My daughter Sabrina is now 5 months old so we are introducing her to some solid foods for the first time. In this clip I try to give her some apple sauce. Operative word  here is “try…”

“Fight just a little bit, love just a little bit…”

It took only one listen to make this my favorite track on Q-Tip’s Renaissance. Fighting gets such a negative connotation but anyone that has fought for something they love will tell you that it hurts the most when you drop the gloves, take the blows and lay down. When you’ve lost the will to fight you’ve lost the passion, the intent. At least when you fight you have a goal in mind, to stop whatever the pain is that is making you swing. But when you know the pain will never go away or are no longer concerned with it, resignation, that is the end. I have some dear friends who are fighting for love or fighting to be loved right now and I dedicate this song to them. For those of you who have given up the fight, I hope you find something worth fighting for one day. Even if its yourself.

Do you believe that you can be happy? Life is pretty pointless if you can’t at least BELIEVE that you can be happy.

I had the pleasure of interviewing two really dope producers recently, DJ Green Lantern and Pete Rock. As a hip-hop fan and amateur beatmaker this made me very, well, happy. Pete is known as the king of hip-hop remixes and Green Lantern is quite appropriately called an evil genius for the blends/remixes he does of hip-hop songs. (He also produced Ludacris’ “Number One Spot” and Busta Rhymes’ “In The Ghetto” among many others.) So I asked them both what the secret to a dope remix is and they both said, “excitement! You want people to hear it and go ‘oh shit.’” Green is also clever with his remixes and blends, bringing in several familiar themes to create whole new compositions. He’s crazy enough to blend Junior Mafia’s “Get Money” with 50 Cent’s “I Get Money” and find some way to make it work. So I went home and thought about what they said and took a stab at a new remix.

At first this started out as a remix of Nas’ “One Love.” So I figured I’d sample songs with the word “love” in the title and took the intros to Jill Scott’s “Love Rain” and Chico Debarge’s “Love Jones.” I thought the latter was particularly clever because Nas’ last name is Jones. Get it? So I was playing and tweaking with my new found piece of Fruity Loops software, the FPC. I shunned it as being a hella corny attempt at an MPC for more than a year and just recently decided to try it out because I was bored. Come to find out it has a bunch of precomputed drum patterns that I could fill with my own kicks and snares. I liked using it as a foundation because I could adjust the tempo on it much easier than an imported break like say “Impeach The President.”

So I had my drums and started bringing in the parts of Jill and Chico and liked what I heard. I even brought in little vocal chops from Chico and Common (love, love, love like this) but it just didn’t fit. It was way too romantic for what Nas was talking about. So I went looking for some RnB pellas and found Mary’s “Be Happy” and adjusted the tempo to just a bit (they’re almost identical believe it or not.) And as soon as Mary started singing I said, “that’s it.” I rearranged some of the melodies to build up and come down to match her singing and when I was done I really felt like I had a new song. So enjoy the JLB remix of Mary J. Blige’s “Be Happy.”

Life is going so fast lately, I had to slow it down…turn around, the future is behind you…insomnia is the cure for sleepwalking in the matrix. don’t fight it…

CLICK

I did this almost a month ago. Was feeling rugged but smooth. Since launching Nodfactor.com I haven’t had much time to do my own beats but some nudging from the right people has got me to post a quickie.

It’s a not so obvious usage of an obvious song. Maxwell’s “Mellow Smooth” reconstitution of “Sumthin, Sumthin” that was a highlight of the Love Jones soundtrack. With hardly any drums to speak of the notes were just laying there like a sleepy lover just waiting for some inspired vigor. I just took my favorite and most memorable parts, even his voice and weaved them together. As always, there is more to come…

Fourteen years later Common’s “I Used To Love H.E.R” remains one of the most eloquent observations of Hip-Hop’s evolution ever put to record. I gave it a 2000 something flavor with some sonic assistance from his a-alikes, E Badu, Jill Scott and D’Angelo.

Yes, I’ve been in a ’94 state of mind lately. I used to argue that 1992 was my favorite year for hip-hop but I have to concede that ’94 had some joints (aight, you happy Kim??). I remember the controversy that Common stirred up with this song, having the audacity to critique the transition of hip-hop from an inner-city creation to a commercial prop. Furthermore, he metaphorically caste hip-hop as a woman that foolishly traded in her afro beads and medallions for trists with gang bangers. In fact, the reference to “boyz in the ‘hood” drew the ire of NWA’s Ice Cube who thought Common was dissing the West Coast. On “West Side Slaughterhouse” he snapped back “Used to love her, mad cause we fucked her, Pussy whipped bitch with no common sense…” Common responded with the scathing diss record “The Bytch In Yoo,” where he called out Cube for slinging “bean pies and St. Ides in the same sentence.” Note: they were both smart enough to eventually squash the beef so that they could go on to make kiddie movies and GAP commercials.

For my remix I wanted to lift it up from its melancholy mood somewhat. While I love No Id’s use of George Benson on the original I wanted to brighten things up. The tempo is the same 91 BPMs but with a little more swing thanks to the drums from Jill Scott’s “Slowly Surely.” I played some word association grabbing pianos from the very end of D’Angelo’s “Lady” and looping them. I filled out the chorus with with rhodes from Erykah Badu’s “Time’s A Wastin” from Momma’s Gun and guitar plucks from Jill’s “Talk To Me” from her Beautifully Human CD. (Yes, I will jack open sounds from ANYWHERE.)

