and Brian Kane. As outlined earlier in this introduction, I am not so much interested in establishing sampling as a creative practice. Rather, it can be argued that the distinguishing feature of sampling as a practice is the use of pre-existing and/or pre-recorded material. Through the use of pre-existing material, the sample-based song has a relation to its origin 

It’s interesting to see that the author does not want to argue about where sampling is a creative practice, but more that what distinguishes sampling as a practice is using pre-existing or pre-recorded material. And that through sampling, without a shadow of a doubt, it begins to have a relationship with the sample it used.

“[W]hatever the music-commodity is, it is utterly dependent on the circumstances surrounding its commodification, which is largely driven by its means of reproduction, themselves commodities.”18 In a later article, Taylor further dissects the circumstances under which music becomes commodified, establishing three regimes of commodification, namely as a published score, a live performance or as recorded sound.19 

The only three ways of commodifying are through these three ways. Live performance, recorded sound and published score. This is the circumstance in which commodification begins.

I will focus on the Madlib Invazion label as being a particular circumstance in which music is commodified. Being strictly an artist endeavour, the releases on the label showcase how far an artist is permitted to go, or how an artist is capable of securing his own place in the market despite the hostile stance towards sampling of the copyright regime. 

So Madlib still does commodify his music and compositions, but it’s interesting to see how far an artist will go and take his work, even though it is illegal and technically breaching copyright laws.

By isolating a sound from its context and source, possibly recombining it with other dislocated sounds, the sound becomes aestheticized. Like Chang, Kane emphasises the reification of sound. In order to capture sound within a recording, objects are necessary. These sound objects can be of any medium, for instance, vinyl records or digital files stored on a hard drive. Sound objects are acousmatic of nature, as they are capable of bringing about a sonic effect, obscuring the sound’s cause in the process.

The writer here discusses the idea of dislocated sounds, and that the process of sampling does this in effect when composing, as well as this the sounds become then aestheticized in the process. Sound objects in this case, such as vinyl records or digital files stored on a hard drive become acousmatic, as they play sounds without a noticeable source.

In sampling however, particularly the sampling in hip hop, the sources used are sounds already considered music, like the vinyl records included in Imaginary Landscapes No. 1. There is however an important difference between Cage’s and Schaeffer’s employment of sound objects. Imaginary Landscapes No. 1 uses records for the simple reason it preceded the invention of audio tape.

It’s drawing a contrast here that hip-hop is not the first culture or work that uses sampling, cage in his piece Imaginary Landscapes No. 1. uses a vinyl record with automated speeds, essentially a sample, and the author makes a point that this was before the audio tape, so sampling had to be in this form.

One reason for which vinyl records are preferred is for their characteristic sound, and it is not uncommon for producers to sample a worn-out record, leaving the sample with static and other vinyl related noise attached. 

The author makes a point that in modern times, vinyl records are chosen as a sample source for the aesthetic and audio quality they deliver, with the vinyl crackle being an interesting sonic quality the producers enjoy.

As Chang herself says, it is ‘somewhat strict’ to use vinyl for samples. Like any musical genre, hip hop too has artists that do not play by the rulebook. Although known as an avid record collector, Madlib has acknowledged drawing from other media for sample sources, such as cassette, VHS, digital files or even YouTube videos. 

And although people and artists enjoy vinyl records as samplable items, it’s not just that, Madlib samples VHS, cassette, digital files, and Youtube.

The more frequent and trained jazz listener however, is able to recognise when a standard is being played or reinterpreted. The same can be argued for the use of samples. As Chang notes, it is perfectly possible for a listener of hip hop to not know he or she is listening to a sample-based composition. More dedicated listeners of hip hop however, know that most of the time they are listening to music which is produced through recombination and re- contextualisation of other sound objects. Together with the characteristics such as surface noise or hiss, implicating the use of sound objects as source, there is an understanding within the hip hop audience that samples are being used. 

This is an interesting notion, something I had not considered before, but the idea is that each sound object has a specific sound source that a seasoned listener can identify.

