Nas Is Already ‘Halfway Through’ His Next Album With Hit-Boy

[Cladyclad]

You're the one that needs help because dude showed you proof and you're still in denial.

Proof of what I ain’t ask for that shyt

 

[head shots101]

His beats sorta sound hollow. He's good at mimmicking other producers sound but has no real identity of his own and misses all the little idiosyncransies and textures that all the great producers have. And his drums sound flat.

The thing with Hit-Boy was he went from being an elite producer for club bangers in the 2010s to an above average sample based producer.

He's good at what he does but people justifiably push back on some of the more derranged Nas stans on this forum who act like he's the hip hop Mozart for making some offbrand Bink, Madlib and Just Blaze beats

I like your break down ….. what do u mean his beats sound hollow?

 

[Mike the Executioner]

Not true. If Hit Boy produced five consecutive albums with these same beats for Jay Z or Andre 3000 in three years, he would still be a thought just like he is now.

If Hit-Boy gave these beats to Jay-Z, the same people shytting on him now would throw him a parade and cook him dinner.

You would get Rolling Stone articles praising him as the GOAT producer and as a bonus, people would be wondering why Nas isn't working with someone like him.

 

[Cladyclad]

If Hit-Boy gave these beats to Jay-Z, the same people shytting on him now would throw him a parade and cook him dinner.

You would get Rolling Stone articles praising him as the GOAT producer and as a bonus, people would be wondering why Nas isn't working with someone like him.

Tell me jay z the goat without telling me he the goat

so jay z would elevate hit boy beats to heights Nas can’t

sometimes yall shyt on Nas just to make him whatever

nas never crossed over

he never sold like that

he don’t make commercia music

 

[Ziggiy]

If Hit-Boy gave these beats to Jay-Z, the same people shytting on him now would throw him a parade and cook him dinner.

You would get Rolling Stone articles praising him as the GOAT producer and as a bonus, people would be wondering why Nas isn't working with someone like him.

If Hov made Camels Cure and Wizardry 1 and 2 with Hit Boy Rolling Stone would place all 5 in they’re top ten Rap Albums of all time. Invasion Of Privacy would be 6th.

 

[LOST IN THE SAUCE]

I like your break down ….. what do u mean his beats sound hollow?

I'm not the original guy you asked, but it's both an issue with mixing as well as the way he layers sound. Instruments get pushed way to the back, drums way to the front and vocals sit at the center of the mix, always. The main melody is always middy with no warmth, drums always tinny and weak with his 808 style, or overly fat and over processed with his boom bap style. Vocals always have the drums sitting directly on top of them, and the melody is completely detached with reverb on it which is what makes it sound hollow, and why you don't hear the flow meld with the beat. He cuts out the highest frequencies with his samples which leads to a less warm sound, and completely detaches his mids from his low frequencies. Everything sounds separated which leaves a feeling of space in the middle, and thus hollow.

Listen to these two joints back to back and you'll hear it.

Thun lacks a decent high end. There's high hats and the ESG sample, but the hats are so soft in the mix and the ESG sample is only used sparingly, and still doesn't fill enough of the high frequencies. The lack of high end is why the ESG sample releases tension, but still doesn't feel like enough when it comes in. The whole beat sounds more like a bunch of sounds slapped on top of each other than a cohesive piece of music. The violin is so far away from the drums it might as well be on a different song.

With Quantum Leap you can tell the hear the main melody meld right into the low end, so it fits right on top of the bass. The piano is front and center with the vocals and it's all sitting on top of the drums. The piano doesn't sound overly filtered, no heavy reverb, the full frequency range is present, and Alch brings in a bunch of little sound effects to fill in what gaps are left in the high end.

I fukk with Thun a lot, I think it's the best song from KD3 and one of the better beats, but the mix is off. I would have definitely constructed the beat... differently, if it was up to me.

