Big Doomy String Samples On RnB Records

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Listened to the Christina Milian ft Yng Jeezy single, and yes I like it, but the talk about Aaliyah and so on yesterday had me thinking back to '00/'01 and all the jittery/ravey/squelchy/odd background stuff that producers were putting into R'n'B then. Those production choices seemed to give access to a much wider emotional range - more vulnerability, swooniness, dread, joy, sass - than sticking another portentiously cinematic string riff on the back of your tune.

No?

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Guest raps are funny, sometimes it's really obvious that all the rapper has heard is the beat and the title (eg Twista's rap on a rmx of Mis-Teeq's 'Scandalous': his rap is entirely "erm there is this word scandalous and here are some synonyms for it and er Mis-Teeq might be scandalous but I have not heard of them actually").

But then you get stuff like 'We Need A Resolution' and Teedra's 'You'll Never Find (A Better Woman)' where Timbaland and Jadakiss are responding to some quite subtle criticisms in the verses - maybe by chance but probably not.

I think - possibly stating the obvious - that guest raps work best when the song deals with relationships and love and so on, because the guest can either agree with his lady about how much they wuv each other, or go "hang on bitch you are WRONG and here I will put MY case forward".

An interesting one is Nas on Amerie's 'Man Up' - she tears into her object of derision so utterly and mercilessly that Nas would be completely ineffectual in response, so he plays the narrator's BROTHER and tears into the ex as well!