Music Dude presents: The Seven

Before we get into it, if you havent read this post or this post. You might wanna do so.

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And please note that this list deals strictly with MODERN era, please check the timeframe. That is why the list will exclude Marly Marl, Eric Sermon and Prince Paul. Although they continue to make beats, their impacts were most felt between 87-92. That's when each of them changed hiphop as we know it. They'd definitely be in a Top 10 of All-Time list. And, if I'm feeling spry -- I might post at the botton of this blog what that Top 10 would look like.

As you all are well aware, this is an official Music Dude post, which means that what's said is fact, not opinion. It's biblical and infallible. You might read some comments from dudes that are authorities in their own rights, but they aint the Dude.

Knowledge starts now.

The Seven Greatest HipHop Producers

of the Modern Era (1993-now)

7. Fo'Real Williams: Most people know that I sweat this man's music like a fat women, runnin a marathon in Zimbabwe wearing a plastic garbage bag. To me, Pharell's genius is bringing "groove" to the hop. Hiphop has always been so much about "beat", about "ryhthm", but never about groove. Until recently.

Hop niggas were first introduced to P and his boy Chad on SuperThug of the N.O.R.E. album of 1998. It was the No. 1 club-banger for that year probably...and Nore really did show niggas how to rhyme on Neptunes beats -- because that was before P hooked up with Jay and started producing homeboy acts from Virg like the Clipse, who first rocked a Neptunes track in 1999 called the Funeral.

I was originally gonna go with Timothy in my No. 7 spot. He was crazy influential, too. The way he used the sped up, syncopated bass drums and snare kicks. He created a sound that everybody bit. Plus he could produce a raw track like Hovito. But Timbo was always kinda corny by himself. Like the stuff he did with Magoo. I mean, Magoo can kill anyone's resume. It's like a great director comin out with Eurotrip or somethin. And Timbo came with a fat white dude name Bubba Sparx, who tried to make hillbilly cool.

When you put the two side by side it comes down to preference, because they both changed Hop in semi-monumental ways. Timbo pioneered "weird-scientist" type methods, Rell introduced groove and melody (not, melody from a sampled record, but actual new melody created by Rell). When its get down to it, I can do without some of Tim's inter-galactic inventions, but Hop would sorely miss the musical elements Pharell threw into the mix.

And check P's resume: Excuse Me Miss -- Jay-Z, which happened to be, maybe, the first "grown-up" track of this new "grown-and-sexy" era. He nailed about four bangers on ODB's second album, including Cold Blooded, the ill Rick James cover. He managed to make the Clips hot. And he blew Nore up.

And we won't even get into his R&B triumphs like producing the only hot tracks that Brittney Spears (Slave) and Omarion (Touch) ever recorded.

6. James Dilla: You already know what I think about Dilla, based on my eulogy to the great producer. The euology will tell you why I think he's great and why he overtook Pete Rock as my favorite producer. But why is he No. 6? Homeboy took what Pete Rock did and, not necessarily made it better, but definitely made it his own, so he was never bitin. And then niggas started bitin him! And Dilla created, or at the very least cemented, the sound of a whole city. If niggas look at alot of the music comin out detroit these days, especially on the soul-hop/hip-soul tip, I think it's rooted in Dilla's genius. The Platinum Pied Pipers put out one of the illest music albums in a while: funk, soul, hop, electronica -- the whole nine. Dilla's fingerprints seemed to be on much of that.

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And you know what, Dilla was much more than a hop producer (although that doesnt have much bearing on this list), but it still needs to be mentioned. During 99-00 where he had the greatest hiphop production year for any producer, he also produced the two illest tracks off Mama's Gun and, perhaps, the best track of 1st Born Second.

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And just so I can stop rambling, I'll just give you a list of some of my favorite Dilla tracks...

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Song, Album, Artist

"Let's Ride", Amplified, Q-Tip.

"Da Booty", A Love's Movement, Tribe

"Heat", Like Water, Common

"Didn't Cha Know" AND "Kiss Me On My Neck", Mama's Gun, Badu

"Certified", Jazzmatazz 2, Guru

"Stakes Is High", Stakes is High, DeLa

"Runnin", Labcaincalifornia, Pharcyde

"Where Do We Go", Quality, Kweli

"Much More", Grind Date, DeLa

"Do You", Deli, Slum

"It's Your World", Be, Common

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And this doesn't even get at joints he's done for Spacek, on his albums, on the first Slum album or on the Jaylib joint.

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5. Peter Rock: For most of my hiphop life, PR, the Soul Brother, was my favorite. I used to argue that he was the best producer ever, over Premier -- but that's back when I looked at producers as strictly beat makers. And as a beatmaker, I'm still arguing Pete over Dilla and Primo.