I finished the chorus with a piece of Nia Long’s Love Jones poem t and Common’s chants of “hip-hop” from The Roots “Act Too, Love of My Life” the younger sibling to Common’s “I Used To Love H.E.R.” The whole thing took me about two hours. Click HERE to listen or go to my original post.

If there are any female MCs reading this I’d love to hear “I Used to Love H.I.M”…(hip-hop in need of a movement). I got beats if you wanna do it.

The response to my Brandy remix was so strong that I sprinkled some fresh vibes on Alicia Keys’ “You Don’t Know My Name” with some help from Don Blackman.

Ha, bet that pic got your attention. Kind of reminds me of the psycho chick in Kanye’s horrible video for “Flashing Lights.” I can just see Alicia cocking back the hammer with a smirk, “Still don’t know my name?” (Ooo, just had a flashback to “The Unlocking” by the Roots…my hip-hop nerds stand-up.)

Anyway, I didn’t want to completely devalue the lovely sentiment of Alicia’s love letter to a stranger in her coffee shop, so I tempered my aggressive “pump it in your jeep mix” drums with some lovely piano courtesy of Don Blackman’s “Holding You, Loving You.” The only thing I did jack from the original is a filter of the bassline. I had a really hard time catching the tempo of Kanye’s chop of the Main Ingredient so I used it to help me along. t The finished product was kind of fresh.

This is probably the most time I’ve spent on a remix. Doing over RnB is tuff, dude. But I like it cuz I feel like Ron G back in the day, a little rugged with the smooth…

Cedric The Entertainer is the best hype man ever. One listen to “Threats” from Jay-Z’s Black Album and you’ll be ready stuff somebody in a trash bag with a quickness…

When “Threats” first hit the blogosphere the attention was focused on an underground producer like 9th Wonder getting a placement on what was supposed to be Jay-Z’s last album. To make it even crazier, Hova gave the young’n a copy of R Kelly’s “A Woman’s Threat” to sample and make into a beat–in 15 minutes.

But what MADE the song for me was Cedric screaming into the microphone about “sending molotov cocktails to your momma’s momma’s house…where ery’body live.” Juxtaposing these outlandish comments against Jay-Z’s dark prose made me scratch my temple at first. Jigga was going for the axe murderer steez but I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to begin to take him seriously. Granted, Jay-Z was clever as ever in his methods of mayhem “I put the boy in the box, like David Blaine, let the audience watch.” But Ced stole the show with maniacal rants that I strung together for the new hook in my remix of Threats. Maybe that’s what Jigga wanted, to underline the absurdity of the violent rants in rap songs…or is that giving him too much credit?

The beat is built around some overdubs of the “Synthetic Substitution” drums, some bionic pianos, the creepy horns from the “Pray” remix and some well placed explosions of remote detonated bombs. …I got Martin Lawrence to set it off for me cuz he was speakin’ the truth. Seriously, I’m so sinsurrr…

Is there anything more cliche than a Jay-Z remix these days? I know, but when in Rome…With “Roc Boys” getting the single/video treatment I figured I’d let Isaac Hayes set the mood for some black super hero music…
True story, this started out as a remix to Pharoah Monch’s “Simon Says.” The monstrous horns that open up Isaac Hayes’ “Ike’s Mood” sounded aggressive enough at first, but after a few spins against Monch’s flow it just wasn’t dark enough. Maybe it was the way I chopped in the flute, too. But rather than scrap it I looked for something else that might click with the 94 bpm track I’d all but finished. I’d resisted downloading the American Gangster Acapellas for a while. Frankly, I think that Black Friday and Hasan Insane MURDERED the acapellas on An American Gangster Mixtape and felt there wasn’t anything left to do (peep how they mixed “Synthetic Subsitution” drums with Jill Scott on “Heart of The Black City”). But after letting my beat play behind the verse from “Roc Boys” I decided to play with it. A few minutes later I had my own remix.

When that was done I took a swipe at “Pray” which is also 94 BPMS. I gave it a different flavor though starting with a one note chop of “Faded Lady,” which I first heard used by Diamond D on “I Went For Mine” and most recently by DJ Scratch for Busta Rhymes’ “New York Shit.” Feedback–good, bad or indifferent–is welcomed and encouraged.

If I feel compelled I may use an Al Green loop to take a shot at “Ignorant Shit.” Holla.

It was the end of innocence. Brandy’s “I Wanna Be Down” was one of the last songs I could remember that let a girl be a girl. She was fifteen rocking some too-tight braids over a forehead that was stronger than pride. She was dressed, far from stressed and her music reflected it. The original “IWBD” was playful yet direct and anchored with radio-ready production by Keith Crouch and Kipper Jones. The beat was one of those perfect hybrids; a melody that the ladies could sing-a-long to but with drums that knocked hard enough for dudes to bump in their cars (think A Tribe Called Quest’s “Find A Way” or D’Angelo’s “Lady”). It was so dope in fact that Latifah, Yo-Yo and MC Lyte were brought in for the remix. ‘ Is it just me or were the leather jackets in that video sick as hell?? ’94 was untouchable.

But let’s be real, adding some rappers to the same beat is not a real remix. So I figured my first stab at an R&B remix would be an oldie but goodie. (Shout out to the folks at Acapella Archive for the vocals.)

I stuck to the keep it simple mantra, adding a flirtatious guitar to a standard kick/clap combo and hi-hats, but the result was much more than the mere sum of its parts. I likey. Yo, Brandy, keep ya head up.