 

[prophecypro]

Critiquing a eq sound here or there or drum here or there for records that people still say they like also feels like semantics and a miserable way to experience music

Ironically the more glossy albums from Hit got the most praise (and even from Nas with LIG) and the stuff that feels a little gruff gets hated. This is why I’m also unsure the super underground or straight forward hip hop people wanna hear him on might still get hate

 

[AlbertPullhoez]

We need a Nas/Zaytoven album

 

[FunkDoc1112]

I'm not the original guy you asked, but it's both an issue with mixing as well as the way he layers sound. Instruments get pushed way to the back, drums way to the front and vocals sit at the center of the mix, always. The main melody is always middy with no warmth, drums always tinny and weak with his 808 style, or overly fat and over processed with his boom bap style. Vocals always have the drums sitting directly on top of them, and the melody is completely detached with reverb on it which is what makes it sound hollow, and why you don't hear the flow meld with the beat. He cuts out the highest frequencies with his samples which leads to a less warm sound, and completely detaches his mids from his low frequencies. Everything sounds separated which leaves a feeling of space in the middle, and thus hollow.

Listen to these two joints back to back and you'll hear it.

Thun lacks a decent high end. There's high hats and the ESG sample, but the hats are so soft in the mix and the ESG sample is only used sparingly, and still doesn't fill enough of the high frequencies. The lack of high end is why the ESG sample releases tension, but still doesn't feel like enough when it comes in. The whole beat sounds more like a bunch of sounds slapped on top of each other than a cohesive piece of music. The violin is so far away from the drums it might as well be on a different song.

With Quantum Leap you can tell the hear the main melody meld right into the low end, so it fits right on top of the bass. The piano is front and center with the vocals and it's all sitting on top of the drums. The piano doesn't sound overly filtered, no heavy reverb, the full frequency range is present, and Alch brings in a bunch of little sound effects to fill in what gaps are left in the high end.

I fukk with Thun a lot, I think it's the best song from KD3 and one of the better beats, but the mix is off. I would have definitely constructed the beat... differently, if it was up to me.

It's also the way he uses the samples...on a lot of his beats you can literally hear the pitch-shift and time-stretching artifacts. I first noticed it on Death Row East and I can't unhear it now. And when I went in FL Studio to remake the Thun beat in my own way, it confirmed it - he pitch shifted and time stretched the hell out of it, making the sample sound really bad and not in a good way.

(The typical practice for speeding up or altering the pitch of a sample is to adjust the speed of the whole audio wave because the pitch will change with it and retain the sound fidelity, and from there you just live with whatever the tempo is unless you slow the sample down so much that you can chop it up and replay it at the key you want it. You do them separately and the quality will falter, though if you don't go too crazy with it, it's not noticeable. But Hit-Boy pitch-shifted the sample 8 semi-tones and time-stretched it on top of it. That fukks up the sound quality something serious.)

As much as I hate to agree with that cac that reviewed Magic for Pitchfork, he did have a critique of Hit-Boy that was somewhat legit - "Hit-Boy’s depthless beats are stately at a distance but chintzy up close, like music played through a mangled iPhone speaker."

 

[FunkDoc1112]

Critiquing a eq sound here or there or drum here or there for records that people still say they like also feels like semantics and a miserable way to experience music

Ironically the more glossy albums from Hit got the most praise (and even from Nas with LIG) and the stuff that feels a little gruff gets hated. This is why I’m also unsure the super underground or straight forward hip hop people wanna hear him on might still get hate

I mean look, some of us make music or just have a stronger ear - it's not a matter of looking for problems, we're just able to articulate in-depth why something feels off and from the outside it can come off as nitpicky and granular.

 

[Smokin Rider]

Oversaturation

 

[Supa]

I'm not the original guy you asked, but it's both an issue with mixing as well as the way he layers sound. Instruments get pushed way to the back, drums way to the front and vocals sit at the center of the mix, always. The main melody is always middy with no warmth, drums always tinny and weak with his 808 style, or overly fat and over processed with his boom bap style. Vocals always have the drums sitting directly on top of them, and the melody is completely detached with reverb on it which is what makes it sound hollow, and why you don't hear the flow meld with the beat. He cuts out the highest frequencies with his samples which leads to a less warm sound, and completely detaches his mids from his low frequencies. Everything sounds separated which leaves a feeling of space in the middle, and thus hollow.

