Dr. Dre’s Orchestration Analysis, 2000-2009

[The Predator]

A study of every instrument Dr. Dre used on his songs between the years 2000 and 2009 -

Analysis – Dr. Dre’s Orchestration, 2000-2009

Martin Connor

April 7, 2015

Time for another rap music analysis. Attached below is a song-by-song analysis of 52 songs produced by Dr. Dre between 2000 and 2009. To my knowledge, these are all of the songs he produced in these years; that, according at least to Dre’s discography on wikipedia.org (although a more complete one can be found elsewhere I think.) This time period for a Dre production analysis may strike those in the know as somewhat peculiar. To start with, it is after the release of his seminal album 2001 (which was actually released in 1999 – fun fact.) Then, it is before anything recently that he has supposedly done, such as “Kush”, “I Need A Doctor”, or Kendrick Lamar’s “The Recipe” (listed production credentials be damned.) Furthermore, it leaves out “Straight Outta Compton” (1988), as well as his “Chronic” (1992) and Snoop Dogg’s album “Doggystyle” (1994.) So just where, exactly, were these songs released?

To start, it covers the beginning of Em’s work in the new millennium, starting with 4 songs from his “Marshall Mathers LP.” It also covers 50 Cent’s come up on Em’s Shady label (with 5 songs found on that album), as well as Busta Rhyme’s short time on Dre’s Aftermath album, along with Raekwon (2 songs) and Eve (4 songs). It covers some work with the 50 Cent’s G-Unit then (2 songs), as well as Game’s come up on that label before he left for another label. It includes one song by Mary J. Blige, and 50 Cent has the most songs in this period. Unfortunately, this period also covers some of Dre’s darker days quality-wise: 50 Cent’s “Curtis” and “Before I Self Destruct album”, and Eminem’s initial comeback on “Relapse: Refill” (If you’re a fan of Eminem, then you’ll probably definitely want to check out another article I wrote all about his flow on the 2002 song “Business,” which you can read by clicking here.) This period thus interestingly covers both much of his oeuvre that is often criminally overlooked in favor of more popular and critically acclaimed album’s (Doggystyle, Chronic, Straight Outta Compton, 2001), as well as some of his “worst” — worst, for Dre, is relative here, as anything considered half-bad for Dre would be great for other producers. This will all allow us to understand and trace the paths he took after the game-changing “2001” album, as well as how he developed the ideas he had on that album afterwards. Additionally, it will let us see where Dr. Dre may have lost his way a bit towards the end of the first decade of the new millennium, and what we can expect from “Detox.” (Now, if you want to hear a rapper killing it over a Dr. Dre beat, instead of a Dr. Dre production analysis, then check out on my article on Nas’ verse from the 2006 Busta Rhymes song “Don’t Get Carried Away,” available here.) Now, for the orchestration analysis…

For our purposes here, “orchestration” will basically mean the instrument Dre has chosen to play the musical ideas in his song. Attached below are my notes on all 52 songs, between 2000 and 2009:










 
All the way on the left is listed the song, the artist, the album the song came from, any guest appearances on the song, as well as the year it was released (it goes in chronological order starting from 2000.) Then, I marked under a couple different categories the musical instrumentation that the song contained: there are categories for keyboard (which includes piano, harpsichord, and organ), strings (cellos, violins,) bass guitar (clean, distorted, etc.), drums (snares, bass kicks, the nature of cymbals or hi-hats, and all other percussion instruments), miscellaneous (instruments that don’t fall under any of the other category), Audio Sound FX (recorded sounds of real-world sounds played during the song, guitar (clean, distorted, wah, etc.), singers (female, male, vocalize, words,) and orchestral hit (which is a big staccato noise by what sounds like a full orchestra,) and general notes all the way on the right. I took notes of varying detail within each cell.

Now would be a good time to mention my Kickstarter campaign, where you can donate so I can publish a book to keep bringing you rap analysis like this one. My work is always to increase the appreciation of music for the average listener, and this book will help me do that.

As mentioned before, this time period covers an extremely interesting cross section of Dre’s work. You have the all-time classics (“The Real Slim Shady,” “In Da Club”, “How We Do”), the absolute bombs – and not the good kind (“Bagpipes from Baghdad,” “Fire”), and the criminally overlooked (“Oh!”, “Get You Some”, “Don’t Get Carried Away” – but this will be addressed in-depth in my “10 Greatest Dr. Dre Songs of All Time Production-Wise” post.) You can go through all of the songs individually, but I will draw some general conclusions.