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I actually wanted to put Dilla over Pete Rock because Dilla actually "resided" over album projects. Pete only did that with Pete Rock and CL Smooth albums. Most of his other work was a beat here and beat there, so, outside of his stuff with CL, you never got to see the full-capacity of his directorial skills at work.

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But I couldnt put Dilla over Rock, because Dilla is Rock. So is Kanye and 9th Wonder and Just Blaze and bunches of other niggas that inculcate horns and soul riffs and other chopped-smaples into their tracks. De La, and therefore Prince Paul; and Tribe, and therefore Shaheed; had come out before Pete and CL debuted in 1991. But I doubt Pete was sittin in Mount Vernon, heard 3 Feet High or Instinctive Paths and -- voila! -- he had his musical steez. Those Native Tongue albums may have introduced hiphop to jazzier sounds, but Pete was still different. It wasn't jazzy, although he hit us with, probably, the illest horn riff in hoop-history, which was the sax off Reminisce...Pete was more soul. And everything was obscure and sampled so magnificently. I bet if you took every producer inHop, PR has the deepest crates, you can tell with his music.

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So in the midst of two extremes in the early 90s, which was alternative-hop of the Native Tongues and the brewing hardcore gangsta ish comin from the West and, lest we forget, that funky-James Brown ish that EPMD was still championing; you had Pete comin out with this melange that was funky-soulful-and blatantly hiphop all at the same time. He was unique and with the help of Large Pro, showed alot of these younger niggas how to do this.

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He was a creator and, for my ear that was reared in jazz music, the dopest to ever do it.

If you wanna do some knowledge on Pete, check these albums: Illmatic, Main Ingredient, Soul Survivor...and, don't sleep, Blue Funk.

And oh by the way, "Reminisce" is considered to be on of the three or four best beats of All-Time. It was a musical masterpiece from the subtle gospel humming in the backround, to hard, charging snare to the famous sax-sample. But for my money -- and I swear I'm not being controversial-- my favorite Pete track ever was "Straighten It Out" off that same album. The trio-horns yo-yo steez and that despicable guitar lick will be the cause of my death one day.

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Rock on Peter.

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4. Pregunta Amor: The first and only band leader in hiphop, the ring-leader for the Soulquarians (?uest, Dilla and Poyser), omnipresent in hip-soul/soul-hop. Here's the essential nuts-and-bolts for why ?uest is this high and above Pete -- he is a TRU producer. ?uest reigns over projects. For instance, Dilla produced much of Like Water, but ?uest was executive producer...and executive producers in hop are different than movie exec producers. In the movies, exec-prod give money. In hop they reside over the whole projects. They yes-no songs, offer advice/critiques on album directions/sounds. Only two other niggas do this better than ?uest and theyre my Nos. 1 and 2 on this list.

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To begin, ?uest produced every Roots album, which gets him on this list to begin with. From Do You Want More, when it was mostly all live, to Illadelph Halflife when the Roots moved to a very crisp studio sound, to Things Fall Apart, when they melded the two and then Phrenology when he started expirementing with electronica and more eccentric sounds, my nigga ?uest was on that dippa. If Pete Rock has the deepest crates, ?uest had the most authoritative grasp on music.

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I remember a concert at the 9:30 club when we saw the Roots, I think it was the Okayplayer Tour, and during an intermission, ?uest came out and played DJ for about 20-30 minutes. You'd never heard a more seamless quilt of musical genres, it was ridiculous. And that all comes out in his music.

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What people don't understand is how incredible, classic and landmark Electric Circus was. Hiphoppers, the narrow-minded ones, panned it because it didnt sound like One Day or Like Water, but musically, it was important. The direction that ?uest and Common took music on that album was quite seminal. Like Love Below, they were basically making a "music" album, rooted in hiphop. There's no way Common makes that album without ?uest and its obvious since his previous and later works always were made in his producers personalities -- think about it: One Day sounds like NoID, Water sounds like Dilla and Be basically sounds like Kanye. Well Circus was unapologetically ?uest, directing an album with a like-minded artist who was seeking to explore music. That album would have been in a shambles without someone with impeccable vision and a relentless grasp of music. That dude was ?uest.

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He continues to do that for the Roots, his main canvas that he paints the prettiest on. And he's done so for countless soul artists like Bilal, Badu and D'angelo. In fact the two greatest soul albums since the Neo-Soul movement (excluding Omar, since he's from the UK) were Voodoo and Mama's Gum, which Soulquarians (primarily Dilla and ?uest) directed.