Producers recognise that histories are constituted by various interpretations of the past, and that the archive is a creative medium rather than the static imprint of that past. 

Well, it’s a great point to make that hip hop and sampling is a modern imprint of the archive, that a static imprint does nothing but show us what was, sampling can allow these sound sources to come alive again.

If we suppose that the listener is aware he or she is listening to sample – either because the recording reveals that other sound objects were used in the process, or because the listener recognises the recurring use of samples within hip hop – the listener is also aware there is an origin, a cause, albeit obscured. 

This understanding has shaped its own archive for the use of sound objects by practice of sampling. Amongst other initiatives that express a concern for the origin as well as a practice of archival memory, internet users have created online spaces that disclose the original sound objects used in hip hop recordings. One of these is the website WhoSampled.com, which allows its users to make entries disclosing how two different compositions are connected. As the website’s main page boasts: “Discover music through sampling, cover songs and remixes. Dig deeper into music by discovering direct connections among over 517,000 songs.”54 Interestingly enough, samples can only be contributed when posted with a link to an online file, such as embedded YouTube videos, SoundCloud audio or streaming services such as Tidal or Spotify 

It’s true that if you are aware of the sample you know it’s not there, hip hop makes it obvious, the sound object and its uniqueness or sample through memory can give away the fact it’s a sample and not composed. Who sampled existing shows that people are interested in the direct connections from this, that listeners are not stupid and know it’s a sample and are curious to discover who created it.

These online spaces point to hip hop’s own logic of archival memory, with its listeners trying to restore the relation between sample/origin, and perhaps more fundamentally, sound/cause. The websites rely strictly on the input from users and are only remotely moderated. 

So it’s only users that can input within this website, Who sampled. This makes a great point that the popularity of the site shows how curious and interested people are in their own archival memory, with listeners trying to restore the gaps between sample/origin and sound/cause.

With the approach of copyright as a property, the possibility of artificial scarcity is created. This artificial scarcity is far from desirable because it installs the possibility of monopoly: 

Therefore, Jefferson feared, the monopolists could use their state-granted power to strengthen their control over the flow of ideas and the use of expressions. Monopolies have the power to enrich themselves by evading the limitations of the competitive marketplace. Prices need not fall when demand slackens, and demand need not slacken if the monopoly makes itself essential to the economy.66 

the control of ideas and expression, is what copyright law does, monopoly the ideas and expression within their ownership. The state granted the power to strengthen its way of ownership and enrich itself by evading the limitations of the competitive music marketplace.

Vaidhyanathan’s point is thus that such protection invokes the idea that composers are lone geniuses, who create original work which they can consider their property. Whilst in reality popular music is subject to an ambiguous creative process which any number of people can take part in, each of them bringing their own set of influences and inspirations with them, conscious as well as unconscious, on which their ‘original’ composition builds. No work of art is ever created in a vacuum, void of outside influences, and therefore copyright law should be critical towards awarding composers their absolute originality. 

Copyright makes an idea that these people did this alone, that anything that is similar or takes inspiration from is considered their property. even music genres can be affected by this. No art exists within a vacuum and the laws around copyright are negative and impact this creative activity.

The case ruled that the Gaye’s should be awarded 5.3 million US dollars for reimbursement, together with 50 % of Blurred Lines’ royalties, because of the similarities between the two songs. The ruling was heavily criticised because it rendered a very broad copyright to Gaye’s composition. One of the rulings criticisers, Judge Jacqueline Nyugen, stated that the court’s decision “accomplish[ed] what no one has done before: copyright a musical style.”74 

When the song blurred lines got sued for sounding close to something else, not even a direct sample, compositionally or sonically of the recording. This is when a dystopia exists where people say they can’t create anything because someone owns it. Sonic collages are that, a reflection and creative outlet of ourselves.