The most glaring difference between Dre’s output over his entire career, not just this period, and every other popular producer, is that Dre’s output is noticeably free of any soul samples. In direct contradistinction to artistic trends championed by RZA in his work with Wu-Tang and Kanye’s work years later starting with “The College Dropout”, the two most popular producers of the two preceding decades apart from Dre himself, Dre does not sample old soul hits. Soul sampling is found all over in the game today. Instead, we see that he opts to combine “real” instruments (in contrast to synthesized sounds such as synth keyboards) with manipulation of the stereo world (allowing these real world sounds to do things they couldn’t have done in a completely audio acoustic environment, such as phasing back and forth between left and right earphones.) For instance, his favorite instrument seems to be a clean, real-life piano, white and black keys and all. Some kind of keyboard can be found in 75% of his songs (rough estimation of mine without counting.) The nature of this keyboard can differ; sometimes, it plays the accompaniment, giving the song the harmonic underpinning while other riffs and ideas play themselves out above or below (The Wash, 2001). At other times, in a monophonic line it itself plays the riff (Round Here, 2006.) Additionally, not only does he often use the piano, he uses other keyboard type instruments, such as different types of organs (Electric organ – Heat, 2003, or Church organ, Don’t Get Carried Away, 2006.) In what might be the greatest orchestration decision of all time ever made in rap (yes, it’s that good) he sets a harpsichord in Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady.” The amount of “Fuck You” this communicates to the listener cannot be accurately measured…not that there is an accurate way of measuring “fuck you.” But the harpsichord choice, the most stereotypical, cliché instrument in pop music as representing old, generic pop classical music of some type makes the perfect instrumental counterpoint to Eminem’s message of fuck the world in that song. One can also observe that Dre is not content to play the keyboard simply legato; he also uses it staccato at times, for instance in X, from 2000. He furthermore differs the kind of textures he evokes from the piano. That is, the piano is not always playing block chords. Sometimes it is used in a much more diffuse texture (Cocaina, 2006.) From this, we know that Dre thinks a lot about the color of his orchestration. This can be seen from his use of pedals and octave doublings. Oftentimes, he will have an instrument sustain a single note for a long time (a pedal), or play the same musical idea as another instrument at the same level or in a different octave (doubling.) He does this often with the bass note; for instance, a lot of times when a carillon bell is utilized (the strong minor third upper harmonic of a tuned bell perfectly dovetailing with the minor key sound world Dre wishes to create), such as in Don’t Get Carried Away, 2006, or Hustlers, 2006, it is often doubling a bass note. Furthermore, his use of the piano is often very scaled back, and used in only a superficial manner (without any negative connotation), such as in doubling another musical idea. This reduces the piano to being used only for its timbre, or “sound quality.” Timbre is what allows a person to tell a piano sound apart from a cello sound, even though they are both playing the same note, for example, middle C. Instrumental color is, for our purposes here, synonymous with timbre.

Dre’s treatment of the piano is a sign in general of his treatment of orchestration. No instrument, and no articulation (way of playing an instrument), is off limits for Dre when he steps in the studio to choose instruments. He does what good composers do and makes the instrument do what he wants, not do what the instruments want. He finds ways to utilize instruments in his songs that you’d find nowhere else in natural ways. The following is a short list of rare instruments (in rap music) you’ll find in Dre’s work:

1. Sitar (Ass Like That, 2004, and elsewhere)

2. Carillon Bell (Multiple Times)

3. Flute (Bad Intentions)

4. Kazoos (Mosh, 2004)

5. Gu-gin (finger plucked Chinese instrument – Get You Some, 2006 Death To My Enemies, 2009)

6. Harp (Back Down, 2003, and one other time)

7. Harpsichord (Real Slim Shady, 2000)

8. Some Middle Eastern instrument with a drone (Bagpipes from Baghdad, 2009)

9. Bongos (Catalina, 2009)

10. Acoustic Guitar (Round Here, 2006.)

11. Guiro (Satisfaction, 2002)

12. Theremin (Catalina, 2009)

This calls attention to another distinguishing characteristic of Dre’s post “2001” album sound. He does not use synths as main organizing instruments in his songs, such as by having them play the accompaniment or bass lines (Fire, 2007, for 50 Cent, is definitely an outlier is this regard), but instead uses designed, specific synth sounds more for a textural effect. This can be observed all over; one especially good example is “Hello,” from 2000, written by Ice Cube, feat. Ren, and Dre (for who Eminem ghost-wrote his verse…of course.) Perhaps that is why “Kush”, supposedly the first single from “Detox” (since dropped from the album) sounded so un-Dre-ish to so many people, myself included, and thus was widely disregarded. Additionally, he favors using real, acoustic snare sounds (Best of Things 2000, Truck Volume & Holla, 2001), over any completely synthesized clap sounds, but this started to change towards the end of this 2000-2009 period. His signature bass kick sound is a rather character-less bass “thud”, so lacking of any high frequency sounds that the listener feels rather than hears that it is there (About Me, 2009). Along the same line in drums, Dre favors less complex drum sections (drum sections = bass kick, snares, cymbals, hi-hats, and any other percussion effects.) The emphasis is therefore placed on the melodic instruments (whether they play the melody or not), while the drum sections provides the beat but largely tries to stay out of the melodic instruments’ way.