?uest might even be higher, if he worked with more hop artists. But the Roots and Common, because theyre so prolific and because those albums, musically, are so challenging and because ?uest is so integral to those albums...it pust ?uest this high on my list.

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3. Disc Jockey Premier: See, this is where things get dicey and convoluted and where feelings get hurt and close friends start to say hurtful things. Primo No. 3?!?!?!!! I can see niggas askin themselves that, very incredulously. "I mean, maybe Vince is on some sort of drug and he put another nigga at No.1, but then Primo will definitely be #2. He can't go no lower than that! It's unHop."

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But feel me. First off, although Pete Rock is my favorite producer (in the general sense of beat-maker) of all-time, I concede that Primo is the dopest and greatest. Much like how I favor Magic over Jordan. Now I can make compelling arguments for both Pete and Magic, but conventional wisdom and evidence supports Primo andJordan. It's just Pete and Magic appeal to my personal senses and liking. Magic's game stayed refreshing and inventive, whereas Jordan's game got boring after awhile (this is a subject for its own novel-blog); Magic changed the way the game was played more than Jordan (I swear I can make the argument. See: Tim Duncan). I feel the same about Primo sometimes. After awhile, he got a little boring to me.

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I was kickin it with my man Vino the other day and told him how I fell BACK in love with Primo, because after Moment of Truth, Primo got cliche'. But that, ironically, is where the discussion of his genius begins.

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Primo became such a signature for that gutter, authentic hiphop sound, that EVERYBODY wanted a Primo track -- and he obliged. Which is where the basis for him being No. 3 begins.
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Primo was just givin niggas tracks. He wasnt in the studio directing these cuts; and if he was, it managed to come out sounding hackneyed, without creativity and a well-traveled. See, Primo resided over those gangstar albums and over Jeru's first few albums, but that's about it. And, many times, those albums sounded like Beats and Ryhmes. The two niggas I'm ranking above him have two things over Prim, the albums they directed sounded moe complete and visionary (not that Primo's didn't, just that not as much as these two) and they produced solo acts which went on to commercial, critical and real-nigga Hop success.

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Maybe it was his lyricist, but Primo's albums always seemed like he put together and death-inducing track and someone came and spit some lyrics on it. The ingredients came out sounding like a salad and not a cake -- once again, compared to the top two niggas.

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I do owe Prim an apology though. As Gee tried to tell me, I was buggin with Dilla's 99-00. Yes, Amplified, Like Water, Fantastic Vol.2, Mama's Gun and 1st Born Second is -- almost -- unfathomably dope, especially for a basic newbie (he hadn't taken the reigns like that before). But it's no 1994-95 Primo.

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In fact, going down the list of tracks Primo produced during that historic year is important -- very important. I'll explain why in abit. First check the discography...

Artist, Album, Songs

Gangstarr -- Hard to Earn: Produced the whole thing, including classics like, Code of the Streets, Mass Appeal, Tonz of Gunz.

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Jeru -- Sun Rises: A Classic among the Classic albums, which included classic beats like Static and D Original.

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Group Home -- Livin Proof: includes classic tracks Supa Star and Livin Proof.

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He produced every track on those three ablbums. But here's the crazy and historical thing. From 1993-on, the East came back after a good 2 or 3 years of West domination and this 1994-95 period was crucial in gettin NYC on the map. In each instance, outside of Wu members, every nigga came to Primo to give them that rugged, authentic NYC sound and he delivered time and time again. You could say that the NYC and East Coast ressurgence was on the backs, musically of Primo and this other nigga we'll be gettin to soon. Just check the next albums I mention. In each case, Primo submitted at least two tracks and each of them influenced the direction and NYC feel to the album. Primo, you can say, was clutch!

KRS -- KRS One

Fat Joe -- Jealous Ones

Nas -- Illmatic

Biggie -- Ready to Die

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Outside of Come Clean, off Jeru's album, few songs signify that East Coast comeback -- in sound -- more than Represent off Illmatic and Unbelievable off Ready to Die. Every single one of those albums are 5 Mic Classics and Primo, probably, produced the dopest track on each album. That's saying a whole lot. These niggas basically said, I need to get Prim to lace me with at least two or three tracks of that New York ish and produced. Now, if Primo would have produced the ENTIRE Illmatic album, my viewpoint of his place on this list may different -- although, I doubt Illmatic would have been Illmatic if Primo would have been at the healm, because, on again -- I'm sold on Primo's vision.

