Because for me-and I’m guessing so many others-DJ Shadow’s full-length debut opens your mind up to so many different sounds that you probably never knew existed. While I could blather on about its placement in musical history, how it influenced so many other artists (notably the blokes in a little band known as Radiohead), and shaped what many people consider to be instrumental hip-hop as we know it, I’ll skip that. Entroducing is one of those albums you’ll always remember hearing for the first time.
It’s also why I think that if you’ve felt anything I’ve read here, you owe it to yourself to listen to other albums on this list too.Īh yes, the other “moment” for instrumental hip-hop-the first moment, really, given its release in 1996. And that right there, for me, is what keeps me coming back to instrumental hip-hop. The voice, in this case, is established by the manner in which they chop up, loop, and layer samples. While their intentions may have not necessarily been exactly the same, what you get from listening to these two artists is their desire to manipulate sound without relying on the addition of someone else’s voice. On the surface, these two producers and their respective “big” records couldn’t be more different, what with Entroducing’s beautiful and sprawling canvas and Donuts’ choppy, emotional, and immense movements.Īt their core they’re really not that different at all. That much has been evident following the biggest releases in the subgenre, such as groundbreaking albums from DJ Shadow and J Dilla. Much like the jazz to which it’s forever indebted, people either come around immediately to it or have some kind of experience that keeps them listening.īut without a massive amount of listeners or not, instrumental hip-hop will endure and, more importantly, prosper. And that’s okay! As much as I love jazz, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I could put on Blue Train and most people would either think nothing of it or start wondering if they had been teleported to a cafe.īut that doesn’t take anything away from instrumental hip-hop. Really, we’re at a point where instrumental music doesn’t reside on the same plane as its vocal-laden siblings.
We as music addicts tend to prefer music with words, be they meaningful and deep, melodic and fluffy, or some combination of other adjectives. And truth be told, it probably never will. Unlike its bigger, more well-known siblings in the hip-hop subgenre hierarchy, instrumental hip-hop still hasn’t had its true breakout moment.
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