Audio Sound FX also play a large part in Dre’s production choices. Many of his songs, as can be seen, feature them prominently, especially those with Eminem (Real Slim Shady, 2000.) In fact, he twice uses audio sound FX to supply essential musical information: in Legend of the Fall Offs, 2006, and Heat, 2003, a digging shovel and gun cock sound, respectively, take the place of the snare drum. All over this oevure though, however, Audio Sound FX are featured.

It is important now though to distinguish the different ways in which Dre utilizes his orchestration choices once he has made them. A central technique that gives Dre beats their longevity, the fact that you can listen to them over and over again, is his technique of what I call musical layering. That is, he differentiates structural sections of a song (1st verse from 2nd verse, verse from chorus, outro from intro, etc.,) from each other by assigning unique musical ideas to each one. The epitomic example of this can be found in my analysis of his song “Oh!”. For instance, there, an acoustic guitar arpeggio plays in the background during the 2nd verse, and a solo violin idea plays in the background during the 3rd verse. Then, a contrabass idea appears during the choruses but never during the verses. This makes each section of the song stand out from the others, by making them unique in some way. However, “Oh!” is not an outlier in this regard.

Dre does this everywhere. For instance, in “That’s What it Is”, 2001, Dre doubles the bassline with strings to differentiate sections from each other. He does the same during 2002’s “Satisfaction,” as well as “Poppin’ Them Thangs”, in 2003. This is a major hallmark of Dre’s style. The reader is encouraged to look up different examples on their own on YouTube.

Along with doubling and layering, another hallmark of Dre’s style is his use of the pedal. As explained before, a pedal is when one instrument sustains a note a very long time. Dre’s second favorite instrument, behind the piano, is the string section; it is unimportant which instrument is playing, as they are often very hard to distinguish from each other anyway when they are sampled. Pedals of this type can be found all over: Bitch Please II, 2000, G’d Up, In Da Club, 2003, High All The Time, 2003, to name only a few. These are likewise used to differentiate sections of the song from each other, or re-iterations of the same type of section (verse, chorus) from each other. Dre favors strings so much to the point that they oftentimes completely comprise the musical background for a song; “Who Knew?”, 2000, and Psycho, 2009, are shining examples of this, as Dre uses the three most prominent different articulations for stringed instruments (pizzicato, legato, staccato) all in one song.

Finally, his use of structurally dividing musical ideas is endemic of his style. That is, he will have certain musical ideas play at structurally important places in the song (middle point of verses or choruses, the transition from the end of a chorus to the start of a verse, etc.) to lead from one section of a song to another. These, again, are a hallmark of his style, and so can be found all over, but a good example can be seen in 2000’s “Lay Low”.

Now, before considering the tail end of this period in greater detail, let’s examine some outliers.

“Break Ya Neck”, 2001, not listed, is so different from every other Dre song (due to the prominent featuring of elaborate synth ideas), that I at first questioned whether it was actually ghost produced for Dre (not unheard of in the rap industry today.) However, his other work on Busta’s album “Genesis” is somewhat similar (Truck Volume, Holla), so I overlook it. This speaks to another fact of Dre: he seems to have tried to style himself to fit each new artist he worked with, or at least went through definite, consistent periods of artistic vision. We see that his work with Eve in 2002 is marked by the use of orchestral hits that won’t return until the end of this period. We see that his work with Busta is marked by the prominent use of elaborate synth ideas. Raekwon seems to have received his most elaborate musical treatment on his “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II” album, starting with the descending piano scale on “About Me.” Then, we see that the carillon shows up at a distinct time in 2006, and remains somewhat constant until 2009. In any event, it may be an interesting idea to look more into, or it may only be what we would expect from a mature artist in his prime.

Another outlier is 2001’s “Bad Intentions.” Although the release date is for 2001 from a movie’s soundtrack, I’m inclined to think that this work dates from much earlier, maybe even mid-90s. The funky flute along with the prominent use of synth and synthesized shaker is simply too similar to his work on “Doggystyle” for me. 2001’s “Your Wife” is similar for me in this regard, although it sounds more similar to “2001” then “Doggystyle.”

We can thus see the direction that Dre took the ideas he initially came up with on “2001.” The move towards real instruments from the prominent synths and 808 drum sounds of “Chronic” and “Doggystyle” on “2001”, which there manifested itself as clean guitars (Still D.R.E.), clean bass lines (Forgot About Dre), and the occasional, heavily processed string part (bass line for Still D.R.E.), continued in a natural evolution to real orchestral instruments, such as real, authentic-sounding strings, pianos, and even harps, sitars, and so on, in this 2000 to 2009 period.

Unfortunately, the next few outliers are not to be seen in a positive light. First, we have 2007’s “Fire”, which so badly tries to imitate 50’s 2003 “In Da Club” and in doing so fails terribly its almost awkward to listen to. From the octave doubling, to the syncopated rhythms of the prominent synth, to the return of the shaker in the percussion, it tries to be “In Da Club” but fails. I can dismiss this with a clean conscience, however, because it was 50 when I’m not sure 50 cared anymore, and it clearly was a club track. If 50 put it down on this track, I’d see it differently.