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Then Primo laced Jay-Z on his first album and took some time off. Then he came back two years later with Moment Of Truth, which was impeccable and cemented him as the greatest beat-maker of all-time. But then he hit that cliche' phase. And this cliche' phase killed me. I actually stopped messin with Prim for a while. A Primo track, was no different than hearing one of those cliche' Neptunes tracks back in the day. It was a scary time.

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Look, just based on what Primo did in 1994-95, how important that was, how he, in effect, ran the offense for the whole frikkin East Coast!!!! Just based on that, I know it's hard for people reconcile him being this low on the list. But before you judge, check my arguments for the top 2.

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2. Doctor Andre: There is no man more capable of residing over the production of album. No one better at it. Dre is the illest dude in front of a control board, crafting an album for the artist he's working with. His drawback is that, compared to these other niggas on the list -- especially Pete, Primo, Dilla and the No. 1 nigga -- Dre isnt as ill of beat maker. Don't get me wrong, he's sick, just not as sick. I mean, Primo is like AIDS, Dre is like syphylis.

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When you here people say things like, "I'm in the studio working with Dre on my new album," you gotta admit that you think to yourselves that there's little possibility that album ends up being 1.) loose, directionless and pointless with wack beats. 2.) It won't sell.

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Even though Dre and Rakim don't exactly sound like perfect match ala Dilla-Common -- niggas knew that Dre would have Rakim releasing a "tight" album, as in tight and crisp and complete and well-directed, plus it'd have dope beats.

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Here's what puts Dre over Primo, even though Prim is a 10 on the Beatmakers Index and Dre is 8.8-9.2. Dre didn't just give niggas tracks. Dre produced whole albums and he's sort of like Dean Smith, in that his underlings end up being the biggest stars in all of hiphop. If there's a Godfather in hiphop, I think it's Dre. If there's a Quincy Jones in a hophop studio, I think it's Dre.

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Dre gave the hop Snoop, Eminem, 50 Cent and The Game.

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Now, none of those dudes created TRULY classic albums that tru hop niggas revere, but you can't escape the fact that theyre four of the biggest hop acts in the modern era, and i guarantee they wouldnt be without Dre.

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This doesn't even factor in how he was at the center of Pac's leap. Pac was always popular, but California Love and All Eyez on Me raised his stakes.

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And that doesnt even get at the fact that Dre was the principal creator of NWA, which u might say created the West Coast sound.

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Here's the test -- take an artist that you wouldnt associate with Primo or Dre, someone like Royce da 5'9 or Lil Wayne or Juelz Santana. Now do you really believe they'd make a better album with Primo than they would with Dre. I don't think so. I think Dre is more methodical, more diverse and -- in the end -- a better producer. Primo would have Lil Wayne spittin over beats that sound like "MCs Act Like They Don't Know", and that'd be cool and all, the beats would bang...but Dre would take Lil Wayne's steez and make beats and direct and album that would be the best of Wayne's career. That's what Dre does. He's not only a genius, he's hiphops most fool-proof guarantee that your album will be well made.

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1. Robert Steels: If you noticed, what i said about Dre wasn't exactly reverential. I didn't have any stories about the first time I heard him, none of that. I didn;t say anything about how The Chronic was a landmark or how his taking The Parliament's P-Funk and turned it into G-Funk. That's because I wasn;t really a huge fan of Dre's music. My reason behind him at #2 was pragmatic and calculated. It's all based on how he gets down in a studio and how he's the surest hands to put your career and/or album in. (And, in the end, he does make dope beats, just not to my greatest liking). In a way, I keep asking myself, if Dre is the greatest of all producers, in the sense of the title "producer" that we've been dealing with for this list.

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But he's not the greatest. Rza is.

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More so than any of these dudes, I think niggas bite Rza the most. That sped up sample of someone singing that Kanye employs so much. Rza coined that. Those odd, viedo game sounds that Dilla uses in some of his far-out tracks, Rza started that.

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And Rza created, developed and patented Wu-Tang. To me, that makes him not only the best producer of the modern-era, but the most important.

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I think the Wu put NYC on the map, more than Biggie and Nas put together. Maybe it was the simple fact that they had 9 emcees, but maybe it was the fact that they were so gangsta. See, West Coast took over because they invaded hiphop not only with a gangsta-steez, but bravado and machismo. Nas couldnt put NYC on the map because he wasnt popular enough and he wasn't hard enough -- he was too substantial for that, too busy being a sociologist and we love him for it. Biggie was definitely popular and gangsta, but he had Puff with him. They wanted zero beef with Pac and the West on wax. Wu Tang, on the other hand, was reckless. They scared niggas. They were cool with Pac and Cube and MC Eight and niggas from the West, but if the steez wouldve flipped and they'd have been at odds, they wouldve broght the ruckus. I mean, think about the songs on 36 Chambers and think about the videos. They were menacing, but in an authentic, genuine way...it didnt feel contrived or purposely shocking like Onyx.