The war is not about new forms of creativity, not about artists making new art. (…) But every war has its collateral damage. These creators are just one type of collateral damage from this war. The extreme regulation that copyright law has become makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for a wide range of creativity that any free society (…) would allow to exist, legally.101 

The collateral damage from the way of copyright is the creativity of certain artists, such as hip-hop artists. it is what it is and this is how they are affected.

Why should it be that just when technology is most encouraging of creativity, the law should be most restrictive? Why should it be effectively impossible for an artist from Harlem practicing the form of art of the age to commercialize his creativity because the costs of negotiating and clearing the rights here are so incredibly high? 

So this author wants to make a point that the main reason sample-based music struggled is the negotiating and clearing of the rights, which is on the owner, no law can create a fair argument as to what it should and could cost to do this process. And that in modern times, the law does not reflect the actual technology that is present, which de la soul and their work three feet high and rising shows, as they were ahead of the curve on sampling causing the law to catch up.

If sample clearance is testament to the pragmatic nature of capitalism, the releases on Madlib Invazion such as Low Budget Hi-Fi Music, are testament to the pragmatic nature of independent labels avoiding the high costs of licensing. 

I sit well within this Madlib Invazion label and even though I am not signed, this is what I am about.

I decided to read this journal about sampling and the idea of it as a composition tool, something I’d previously read in a Brian Eno essay. I’m interested to see someone else’s interpretation of this idea and what they think in relation to samplers and how they are compositional tools. Here are some quotes.

“rap producers have inverted this logic, using samples as a point of reference, as a means by which the process of repetition and recontextualisation can be highlighted and privileged”. (Rose: 1994, p. 73)

This quote started speaking about how microsampling is something other than re-appropriation. It makes a point that rap producers are interested in samples as a point of reference, the loop and recontextualisation is the idea of it, how can we take sections and turn them into a whole thing.

like plunderphonics pioneer, John Oswald, Lacasse recognises that “manipulations can make it difficult to identify the recording from which the quotation has been extracted”. (p. 39)

This constant battle that sometimes you can’t tell what is being sampled is confusing and at times beneficial due to copyright laws, but this idea that sampling isn’t always obvious, sometimes you can’t tell it’s a sample.

These kinds of manipulations are relevant to the musicians who will form the basis of this case study and whose approach to sampling has as much in common with the use of everyday sounds and musique concrete than quotation.

So this essay is about these artists that use sounds and argues that sampling is closer to music concrete than quoting the samples it’s using.

However, Rose too often focuses on sampling as a “tactical priority” (Rose: 1994, p. 73) rather than the musical priorities and aesthetic choices made by producers in the recording studio. She also appears to be guilty of a rather crude essentialism by concentrating on “black cultural priorities”

So this writer Rose focuses too much on the idea of sampling as the main subject of interest. Rather than sampling as an aesthetic choice or style that a producer has when taking or recording samples.

Does the sampler form part of what Eno describes as “an additive approach to recording” which enables musicians “to chop and change, to paint a bit out, add a piece”?

This quote considers and reflects on the Eno essay, where he describes what the tape machine does for him, and what it allows him to do, as someone who cannot play an instrument. He can become a musician. Is a sampler the same?

the recording of music has moved from booths to the bedroom to the laptop, a meta-device that enables music to be produced, distributed, and consumed.

The idea of a laptop as a meta device in the modern recording world is interesting, perhaps this is my interest when using something like an SP404MK2, do I not want something to have dominance over everything I do?

I realised that a lot of the process within this final major portfolio work is to question your own practice, for me right now it’s why sampling, and more recently, why the turntable? Why do I like records and sampling through the turntable? What does this represent for me? So I’ll do some research into an artist or two about it.

Christian Marclay was the first one that appeared, it seemed as if he was coined with inventing to use the gramophone and the turntable as an instrument for his works, coming up around the same time as the hip hop movement in the late 1970s.