The outliers came more and more quickly though. “Bagpipes from Baghdad” is certainly unprecedented, even with Dre’s outlandish orchestration choices from before. I reference, of course, the wind Middle Eastern instrument of some type. Again, Eminem completely drops the ball on the rhymes. Even this track wouldn’t be that bad, if Eminem didn’t throw into deep relief just how little musical sense this song makes. To be fair, this is Eminem post-addiction when he was still trying to figure out what the fuck he could talk about. He still could rap musically; he just couldn’t rap poetically. A great example of this is “Drop The Bomb On Em,” from “Relapse,” which I talk about in-depth here.

To be fair, Eminem’s flow on “Drop The Bomb On Em” is sick — it’s just that his words make no goddamn sense. At one point, he even ruins a major storyline of the greatest TV show of all time, “The Wire”, by dropping a major spoiler, without warning. (Don’t look up the lyrics if you plan on watching the show…which you should.)

But Eminem has since figured this out, of course. All you need to see this is look up his track with Royce da 5’9, in their group “Bad Meets Evil”, with Bruno Mars, called “Lighters”. As a sampling:

“I love it when I tell em shove it
Cause it wasn’t that long ago when Marshall sat, flustered, lack lustered
Cause he couldn’t cut mustard, muster up nothing
Brain fuzzy, cause he’s buzzin’, woke up from that buzz
Now you wonder why he does it, how he does it
Wasn’t cause he had buzzards circlin’ around his head
Waiting for him to drop dead, was it?”

Damn. That definitely isn’t the tediousness or monotony of the 23 rappers on the “Most Repetitive Lyricists Ever” list that I compiled and published in another article that you can read here, now, is it?

Things continue to get more and more concerning though. “Death To My Enemies” is in the same category as “Bagpipes from Baghdad”, but this time, the production just isn’t there.

“I Get It In”, however, on deep reflection, might be the most worrisome. The song is largely devoid of the rich variety of musical material that mark the greatest Dre songs (Get You Some, Oh!.) Instead, things are mostly held together by drum sounds, and again, the rapping simply isn’t there. Through this last rash of songs, though, is that there is a complete lack of the musical depth that Dre added to his songs through his techniques of pedals, doubling, structural dividers, interesting orchestration choices, and, most worrying, musical layering. It is like Dre somehow forgot about everything he had learned (and taught us) over a career that is now entering it’s 4th decade. Either that, or he was looking for a way forward, and us mere mortals simply cannot see it.

And so here we are. “Detox” has not been released, and it is fair to guess whether it ever will be at this point. And yes, this is even after taking into account that Dre takes a while with his albums, or as Game puts it so eloquently, “I’m the second dopest Compton nigga you’ll ever hear / the first one only put out albums every 7 years.” I still enjoy listening to 2004’s “Curtains Down” (Eminem) and 2005’s “Higher” (The Game,) when Dre assures us that Detox is “coming.” So what happened?

Well, let’s take a look at the supposed singles for Detox. First, there was “Kush”, then “I Need A Doctor,” and now we have Kendrick Lamar’s “The Recipe” (not a single, but still a recent work.) I swear, on everyone of these songs, Dre was initially listed as the producer, but then after they did not do well popularly, he was switched with someone else. “Kush” is now supposedly produced by DJ Khalil, and mixed by Dre. “I Need a Doctor” says it is produced by Alex da Kid, and mixed by Dre. “The Recipe” is now produced by Scoop Deville, and mixed by Dre.
First off, what the fuck am I gonna be paying money for if Dre isn’t producer? Is he known as the world’s greatest mixer? I don’t think so. There’s a couple things going on here. First, there is my initial conspiracy theory, that Dre changes the credits to keep face. Second, and more likely, that Dre is ghost producing these songs for people. He comes up with the song, gives it to a producer like Alex Da Kid, and releases it under their name to see how it does. Either way, it doesn’t reflect well on Dre’s current state of mind artistically.

It’s safe to say that he’s lost confidence in himself as an artist. The thing is he doesn’t have perspective anymore on just how good he is. We’ve heard it throughout the years: Dre is a perfectionist. The unique pressures and stresses of working with Dre are evident all over his industry relationships, from the number of prominent acts who never released any substantial material on his Aftermath label (Bishop Lamont to start), to the occasional spats that bubble up (such as when 50 threatened to pre-empt their own single’s release by putting the single out by himself.) He just doesn’t realize how good he is, and he just doesn’t realize that, at a certain point, whatever he puts out maybe might not be his 5th classic album, but will be good enough…although I guess that’s what makes Dr. dre Dr. Dre, and what makes us just us.

Honestly, I think he’s got enough material for several albums (several sources corroborate this.) And he was set to release something, but then Kanye’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” happened. (I talk about “what happened” in a whole article I wrote entirely about his awesome MBDTF song “Monster,” which you can read here; I also wrote about that album’s extended pop song structures at an article available right here.)

