Bounce Blueprints: True Brown Beats

"Beats & Pieces" Cameron Paul

(1987, Mixx-it) cassette rip @ 320

Today's send-off finally bridges the gap between my IP address and the 504 area code. It's the first in a series of breaks compilations / DJ tools / whatever you want to call it by former KMEL DJ and current Tulsa, Oklahoma resident Cameron Paul and home to the infamous "brown beats" - the 808 bass, rimshot and samples that forms the spine of so much bounce: the Ike to Triggaman's Tina, the Optimo packed with a Drag Rap dub. 

Confusingly, I've already posted this bounce riddim. That's because the most often sampled bars of this track also form Derek B's "Rock the Beat". I stay stuck to my assumption that Cameron Paul is sampling Derek B. and not the reverse, but both records came out the same year and until Paul returns my emails or some bounce historian shares the timeline (Dr. Thug?) I'll remain somewhat uncertain. Fortunately, we can be a little more certain about which of the two records are sampled in bounce music: both. You'll immediately hear the hollered lo-bit digital samples that color so much early bounce in Paul's version, but I remember at least one "Mannie Fresh Mix" to use the chorus off Derek B's cut and I'll edit this post when I recapture that data. The fact that this recently became a point of exactly the kind of contention I'd like to see more of from T&G commenters combined with poster N0LA $o1ja's outing of the ubiquitous barking Bounce dog sample have proved the arduous task of the Bounce Breaks Archive to be worth what it cost me in worsened hyperopia. 

I'm glad as hell that even the economic downturn is not turning Ebayers back on to cassettes: I find so much shit going for shit on tape that goes for gold on vinyl or compact disc. Strange alchemy. The great thing about this cassette rip is that (and this goes especially for the NR off vers.) you can really capture that Pimp Daddy 93 sound for your own retro bounce productions. 

Also, thanks Chris Brown for permanently clouding the "Brown Beats" google.

Music

Debbie Deb When I Hear Music
(Jampacked, 1983) @ 320 kbps

Freestyle classic sampled in many Magic Mike songs, other Bass & Rollerskate cuts and more recently Pitbull's "Fuego". The best song you're likely to hear coming out the radio while getting your teeth cleaned (2nd place: Jacksons' Shake Your Body).

Ike Moods: The Mixtape

DJ Kid Slizzard presents
Ike Moods: Da Mixtape
Side A, Side B

I mentioned in my distant but most recent post a desire to unleash some convoluted Bar-Kays rap family tree mixtape, with space allotted for the Bar Kays, Isaac Hayes, Ike Dirty, Gangsta Pat & Jazze Pha - all connected through musical & familial relations - and works related through sampling. But then Isaac Hayes' death became an inspiration to review more closely that life now lost. So in place of something with a larger scope is this mix of Hayes' most trampled breaks in both raw and sampled forms. The fact that samples of Ike's work follow the full trajectory of rap history from the East Coast (Biz Markie, Ultramagnetic) to the West coast (NWA, CMW, Spice 1) to the Southern States (BG, Skinny Pimp) gives some clue as to the weight of his boots in rap annals. I hope this bootlegg cassette shows due respect in a way that only a bootlegg cassette can. RIP.

Cheeky Black Let Me Get That Outcha
(1995, Tombstone) @ 320 kbps

By request, Cheeky's 1995 format-defying debut. Single? EP? Not sure: 5 street tracks, 2 instr. & 2 clean, though not the same ones. I think a prior version of this may have come out on Mobo Joe vinyl, so this Tombstone release may be an expanded CD version. The focus of the request and as such the reason for my posting is the instrumental version of "Bitch Get Off Me", samples of which you can hear all over the Money Rules Ent. post from yesterday. Think of it as Brown Beat & Triggaman's illegitimate child, growing up in a world of Mannie Fresh flourishes - dog barks, wobbly scratching and hard ass inline eighth notes stabs that sound like someone getting beat down with a baseball bat.

Oh yeah, and a new bounce dump in the hollerbox, pushed to the side because I'm not taking credit for it.

Three 6 Breaks

Mystic Pimpin: Triple 6 Mafia Breaks Da Mixtape (Side A, Side B)

Alright, I've ripped a pile of tapes for this blog, now I'm flipping it and its yall's turn to dub this mp3 on cassette. Just over 90 minutes of Three 6 sample sources brought to you in non-stop form, compiled and cut with listening (as opposed to re-sampling) in mind. That's why I left Marvin Gaye's "Is That Enough?" almost fully in tact but cut Teena Marie's "Out on a Limb" down to size.

Anyways, I'm serious about yall making a tape of this. It's like ten dollars for a new walkman that works better than any one from 10 years ago (if you don't still have an old one laying around), and if you're too young to have ever had one its not too late to feel the joy of that hard mechanical play button. I'm currently using these cheesy ass cassettes, which I have a pile of and am generally fond of since they remind me of taping the radio when I was 6 years old. I did do a double take, though, when I saw Maxell XLII's going for 5 dollars a double-pack at Amoeba. You could buy 25 of their budget cassettes for that price, tape the corners up and start killing music with home taping.

'Memphis Pimpin' music, the only genre designation I know of to reference the place and status of listener (not creator), is scattered all over this mixtape along with a lot of new age sounding shit that helped give Three 6 their mystic style. A lot of these breaks are standard rap fare - you'll surely recognize the meandering piano on "Ike's Mood" from like every Mannie Fresh production before '95. Others, like Willie Hutch's "I Choose You", they've completely owned, despite Hutch samples going back to Public Enemy & Pac. Actually, it was listening to "Souljah's Revenge" that helped me place the Bill Withers sample on here... I guess there's no sampling in a vacuum.

I tried not to retrace this blog's footsteps, omitting "Drag Rap" & "Bitches Reply", but also eventually decided to chunk the Exorcist and Halloween themes on the basis of flow disruption. Lamont Dozier's "Shine" was always intended but failed to make it due to time constraints.

Bass Game Breaks

Y2G's

Year 2 thousand remake of the Showboy's 1986 Bounce/Buck construction set "Drag Rap". James Brown may deserve the Lifted Samples Lifetime Achievement award, but I can't think of another track thats been pillaged so boldly and so completely. And considering the near infinite love and respect these 2 either get or deserve, how come they couldn't get something above this highschool photoshop job for the cover to their only full-length? I'm not bitching too hard because I love when record a title incorporates the expression 'Y2K'. I would also love to see a list of titles they actually received royalties from. I imagine Mannie Fresh contemplating the reissue of CM's pre-universal discography and then writing it off like, "Goddamn, I'm tired of sending all my cheese to those motherfuckers." Complete discography to follow shortly (as soon as I replace my needle).