I read this interview with Christian Marclay he describes his work and other aspects. Firstly this interview is by Vincent Katz, The parts that are interesting are the second page, they discuss where he has been influenced, is Fluxus part of the influence? He says the music isn’t but that there is no such thing as Fluxus music, but Fluxus as an idea, that conventional music, the presentation of music, people on a stage and everyone else watching. I want to look into Fluxus. Further on the third page here, it describes that there is a similarity between hip and rap music, at least on the surface with his practice. He says that “I think the desire to quote and make reference to the past is a very contemporary attitude. I don’t know why people feel like that. Everybody grew up listening to all this stuff, and all this music is, in a way, already sampled in our heads, it’s there. It’s a way that the musician triggers those memory bits that play with memory.

How can this be a memory for someone like me, who is sampling things I’ve never heard before? Quoting the past? Situating ones self into the piece of work? Fluxus?

I watched this video where he discusses what he is interested in, sounds like people we don’t want. We don’t want to hear the pops the clicks and the surface noise when listening to a record. Christian Marclay, he is interested in this practice and those are the sounds he wants to use. The sounds he can get out of the record are what he is interested in, and what can he get from it, he would cut the records into three pieces and then combine them into one. He described the punk rock as a huge influence on him, it allowed him to play music without studying music, and without having an instrument he began using his turntable as an instrument. He was doing this before hip-hop.

Christian Marclay Records

This project was made by Christian throughout the 1980s, he ended up creating an album built up of hundreds of hours of random recordings, using different turntables and affecting the vinyl record in different ways. He used the records as instruments and the turntables as the players, he would cut them up, melt them and manipulate them in numerous ways, the outcome was something similar to the Fluxus idea of process over outcome, that creating is the best thing to do. I will say the creative use and looped-up sections interest me heavily. It’s a similar but different thing than what I’ve been composing but the actual work is fascinating.

Specifically, the track 1930 captures my attention wholeheartedly, It’s a transfusion of pieces all held together, the trumpet being affected, the record being scratched, and the in and out keys coming through. Painting the record with an idea of random expression. I really like it.

Also just to note, I read he makes graphic scores specifically one called Ephemera, I want to check out graphic scores for myself as I want to paint one.

As I couldn’t find his bio, I did see his Wikipedia and his website is not his website but his label website? Again not sure if the Wikipedia information is accurate. I then located his bio on his Spotify which is written by Mark Demming a music journalist.

Describing himself as “a DJ first, producer second, and MC last,” Madlib is the primary alias of Otis Jackson, Jr., who has become one of the most celebrated, prolific, and eclectic artists in hip-hop since emerging on the scene in the early ’90s. Also known as Quasimoto, Beat Konducta, and Yesterdays New Quintet, among his dozens of handles, the unique sound and feel of Madlib’s work — created primarily without computers using old-school recording and sampling gear — has made him a valued collaborator with a number of leading hip-hop performers, and a widely praised figure in the underground rap community. There are many highly regarded albums in the vast Madlib discography. These include the Lootpack’s Soundpieces: Da Antidote! (1999), Quasimoto’s The Unseen (2000), Jaylib’s Champion Sound (2003), and Madvillain’s Madvillainy (2004), as well as Piñata (2014) and Bandana (2019), his two LPs with Freddie Gibbs. Some of his additional collaborations include the Jahari Massamba Unit (his duo with Karriem Riggins), who released Pardon My French in 2020, and his full-length with Four Tet, 2021’s Sound Ancestors.

Otis Jackson, Jr. was born in Oxnard, California on October 24, 1973. His father, Otis Jackson, Sr., was a working jazz and blues musician, while his mother, Sinesca, was a guitarist and songwriter, and his uncle was noted jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis. Young Otis first became interested in the workings of a recording studio while watching his father at work, and soaked up a wealth of musical influences while growing up, developing a keen interest in hip-hop along the way.