The level that MBDTF raised the bar to is simply incomprehensible. The scope of its musical quality is breathtaking. The sweeping, innovative structural forms , the introspective look into subjects that rap has rarely touched before (“Blame Game”), sweeping, 9 minute opuses like “Runaway” (which Vox Media interviewed me about in one of their videos here,) the deft use of skilled instrumentalists (guitar solo in Devil In A New Dress), the perfect matching of differing style of music (Bon Hiver’s work on the album…) it’s huge. Dre lost his confidence in himself when he saw that.

So what should he do? First off, stop worrying about the fucking headphones. This man is already paid many times over, in all senses of the word. I think he’s distracted himself from what got him in the position to sell headphones with that business enterprise. Second, go back and take a look at his own work. It’s fire man. There’s no doubting it. I can listen to these works over, and over again. Just like every great artistic evolution, he has to build on what he used before. I don’t know why he abandoned his techniques like doubling, pedaling, structural dividers, and musical layering. But it’s what got him there in the first place.

Please Dre. Please release Detox.

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Dr. Dre Musical Analysis


It’s time for another rap music analysis. However, instead of taking a look at a rapper’s verse, we’ll be taking a look at a producer’s entire song. The song is “Oh!”, off Obie Trice’s album “Cheers”, featuring Busta Rhymes and Dr. Dre on the beat. We’ll be doing harmonic/melodic analysis only insomuch as it furthers our discussion of what I really what to get at here: the proportion/balancing of all the different parts in this song. When one takes a look at how many different musical ideas in the song, and the fact that they are all balanced perfectly together so that the listener’s ear is not overwhelmed but greatly pleased, it is quite amazing. (A couple quick administrative things: I’ve tabbed out the song in its entire form, but I’ll be breaking it down into all of the different musical ideas, of which there are many more than in the typical rap song. I’ve declined to tab out Obie’s verses, as it would’ve taken too long. We’ll look at Busta Rhymes choruses instead, as it’ll be enough for our purposes here. Thus, a stave for vocals is omitted in the sections marked “Verses”, but just imagine one being there. Finally, you can hear the song here. I’ve also included midi recordings of each idea isolated right after the sheet music of them, because posting the entire sheet music for the song would be too much – it’s 16 pages long.)

We’ll begin by considering each musical idea separately, starting from the highest idea (in pitch) and then moving down to the bass. Let’s start with this idea:

This idea is in Eb minor, as is the entire song. This melodic idea in the high strings that opens the song outlines the tonic chord (the chord that feels like “home”), by mentioning the Eb, Gb, and Bb, before returning to Eb at the end. It is an interesting idea, with a good amount of melodic (a wide number of different notes that aren’t part of the underlying chord, a smooth up and down contour/shape)_ and rhythmic action (sixteenth note syncopations, and off-beat rhythms.) It is also worth noting that this idea repeats every two bars. Let’s consider the idea just below that one:

Consider how this idea (played by bells) contrasts with the one we just looked at. It’s much simpler: there are only quarter notes occurring right on each beat, and the melodic content is all by stepwise motion (all of the notes are right next to each.) It outlines a 3 – 2 – 1 scale degree motion in Eb minor’s relative major key, Gb. This contrasts with the general Eb feeling of the rest of the ideas. This idea also repeats every 2 bars. I would consider this idea as a mixture of melody (forming the foreground of the music) and the accompaniment (which can be thought of as the background of the music.) This is because it plays only one line at a time, but the idea is not strong enough to stand on its own. We’ll return to how all of these ideas interact together once we’ve gone through all of them.

This piano part provides a large amount of our harmonic information in the song. It is a iv – i motion, Ab minor chord – Eb minor chord, in Eb minor (if that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry about it for now.) This idea likewise repeats every 2 bars. It contrasts with both ideas that precede this one because it is a completely accompanimental idea. It is not in the foreground of the music. So count all of the different instruments used so far: bells, piano, and violin strings. We’re slowly unearthing what makes this song remarkable. Moving along:

This idea, played by a cello, is also strongly rooted in Eb. You can see how the line begins on Eb and ends on Eb. This idea is important because it repeats every 8 bars (imagine that there are 6 blank bars after the last bar in the image above; also note that that last Eb staccato completely alone in the 2nd bar starts the beginning of the new section; the 8 notes in the bar before it are pick-up notes to it.) We’ll return to why exactly this makes the idea important. This also feels like a return to Eb.

Finally, we reach the drum idea. Note that this drum idea is rather simple. It lacks other elements that might make it more sophisticated, such as hi-hat hits, or a more complex bass kick rhythm. This idea repeats once every bar.

