Day 249: Rewind It Back - Dead Presidents II (Classic)

Jay-Z - Dead Presidents II


Lately, I've been digging through my library of old Hip-Hop tracks (as you can probably tell) trying to  find what artists/songs inspired me to become so engulfed with this type of music. I came across Dead Presidents by Jay-Z, and was like dam... this is one of them. As I was listening to the track over & over again, it reminded me of a nicer & simpler time. The beat and rhymes put me in such a calm/relaxed state of mind that I didn't even need to smoke to get there.

Along with finding what inspires me, I've been doing research on the type of samples artists used from back in the day and trying to understand how they mixed it into such a nice Hip-Hop beat. Just a heads up, the sample Jay-Z used for this track was taken from the song below:

Lonnie Liston Smith - Garden of Peace


Such an awesome melody btw.. I can listen to this instrumental forever.

Slowly but surely, one of my music goals is to eventually learn how to sample and cut up music, and be good at it.. #StayingMotivated

Day 245: Reminding people of my 'Golden Age' of Hip-Hop/Rap - "Tried by 12" (Music Video)

East Flatbush Project - Tried by 12

- Turn up the volume!

Bringing back the old school Hip-Hop/Rap is one of my goals for this blog in 2012 to remind people how good hip-hop/rap music was when it was still considered fresh in my head. This is one of my favorite songs I used to bump back in high school, and has one of the sickest instrumentals.

I wish I could re-live the 90s, don't you? I remember it being a quiet simpler and less-stressful time... granted I was young and just worried about going to school =P

I'm going to start labeling these as "Rewind It Back" posts moving forward so be on the lookout.