In 1990, Jackson adopted the stage name Madlib when he joined the trio Lootpack with his friends DJ Romes and Wildchild. When rapper King Tee heard the group, Lootpack were invited to make their recording debut as guests on the album 21 & Over by Tee’s crew Tha Alkaholiks; Madlib was also credited as a producer on one track. Lootpack had a hard time scoring a record deal, and it wasn’t until 1995 that they released their first record on their own — the Psyche Move EP — on Crate Digga’s Palace, a label bankrolled by Madlib’s father. In time, Lootpack would cross paths with DJ and producer Peanut Butter Wolf, who signed the trio to his Stones Throw Records label. It was the beginning of a long relationship between Madlib and Stones Throw, which would release much of his future body of work.

By the time Lootpack released their first album, 1999’s Soundpieces: Da Antidote!, Madlib was already moving on to other projects; he had produced records for Declaime and O.G.C., remixed material for Peanut Butter Wolf’s Definition of Ill 12″, and debuted his Quasimoto persona, in which he delivered weed-laced verses in an artificially high, distorted voice over spacious beats and cool, often jazz-influenced breaks. After a handful of singles, the first Quasimoto album, The Unseen, appeared in 2000; the record received critical praise upon its release and gained a following as an underground rap cult classic.

In 2001, Madlib unveiled another project, a jazz ensemble called Yesterdays New Quintet, with the EP Elle’s Theme. While the YNQ material was credited to a quintet of musicians, with Madlib joined by Monk Hughes, Joe McDuphrey, Malik Flavors, and Ahmad Miller, Madlib in fact performed all the music on their releases himself, showing off his skills on keyboards and percussion as well as producing and sampling. (This would not prevent Madlib from letting his fictive bandmates explore their musical personalities on several “solo” singles and EPs.) The YNQ recordings led to a unique project, the 2003 album Shades of Blue, in which Madlib was given free rein to sample and remix material from the archives of Blue Note Records. Shades of Blue was the first full-length album credited to Madlib, though he’d used the headline for a number of singles and EPs.

In 2003, he also reunited with his former Lootpack partner Wildchild to record the album Secondary Protocol, and teamed up with fellow producer J Dilla for the first of a series of collaborative recordings released under the banner Jaylib. In 2004, Madlib launched yet another collaboration as he and MC MF Doom got together to record under the name Madvillain; the album, Madvillainy, was an enormous critical success, and remains a career highlight for both artists. Also in 2004, Madlib released Theme for a Broken Soul, a surprising venture into broken beat/house music under the name DJ Rels. He also issued a second Quasimoto album, The Further Adventures of Lord Quas, in 2005. Despite this busy schedule, Madlib was also booking more work as a producer, handling sessions with De La Soul, Dudley Perkins, A.G., and Prince Po. He’d go on to produce material for Mos Def, Guilty Simpson, Ghostface Killah, Talib Kweli, Strong Arm Steady, and Erykah Badu, and remixed tracks by Jay-Z, the Beastie Boys, and TV on the Radio.

In 2005, Madlib introduced his latest alter ego, the Beat Konducta, on the LP Vol. 1: Movie Scenes; it was the first release in a series of albums dominated by short, sample-based instrumental pieces, often built around elements from soundtracks and Indian film scores. The first two volumes appeared in 2005 and 2006, followed by Vol. 3 and Vol. 4 of Beat Konducta in India in 2007, and finally the fifth and sixth volumes (dedicated to the late J Dilla) in 2008, released on CD as Vols. 5-6: A Tribute To… in 2009. An unrelated Beat Konducta album, WLIB AM: King of the Wigflip, appeared on BBE Records/Rapster in 2008 as part of their Beat Generation series; the album contained Madlib instrumentals as well as tracks featuring guest MCs including Guilty Simpson, Murs, and Defari.