These are the first 5 ideas that are presented in the song. They all start playing together in the first 8 bars of the song, before the Obie Trice verse starts. Let’s see how they are all perfectly balanced with each other, and support the rapper’s rhythms. We’ll consider how all of these ideas when placed together are balanced both vertically and horizontally. When we say they are balanced vertically, we will be considering where each idea falls in the range of pitch, whether they are low in pitch, in the middle in pitch, or high in pitch. Let’s go through in the same order that we first went through them. The idea in the violins is very high. The idea in the bells and the idea in the piano are in the middle. Meanwhile, the cello is in the low part of the range. Note how the ideas are spread out equally across the entire rage. If you were to take the highest and lowest notes of each idea and place them all on the same piano stave, it would look like this:

The range of each idea is beamed together. That is, the two highest notes (Eb to Bb) are the range of the violin strings, the Bb to Gb below that is the bells, the Eb to Cb below that is the piano’s range, and the Eb to Eb below that is the cello staccato idea. You can see that the whole range of pitch is covered, and it is covered in a very spread out and balanced manner. None of the ideas overlap, and none of the ideas are ever more than a perfect fifth interval away from each other. In doing so, the ear can handle so many different ideas at once. They won’t confuse each other because their ranges are spread-out, and different instruments play them. With this many different musical ideas, we can understand why Dre decided to keep the drum pattern simple (I haven’t considered the drums in the range of pitches because the drum and snare sound are of unspecific pitch, while the instruments are all of specific pitches. Thus they can be considered as being in different spheres, at least for our purposes here.) Anything more complex would have overburdened the listener’s ear. Now consider the function of all the ideas together. You have an interesting melodic idea in the high strings; an arpeggio-like idea in the bells below that is less interesting, and half-melodic half-accompaniment; you have the piano idea below that, that is all accompaniment; and then you have a bass line that provides harmonic motion (even it is comparatively simple harmonic motion.) There is a definite hierarchy of which ideas are in the foreground and which are in the background, which ideas are more interesting and which ideas are less interesting. No two ideas, both being very interesting, are competing to be heard over each other. Thus we see another example of Dre’s balancing of the music. Now we can look at how these ideas ultimately support the rapper’s words by looking at the ideas horizontally (that is, the additive effect of their rhythms.)

You can see that none of the ideas are very rhythmically complex. Yes, there are ideas that are more complex and less complex, but they are nothing compared to how complex the rapper’s voice is (we are now considering the interaction of these 5 ideas with the rapper’s words – also a musical idea – in the chorus section.) The rapper’s voice include lots of sixteenth notes, as well as strong syncopation (more in Obie Trice’s verse than Busta’s chorus.) By being on the simpler side generally, these musical ideas clear out horizontal (rhythmic) space for the complexity of the rapper’s words. Once again, we see that no one idea competes with the rapper’s words for the same musical space (just as the 5 ideas considered at first did not compete for the same musical space). In this way the musical ideas let the rapper’s words take forefront, as they should. It focuses the listener’s attention on the lyrics.

Now let’s consider how the different lengths of the musical ideas function structurally in the song. As we’ve noted, the bell idea and the piano idea all repeat every 2 bars, while the drums repeat once every bar. These 3 ideas together are the only ideas constantly heard throughout the whole song. They form the backbone of everything the listeners hears. The high violin idea repeats every 2 bars as well, but it comes and goes; it is not playing constantly. Dre inserts the violin idea and takes it away at structurally important parts in the song: for instance, in verse 1, the high string idea plays 4 times, in the 2nd third of Obie Trice’s 24 bar first verse. This adds interest to something that would otherwise sound more boring. The cello idea, however, is important because it repeats EVERY 8 bars (never coming or going). By doing so, it is an important structural demarcation line for sections in the song because all of the sections in the song are based on a number of 4 bars: they consist of 24, 16, 8, 4 etc., bars. Thus, the cello staccato idea marks the end of one section and the beginning of another, or the midway section of a section (like the verses.) Once again we see a hierarchy, this time of structural function. All of these different aspects of the music (structure, pitch, rhythm) are imbued with a perfect proportion by Dre. None overpower each other, and they all act in such a way that together they are more than the sum of their parts.

Now if Dre had stopped there, that would have been enough. But he is a noted perfectionist, so he takes it to the next level by giving the 2nd and 3rd verses their own characteristic ideas. In the first 8 bars of the 2nd verse, we get the following idea played by a guitar:



This guitar is played in standard E tuning of a guitar dropped a semitone, so that the guitar is then tuned in Eb. This allows the above musical idea to be played on an open Eb minor chord. This idea, a 4 bar idea that repeats twice, is a true arpeggio of the tonic Eb minor chord. It covers a much wider range than the other ideas, but because it is an arpeggio and does not have any notes that aren’t part of the tonic chord (it’s all Ebs, Gbs, and Bbs) it can fit very easily into the vertical pitch range of all of the musical ideas over the 2 bar bell idea so that the two do not conflict. This guitar idea is kept in the higher range so that it’s easier to hear. Furthermore, the high violin idea is absent, because having both would be an overload of musical information (note that as soon as the guitar idea ends, the high string idea comes back in.) This idea differentiates the 2nd verse from both other verses. Dre likewise differentiates the 3rd verse from the 2nd and 1st with the following idea:

This 4 bar idea is repeated 4 times so that it takes up the entire 16 bar 3rd verse. It is played by a solo violin. Note how it fits into the vertical range of pitch with the other ideas: its highest note (Gb) is the lowest note of the bell idea (never overlapping), while it’s lowest note (the Bb) overlaps by a single semitone the piano idea. Thus, we see more of the same balancing. This idea too is strongly in Eb.