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And at the healm of that Wu project was the Rza, that is an unquestioned fact. He made every beat and the Wu sound started with the music. It was dank, it was eery, it was scary, it reckless, it was rambunctious, it was refelctive, it was groovin, it was just way too many things for my young, 14-year-old ears. And who doubts that Rza was the dude that came up with the idea of the chorus for "Bring the Ruckus" or "Wu Tang Ain't Nuttin to F*** With"? And don't think for a second that Rza dropping the track to just a rumbling bass before each verse didn't add to the drama of that record.

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When have you ever heard a beat like Mystery of Chessboxing? When, for that matter, have u heard a beat like the one Rza laced for "M E T H O D Man"? Do you think it was anyone else's idea to record Proteck Ya Kneck without a chorus? Did we ever hear a track like "All So Simple"? I'm seriously racking my brain and I can't think of anything that sounded even remotely similar. That album was just so new. Rza was actually breaking new groung. Not to mention, it could have unraveled thanks to, like, nine (essentially) solo acts forming a group. 36 was the most important album of the modern era and it was 60% Rza. In fact, no producer was more important to a project that Rza was to 36.

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Then he went on a produced all the Wu solo spinoffs that continued to propel East Coast hop. From Tical to Cuban to Liquid to Iron Man to Return to 36.

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Like, if you take Guillotine or Glaciers of the Cuban Linx album and Brooklyn Zoo and Shimmy Ya off Dirty's Return to 36 album -- I think you could make an argument that no producer made beats that sounded as disparate or new.' For instance Shimmy used a piano riff that was tinkling, with a shuffling snare and groovin bass line. Brooklyn zoo was classic Wu, it sounded like a basement, the piano was real heavy and ominous -- once again, it was that threatning, truly gangsta ish that Wu was on. Guillotine was that Rza track with the odd sounds, in this case some type of distrted violin and that head nod drum rythm. And I'm not really prepared to breakdown Shadowboxing off the Liquid album, from the haunting flute to the sped-up sample of the woman singing "oh man", it was as vile as they come.

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And we havent even gotten into the whole Kung-Fu flick ingredient in these songs and on these albums. Where did that come from?

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When people drop pieces of famous movies or obscure monologues on their records, that's Wu-influence, and that is, essentially, Rza-influence.

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One other thing that illustrates Rza's importance and excellence happened in 2000. In 1997 Wu dropped Wu-Tang Forever. Rza didn't miss a beat. It was actually a better album than 36, just not as important. But after Forever, Rza produced most of Tical:2000, another impeccably produced album. But in 1999, the masses awaited Rae's follow up to Cuban Linx, maybe the Clan's illest effort. He hit us with Immobilarity. I couldnt have been more dissapointed. I mean, it was NOWEHERE near the level of Cuban Linx. And I don't mean "it was really, really dope, but no Cuban Linx, because Cuban may be one of the 10 illest album ever"...naa, I mean it was just a good album and that's it. But it's easy to see why -- Rza didn;t produce it. Rza and Rae butted heads a lot and they were in the midst of a spat, supposedly, so Rae went with his own team of producers. They produced Wu-sounding tracks, but without Rza lording over the studio, it was a flat album. And it was like, "Oh no! Is the Wu over! Are they done!" That, after all, was their first album that wasnt really good. Even Dirty's "Nigga Please" album was a banger.

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But just when u thought the earth was gonna cave in, Rza gets in the studio and produces Ghost's "Supreme Clientele". That, along with "Fantastic Vol. 2" remain the dopest, most creative and most important albums of the Last Great Year of Hop. To me, Clientele was an obvious indication that Rza was unquestionably the driving force behind the Wu's prowess. Clientele was like a brief Wu rebirth that ended with The W, an downright dope album that niggas sleep on. On Clientele, it was like the Wu was back at it and it was all Rza...I mean, that was like two years after Tical:2000, and u really missed the Rza and then he came back blew ur brain out the back of ya head.

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Wu-Tang ruled hiphop for like 4 years. RULED IT! And they did it with commercial success and real music. That was all Rza.

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Rza created, maybe more than any other producer, a new sound for hiphop. He was truly creative. And even though niggas bite him, none have ever been able to emulate him. Noone has done to Rza was Dilla did to Pete Rock, it's impossible. I mean, this nigga is so cold, he writes scores to movies.

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And I once sipped Don Perignon with Rza at concert. For that and his immense, never-before genius, he is modern hiphop's Greatest Producer Ever.