In 2010, Madlib announced a particularly ambitious project — a series of albums using the blanket title Madlib Medicine Show, which would feature both new mixes and unreleased recordings from Madlib’s archives. Madlib intended to release one Medicine Show album per month for an entire year; the first installment was Medicine Show No. 1: Before the Verdict, and Madlib was not only good to his pledge, releasing Medicine Show No. 12: Raw Medicine in early 2012, but he even tossed in an extra album to round out the project, Medicine Show No. 13: Black Tape. The series also led to the creation of his own label, Madlib Invazion, which was the home to most of his subsequent releases (although he did issue a few other recordings on Stones Throw, such as Yessir Whatever, a 2013 collection of rare/unreleased Quasimoto material, and the soundtrack to the 2014 Stones Throw documentary Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton). Other releases on Madlib Invazion included two volumes of Rock Konducta (instrumentals constructed using prog and Krautrock samples) in 2013, and several singles and EPs with Gary, Indiana-based rapper Freddie Gibbs. The duo’s long-awaited full-length, Piñata, appeared in 2014 to critical acclaim.

Madlib began collaborating with MED and Blu, releasing two EPs (The Burgundy and The Buzz) in 2013, followed by the 2015 full-length Bad Neighbor, all released on MED’s Bang Ya Head label. That same year, Madlib and Future Islands vocalist Samuel T. Herring (who raps under the name Hemlock Ernst) formed a side project called Trouble Knows Me, and released a self-titled EP on Madlib Invazion. In 2016, he produced “No More Parties in L.A.,” the preview single for Kanye West’s album The Life of Pablo. The following year, he issued an album of the Bad Neighbor instrumentals. The Turn Up, an additional EP with MED and Blu, appeared toward the end of 2017. Bandana, the second album by the Madlib-Gibbs duo, was released by major-label RCA in 2019. The Professionals, the self-titled debut by Madlib’s duo with his brother Oh No, appeared in early 2020. Madlib and Karriem Riggins formed the Jahari Massamba Unit, and their full-length debut, Pardon My French, arrived later in the year. Sound Ancestors, a Madlib album edited, arranged, and mastered by Four Tet, was released in 2021. Madlib appeared on 2022 singles by Fatlip (“Gangsta Rap”) and Wildchild (“Manifestin”), and produced Black Star’s comeback album No Fear of Time. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

I’d already heard of and been a fanatic Madlib fan at this point, but I had not done extensive research into his practice on a critical level, After reading this I can tell his eclectic nature is part of his process, constantly working without regard for anyone else, collaboration and other elements are important for him. I’m going to listen to certain albums I have not before in an attempt to further understand the different elements of Madlib.

Madlib in this project works with the artist Ivan Conti, one of his favourite artists who is part of the band Azymuth. In this project Madlib plays all the instruments except the drums, performing and playing with Ivan, who is a famous drummer from Brazil. The project is mainly influenced by jazz fusion records from the 70s and 80s.

The record was a balance of Brazilian jazz fusion and hip-hop sensibility, this project also just adds to his repertoire of experimental music.

Madlib Medicine Show

Madlib left Stones Throw and created his own label, called Madlib Invazion. The project Medicine Show was supposed to be one album every month for a year, but this quickly changed and became 13 albums over two years. Each one ranges from experimental compilation tapes to Yesterday’s new quintet jazz albums and old beat tapes from the man himself.

Album 1 was called Before the Verdict and was a collaboration with Guilty Simpson.

The second was Flight to Brazil, described as “…is your ticket out of this hell hole and onto an 80-minute guided tour through three or four decades of Brazilian funk, psychedelic, prog-rock and jazz.”

the third is Beat Konducta in Africa. Described as a 37-track instrumental hip-hop album produced by Madlib, inspired by and based on African records of the early 1970s – obscure & independent vinyl gems from afro-beat, funk, psych-rock, garage-rock & soul movements from different parts of Africa are all sampled to create a unique sound. The album also works as an instalment in Madlib’s Beat Konducta series, a number of albums Madlib put outs featuring his instrumental work with a special theme for each LP.

The fourth 420 Chalice all stars, a reggae record by DJ Madlib controlling the decks.

I think this project describes his anti-consumerism practice, he quickly involves himself in copy and pastes sort of productions that makes you consider what is original and remix. He also released this in a similar fashion to anti-consumerist culture, these albums were not properly promoted, as the short release time meant there was not enough time to do that. I wonder now about the consumerist and copyright laws involved in this? Did he clear his samples?