The one idea we haven’t mentioned is the 8 bar contrabass idea that is a riff on the rhythm of Busta’s words in the chorus (or the words in the chorus’ rhythm is a riff on the contrabass idea, whichever you prefer.) The contrabass music fits in with our earlier theories, in that it’s notes occurs in the octave below the staccato cello, keeping the range of music still even.

This brings our total number of different ideas to 8 – the piano idea, the staccato cello idea, the contrabass idea, the high violin idea, the solo violin idea, the acoustic guitar idea, the bell idea, and the bass/snare drum idea. It is not enough that there are 8 different musical ideas, and that’s what makes this song amazing. It’s that so many different ideas are in perfect proportion to each other, in terms of pitch range, rhythm, and structural importance. They do not distract from each other, and the ear can very easily follow each one. Furthermore, some idea s, like the guitar and solo violin idea, serve to differentiate each re-iteration of a standard section of a rap song (verse/chorus) from the others.

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Snoop Dogg – Rap Music Analysis

Martin Connor

August 27, 2014

An excellent example of someone with dope rhymes, but a lack of a technical control over rhymes. A simplification of his problem is that he doesn’t use longer rhymes; the correct evaluation is that he doesn’t know what to do with long rhymes. Certainly, Snoop is one of the most original rappers of all time. Although he spawned a legion of imitators, in no small part because of his inseparable association with the funk rhythms of G-funk (go figure!). It’s only farther testament to his skills that no imitator quite approached his apparent and complete lack of caring that his every word is being recorded. His best rhymes on Doggystyle or The Chronic, as great as the rhythms that they have are, consist largely of repetitions of him spelling his name, and him counting numbers. So that’s also the problem: that EVERY WORD HE SAYS IS BEING RECORDED. The result is verbal content that is pretty devoid of anything beyond rhythmic meaning; Snoop’s insights into life will never be confused with that of Mos Def on “Mathematics” or Talib Kweli on “Black Girl Pain”. Sometimes people marvel at how Jay-Z and Lil’ Wayne never write down their rhymes; in fact, I find this extremely believable, and that’s because of the vapid content that they have recently been putting out.
Because of this innate feel for flow, almost rivaling Biggie’s, combined with some pretty vanilla poetic content, Snoop spawned a generation of imitators. It’s a testament to Snoop’s originality that no one ever quite got it down. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I most closely compare Snoop to his fellow California brethren who’s largely been forgotten: Hittman. If we compare the two, we’ll see how Snoop approaches his rhymes, and how Hittman imitates this. Let’s take Snoop’s rhymes on the famous “Gin And Juice.” These rhymes are the ones we want:

[but i / some how some way keep comin’ up with / funky ass shit like every single DAY] /
[MAY i kick a little something for the / G’S, and
make a few ends as i / BREEZE THROUGH]
[TWO in the morning and the / party’s still jumpin’
‘cause my momma ain’t HOME] /

This type of rhyming that eschews tight phrasing is typical of Snoop’s style. For instance, look at where the rhymes, capitalized here, happen in the sentences that are indicated by the brackets. Each rhyme group is flipped from the end of one sentence to the start of the next. For instance, “day” ends one sentence, and then the rhyme “may” starts the next one. Then, “through” ends the sentence after that one, and then the rhyme on the word “two” starts the next sentence. Finally, these bars, indicated by slashes, end with a word that doesn’t rhyme on any of the previous rhymes (but does start a rhyme group in the next bar.) This is what makes Snoop’s style: rhymes coming in unexpected places at unexpected times.

This is what Hittman does, and probably picked up from Snoop, being from California himself, and working with Snoop’s man Dr. Dre. Check out these rhymes from Hittman on the Chronic: 2001 song “Ackrite”:

[yo chase them girls in the black MAXIMA] [the PASSENGER almost FRACTURED her neckbone looking BACK AT US] [PLUS they on the dick ‘cause the cat is PLUSH] [they BLUSH I bumRUSH the HUSH]

Here, Hittman also ends sentences with rhymes that start the next sentence, just like Snoop did. “Maxima” ends the first sentence, and “passenger” opens the next one. Then, “us” ends the second sentence, and is rhymed on the first word of the next, “plus.” Then, the second sentence’s last word, “plush,” is rhymed on “blush,” that starts the last sentence here. So we see similarities, but what really makes them similar is their similar rhythms, which is harder to describe for non-musicians.

Qualitatively, Hittman’s and Snoop’s rhythms are more flowing, with longer syllables that are pronounced for a longer time. To really appreciate Snoop (or Hittman,) listen to those changes in how long the syllables last. Their rhymes aren’t gonna knock you out with crazy lengths and frequency, like for Eminem, such as on “Brain Damage.”

