"This CD serves up a tasty set of swing, hip hop and ragga grooves. The first 23 tracks are composite loops, with five variations containing just drums, drums and bass, drums and vocals, drums and vocals and bass, and finally the whole lot. There's a good variation of grooves here with tempos from 90 bpm up to 140 bpm. Tracks 25 to 53 contain grooves of around a minute in length, evolving over that period to give a wealth of variations to play with. Blackbeat have thrown in some vocal bites on the last three tracks which, if nothing else, top off the collection nicely.
Overall, this is another excellent release from Blackbeat, it's success due to OD Hunte's imaginative and well-executed grooves, combined with good recording quality and nice presentation." - The Mix
Contents
This CD is split into two parts. The first half of the CD is packed with loops, each is broken down into into 5 versions - the standard loop, a variation, a version with bass, another with vocals and fx, and then the whole lot together. The second half of the CD is full of grooves that build from the basic drum loop into full productions. The idea is to sample the section that has the combination of elements you require whilst hearing it in context. There's also a small section of vocal bites right at the end of the disc.
More info on the Producer
BLACKBEAT is singer, songwriter, rapper, & producer OD Hunte. BLACKBEAT aka 'Da Black', 'the Double B', wrote, produced & recorded the highly praised 'Freekee Jack Swing' in his personal studio in late 1994/early 1995 and recently compiled '96th Street' following a similar formula. BLACKBEAT decided to produce sample CDs after being disappointed by the quality of several products that he heard and by the lame sameness of many loops used by producers, remixers, jingle programmers, etc. The only producers that seemed to be making new & interesting noises were from the usual big-name stables; Jam & Lewis, Babyface, and of course Teddy Riley. Infact, BLACKBEAT owes part of his groove construction technique to TR as he was unwittingly granted access to composite tracks and samples from a remix session of a TR-produced American artist. Those loops and sounds made fascinating listening. New Jack Swing was no longer a kick, a snare, a hat and a couple of odd noises... Hence BLACKBEAT loops reflect this intent to load the groove with as many tasty syncopations as can be squeezed in. Another trademark of the BLACK's sample CD sound is the eight bar loops & four bar patterns. The Loops on '96th Street' and the first section of 'FJS' are produced in this format so that the purchaser can hear the beat go to work and get to grips with the groove rather than just having a two bar snippet which leaves you sitting there with your finger glued to your CD review/search button. OD Hunte is presently looking for a publishing deal for his songs with a major publisher as well as pursuing remix and production assignments. OD Hunte is particularly interested in working with rappers and groups based on strong vocal harmonizations who have record company interest but don't want to incur an unrecoupeable national deficit just too afford a big-name producer. You can contact BLACKBEAT via AMG.