I decided to read Rap Attack to consider the history of hip-hop, rap and the culture surrounding it. How did it evolve, and what are some themes? This is to critically analyse and reflect on my own practice, and this current project. I hope this will give me insight towards my production, ideas and experiences and outcomes. As well as my rapping ideas. Here are a few quotes.

The first so-called rap records were in fact the tip of an iceberg – under the surface was a movement called hip hop, a Bronx-based subculture, and beneath that was a vast expanse of sources reaching back to West Africa. 

I think it’s a good starting point to understand that hip hop is the culture, and rap is one of the key elements of it. It’s all a collective practice within it and extends to other art forms within the culture.

Where once they were relegated to the sidelines of language studies, the service industries of music like radio, or aspects of blues and soul lyricism, they were now centre stage and in the charts.

It’s the development of hip-hop and rap music as a whole which is an interesting rise historically. From the underdogs and not being represented to rising up towards now the largest artform commercially. What has been lost or gained from this practice?

The Dances featuring these off-the-wall mobile jocks, at first held in schools, community centres, house parties and parks, helped bring former rival gangs together. In the transition from outright war the hierarchical gang structure mutated into comparatively peaceful groups, called crews. 

The parties and dances which featured disc jocks and rap crews started in these small venues, schools and community centres. This practice helped bridge between groups to make peace instead of gangs calling themselves crews. Work towards the artform, this way art took away for certain crowds the violence.

Rap’s forebears stretch back through disco, street funk, radio DJs, Bo Diddley, the bebop singers, Cab Calloway, Pigmeat Markham, the tap dancers and comics, The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Muhammed Ali, Capella and doo-wop groups, ring games, skip-rope rhymes, prison and army songs, toasts, signifying and the dozens, all the way to the griots of Nigeria and the Gambia. 

Sitting on the shoulder of giants is a great term. This practice of rap stretches back through disco, street funk, radio DJs etc. This culture grew from smaller practices that are all part of the bigger practice.

Hip hop is peculiarly New York phenomenon

I don’t agree, but I also agree. I agree it developed here. But like the previous quote, it does not come from thin air, influences from outside of New York are the key to this culture, as well as the African diaspora.

Scratching in its early form arose out of the normal technique of cueing a record: you move the record manually with the starting point on a headphone. One turn table is used for cueing while the other is playing a record through the main loudspeakers. Djs like Grandmaster Flash began experimenting by switching the sexier from the headphones to the speakers for isolated brass-section chords and drum slaps – augmenting the record that was already playing on the other turntable – and then learned how to use a record percussively by quickly moving it back and forth over the same chord or beat. 

Something I’ve experienced myself when sampling, and once I hear something I like, I backspin to cue it back up. My needle does jump which is frustrating, but I did hear that there are other needles which are better for this practice. I want to attempt this, buy two of the same record and loop up the drums as an attempt. Perhaps sample myself doing it?

These kind of narrative poems are called toasts. They are rhyming stores, often lengthy, which are told mostly amongst men. Violent, scatalogical, obscene, misogynist, they have been used for decades to while away time in situations of enforced boredom, whether prison, armed service or street corner life. 

Toasts were a great influence towards rap, before rap toasts were done by the community or in prisons when boredom would strike, either as a diss or statement or for other reasons. What interests me is that this was a sort of instinctive reaction, humans conversate and voice and language are important towards our development and our evolutionary experience. To think toasting and rapping have become an advanced form of communication and representation interests me highly.

If the hip-hop message and protest rappers had an ancestry in the savannah griots, the Bronx braggers, boasters and verbal abusers are children of the black American word games known as signifying and the dozens.

So this is the idea that all of these other cultures, artists and groups fed into this further design of rap, Hip hop message was a different style that focussed on what one was saying. Gil Scott Heron is thought to be one of the founders of this style.

One of the clearest links between present-day rappers and the rich vein of tall tales, tricksters, boasts and insults is Bo Diddley. 

