Thursday, October 2, 2008

A Freestyle, A Sample, A Beat Reborn




The internet, specifically philaflava.com's T.R.O.Y. forum, is a miraculous place.

Recently, a poster named "True King" requested assistance identifying an instrumental that Nas rapped over on the renowned CM Famalam show (click here to listen). Several posters agreed that the instrumental was an original Stretch Armstrong production that never surfaced anywhere else. A poster named "Dirty Waters" identified the sample as coming from Bobby Hutcherson's Natural Illusions LP after "Yohan" suggested that a skilled producer attempt to recreate the beat. "thomas v" further specified that the sample in question appears on the cut "Rain Every Thursday." This prompted "Lyrical Gymnastics" to upload Natural Illusions and our fellow blogger Roy Johnson to upload a two volume collection of Hutcherson samples (Vol. 1 & Vol. 2). The most impressive turn came however, when "Charlie Manson" responded to Yohan's challenge and produced his version of the beat, which I have to say is DOPE AS FUCK, very close to Stretch's original, and most importantly, available for us to download.

Now if that isn't teamwork, then what is? --- Thun

Bonus : Part 2 Of The Nas freestyle

8 comments:

  1. the 1st link for the nas freestyle is missing a "h" in front of the ttp in the link. but dope shittt

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  2. Thanks for pointing it out, the link has been fixed.

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  3. another thing about this freestyle that I mentioned on the board.. this is where the vocal sample on the Beatnuts "Bless The M.I.C." came from

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  4. Why do I always find out about these things while at work? Anyway, I'll check as soon as I get home.

    Very dope that someone actually tried to recreate the beat. Hopefully it's as good as the original.

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  5. Yohan, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

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  6. I wasn't, it was great.

    Now all we need is some quality MC's to spit over it. Someone call Nas, this beat is better than every beat on his latest album.

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  7. The Nas freestyle was from the Stretch Armstrong Show. The CM Fam Show became the name of the show after I decided to not do KCR anymore in the ate 90's. And yes, the beat in question is something that I had cookied up earlier that day on my Casio FZ-1. When Nas and I were looking through my crate to figure out what he would rock over, I put the headphones on him and asked him what he thought. He dug it, not just because it was his flavor, but because it wasn't from a record. After reading the threads from various forums on this highly esoteric topic, I wondered, and still wonder, why nobody just straight up asked me what the beat was.

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