...have changed in 20 years. Pre-1990, it seemed only the diehard nerds had a sense of who did what. It's not unlike that Motown doc (STANDING IN THE SHADOWS...) and how the British knew who played on what songs and albums, and when. Same with hip-hop. The revelation of some of these things were known to a degree. Look at the Beastie Boys. It is known that Rick Rubin produced the first album and the Dust Brothers did PB, but we also know that the Beastie Boys also added their own input too for some things. We also know that the Dust Brothers in 1988 had pretty much all of the instrumentals done. The diehards also know that the Dust Brothers also featured a guy named Matt Dike, who also had a hand in some of the early Delicious Vinyl records. Once PB had cult status, and everyone wanted to know who the Dust Brothers were, people focused on the two that were the primacy focus. When it comes to PB, you think of the Brooklyn Dust logo on PB with the elephant on a couch smoking some dust, and that represented the team of Mike Simpson, John King & Matt Dike. In the grand scheme of things, Dike's role has been lessened but he played a major role in the creation of PAUL'S BOUTIQUE, equal to that of Simpson and King.

My point is, none of this was important in early hip-hop articles. Look at the early issues of "The Source". I can say this as fact: I was one of a small handful of writers who wanted to take the "rock attitudes" in articles you might find in "Goldmine" and bring that into hip-hop. The nerdy shit ?uestlove likes to mention in liner notes and interviews about his and other hip-hop albums? That's what I wanted to help bring to "The Source".

I will say this. The myths and misconceptions of what is a hip-hop producer, engineer, and beatmaker may not come from a specific source (no pun intended), but it comes from the lack of authorities clearing up myths and misconceptions. No one bother to say "this is the role of the producer, this is the role of the engineer, and we even have someone we like to call the beatmaker." Very few people talk about the role of the "assistant producer", but it seems as the music and community of creatives grew, everyone not only wanted the recognition, but everyone wanted a cut of the profits. If they have the spices for the pie, then it's part of the pie they can have.

With that said, now we're hearing from the songs that we grew up with, and we're now hearing the reality of the situation. At this point it's not about "I made this beat" or "I found this sample, it should be my song", yet in the process of these newly revealed revelations, it comes off this way. It is truly "dropping science" of the creation of these songs, even though it may be bruising egos in the process. With every story, there are other perspectives to the stories, but for anyone who has kept track of liner notes and studio logs over the year, this is about grabbing that bag of popcorn and watching things "go off".

I'm eating it up.








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