So this book is rather old, but Bo Diddley is the founder of the style in some ways, or to the style that was there and operating, that existed in the time frame of this book being released.

Describing the type of rapping he was doing when he starter out, Mr Biggs of Soul Sonic Force recollects that, ‘we used to call it a Bo Diddley syndrome when we used to brag amongst ourselves’. Bo is the bragger par excellence – his street talk boasts were originally combined with a unique Latin sound of maracas

Bo is known as the style of the braggadocio, taunting the enemy and opposition and saying how powerful one is. Bo Diddley syndrome, thinking how good one is.

Scat is a way of using the voice as a pure instrument, but there is another tradition of scatting which, like rap, took street slang and transformed it into a musical style.

Scat as a predecessor of rap, I never thought of this but I suppose Jazz and Blues are the music of African decent and influence which then influenced at the time contemporary young people I can see the connection with using the voice as a tool or instrument. Then translating that over beats, and beat boxing as well.

Lee was also important for suggesting raps a a means by which women could voice a new independence (or at lest the struggle to attain it). Songs like ‘Dirty Man’ and ‘Uptight Good Man’ suggested that the powerful female voices of black music were asking to be recognised as the voices of human beings with complex needs and qualities – not just as sets of vocal chords, lust objects or mother surrogates.

I thought that was interesting as women are not very prominent in this book at all, when this came up I was surprised. But also intrigued. I think it must have been difficult for a woman during these times, in the late ’70s 80’s domestic abuse was heavy, and even then and now women still struggle for equality word wide. To perform and rap amongst everyone else was a powerful statement. To be seen as more than just lust objects.

To me the gangs were educational-it got me to learn about the streets, and The Black Spades they had a unity that I couldn’t find elsewhere. I’ve been in a lot of different gang groups but The Black Spades had a unity among each other. The gang was like your family. You learned about how to travel around the New York Streets.

This switch from gangs being violent, but more of a policing group amongst the community, making music and releasing records alongside teaching lessons to the youth.

The lack of industry connections in the Bronx, the young age group involved in hip hop and the radical primitivism of the music itself conspired to produce an island of relatively undisturbed invention in a sea of go-getter commerce. Although hip hop was an idealistic movement it was based in self determination – a positive and realist attitude. 

DIY came from this, the fact that there was no industry. Rap was something of an idealistic movement, perhaps I should read into this. What is idealistic? Or the movement at least.

Women associated with the scene, on the other hand, feel that men tend to disapprove of their standing in front of a crowd bragging and boasting.

Similar to the previous quotes but yes women and hip hop is not the most positive thing to read about. There are huge double standards.

It has always been debatable just how much listeners take in the lyrics of songs. Sung vocals have a tendency to blend into the instrumental music, so that often the only words that are remembered are those in the title. For obvious reasons this problem is even bigger in dance music. Rap vocals, on the the other hand, have a spereation from the music – it is possible to communicate in more detail and with a greater directness ‘ The Message’ managed to harness this potential. ‘Message Rap’ 

Message rap is where I find myself being as well when I speak and write lyrics, its where I associate myself with. Greater directedness and make sure my words are listened to. Not that they have to, but when I make music that is my focus.

After continuing my reading into the book Recording Secrets for the Home Studio. I decided to have a mic shoot-out. A mic shoot-out is recording on lots of mics, saying the same words and lyrics and gain levels. Hearing what the differences are. Seeing as we are at university and we have a lot of microphones I decided it was interesting to approach this with the same philosophy that I’ve been reading. If music is something more spiritual and I’m anti commodification. What are the qualities I enjoy in a microphone?

So in total, I tried nine microphones.

TLM 103

AKG 414 XLS

AKG D190E

Earth Works m23

AT2020

AT2035

SM58

SM57

Sennheiser 416

Interestingly, the ones I enjoyed was SM57, TLM 103, AKG D190E,

I’m going to listen to the microphones and frequencies response and think about what I want to record with.