While this use of this rhyming style is original to Snoop, Snoop can’t then make new methods of phrasing out of old ones, which is what all my GOATs, like Jean Grae, can do. For instance, check out Snoop’s opening lines on “Gin And Juice:”

[with so much drama in the l.b.C, It’s kinda / hard being snoop d-o double-G, but Ii /
[somehow, someWAY, keep coming up with / funky ass shit like every single DAY]

Here, the phrasing is more traditional. It’s an AABB form, where the A’s represent the “-ee” rhyme sound on the letters “C” and “G,” and the B’s represents the rhyme vowel sound on “-ay,” on “way” and “day.” That’s a simple couplet form, with external, single-syllable rhymes that come at the end of sentences. Pretty boring. But to really get Snoop, listen to how the syllables “every single day” are pronounced. They’d look something like: “ev-RY SIN…gle…..day.” But snoop doesn’t know how to take this simple couplet form and move past it.

For instance, because I analyzed this just yesterday, take a line from Your Old Droog. You can hear this track, “Nutty Bars,” here. I’m feeling this song a bit because Droog keeps changing up the type of rhymes he uses. Just check out the first lines he’s got, sorry if the words are a little wrong:

[she knew that i would smash a little debbie and i still bagged the HOSTESS] /
[don’t fuck with ENTENMANN’S] [GHOST from the TENAMENTS] /

I like this line a lot because Droog does what you expect, but slightly varies it, which Snoop doesn’t really do. That first sentence quoted, as indicated by the pairs of brackets, is exactly a bar long. (Again, the rhymed words are capitalized.) The obvious thing for an emcee to do here, then, is to make another external (end of sentence) rhyme on “hostess” in the next bar, which is shown where those slashes start and stop. For instance, this is exactly what Big Daddy Kane, and a lot of other rappers, do very often. Check Kane’s song “Calling Mr. Welfare,” you can hear it here. These are the opening lines:

[you know the lady on the top floor of my BUILDING] /
[the heavy set one with about ten CHILDREN ] /

Kane does what so many rappers have done before: there are 2 sentences, 1 bar each, with external rhymes. This is the first half of Snoop Dogg’s couplet form, just the AA. Being so natural, is what I thought Droog would do when I first heard the song.

But Droog doesn’t complete that couplet, because he introduces a different rhyme from one that could be rhymed on “hostess.” Instead, he rhymes “entenmann’s” with “tenaments”, which new rhyme I didn’t expect him to insert. But he still rhymes on “hostess,” with the syllable “ghost.” But, unlike Kane’s external rhymes, he makes “ghost” an internal rhyme at the start of a sentence. However, Droog still has external rhymes on entenmann’s/tenaments, just not the rhyme you expect, and these 2 bars still end and start with the bar line, just like Kane did. But now there are 3 sentences. So Droog has kept these elements traditional:

1. Length of 2 bars
2. Rhyme on external rhyme
3. 1-bar long opening sentences

But changed these elements:

1. New rhyme group introduced
2. External rhyme is now on internal rhyme
3. 3 sentences, not 2
4. 3-syllable rhyme, not 2-syllable rhyme

This is what Snoop doesn’t know how to do.

As original as Snoop’s flow is today, still sounding fresh today after 20 years, he never moved comfortably beyond it. Snoop die-hards may point out the harder, more aggressive approaches of his post-Doggystyle albums, but he never seemed to convincingly pull off a more aggressive flow. As innate as it seems to 2pac, that’s how foreign aggression seems to Snoop Dogg. No matter whether it’s good or not, I give Snoop a lot of props for Snoop Lion, even if he seems to take the persona too far at times. It’s in the same way I respect Lil’ Wayne for his rock album, even if it did suck. But Snoop Lion is reggae, not rap, and so I haven’t taken it into consideration here.

It boils down to this, and what separates so many of the rappers here from my top 10: Snoop doesn’t have a complete and total control over every aspect of rap in the same way that Jean Grae does. When this is combined with a lack of compelling verbal content, the result is a very original, very talented rapper who is not quite a GOAT. He may top other top 10 lists, but my list relies only on rap: not how popular a rapper is, how long they’ve stuck around, or the great beats they’ve picked, all of which Snoop excelled at. However, top 10 here? No.

[k1000]

crazy ; gots to read it quietly

[The Predator]

The authors book -

For years Rap artists have met with mixed reception--acclaimed by fans yet largely overlooked by scholars. Focusing on 135 tracks from 56 artists, this survey appraises the artistry of the genre with updates to the traditional methods and measures of musicology.

Rap synthesizes rhythmic vocals with complex beats, intonational systems, song structures, orchestration and instrumentalism. The author advances a rethinking of musical notation and challenges the conventional understanding of Rap through analysis of such artists as Eminem, Kanye West and Jean Grae.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Musical-Artistry-Martin-Connor-author/dp/0786498986