Listen to these two joints back to back and you'll hear it.

Thun lacks a decent high end. There's high hats and the ESG sample, but the hats are so soft in the mix and the ESG sample is only used sparingly, and still doesn't fill enough of the high frequencies. The lack of high end is why the ESG sample releases tension, but still doesn't feel like enough when it comes in. The whole beat sounds more like a bunch of sounds slapped on top of each other than a cohesive piece of music. The violin is so far away from the drums it might as well be on a different song.

With Quantum Leap you can tell the hear the main melody meld right into the low end, so it fits right on top of the bass. The piano is front and center with the vocals and it's all sitting on top of the drums. The piano doesn't sound overly filtered, no heavy reverb, the full frequency range is present, and Alch brings in a bunch of little sound effects to fill in what gaps are left in the high end.

I fukk with Thun a lot, I think it's the best song from KD3 and one of the better beats, but the mix is off. I would have definitely constructed the beat... differently, if it was up to me.

Dope explanation and hopefully people read it and stop telling us that we don't like Hit Boy because he's not a 90's era producer. We've explained this every time in detail.

I always point to these as the easiest example since they're the "same" beat:




The Easy Moe Bee version is unmastered and still sounds better because it has warmth and texture. The high hats are cutting through the mix. They stand out and give the beat its bounce. The drums have swing and are lively. My head is nodding as soon as they come in. The guitar riff at :28 is pronounced and you feel it when it hits right before Nas starts the chorus and every time they come in after. The vocal sample comes in and isn't clashing with the other sounds. Everything blends well and the beat is soulful. Again this is unmastered.

Hit Boy added more sounds but it still isn't matching the original. When the drums kick in listen to how weak the high hats sound vs the original. They're not cutting through and the beat lacks bounce. The drums are soft. Go to :28 again and listen for that guitar riff. You can barely hear it. The guitar keeps playing but he has the synth and other sounds playing on top of it so everything is competing for your ear. The sounds are getting lost.

Hit Boy on making the beat:3

Hit-Boy says that re-chopping the sample was simple, but it was a challenge trying to figure out the right drums for the track.

“I did like, three different sets of drums that I tried over the song with the vocals,” he recalls. “And the first two sets weren’t striking me as cutting through like they should’ve been.” Up to a couple of days ago, he was still working to “simplify [the drums] and make it a bit cleaner.”

He admits he couldn't get the drums to cut through and they don't in the final version.

When the verse starts in the original the synth and vocal sample are gone so it's just the main sample, bass, drums, and Nas' vocals. The guitar riff drops in every 8th bar. When the verse is over all the other sounds are reintroduced. Hit Boy's version has the sounds playing with the verse so the beat isn't as clean because he's not emphasizing certain sounds and letting your ears focus on the rapper.

This is a consistent problem with his beats.

 

[FunkDoc1112]

People view Hit Boy as a commercial producer and there's a sector of Nas fans who resent anything Nas does that is remotely commercial. This isn't just exclusive to Nas fans. Much of this board is like that. And you can see the rhetoric withbthe narrative. "Oh it didn't age well"

Are y'all not tired of misrepresenting people's arguments at this point?

 

[JustCKing]

Are y'all not tired of misrepresenting people's arguments at this point?

Somebody posted that Nas is working with Hit Boy for commercial success and doubled down by saying they didn't see the point given the sales. That is what prompted the post you quoted.

 

[FunkDoc1112]

Somebody posted that Nas is working with Hit Boy for commercial success and doubled down by saying they didn't see the point given the sales. That is what prompted the post you quoted.

But you're still misrepresenting the argument, especially Ziggiy's piggybacking off of this with "bUt Q-tIp aNd PrEmO mAdE cOmMeRcIaL sTuFf ToO"

Perhaps the problem is the user you responded to isn't fond of what qualifies as commercial music today rather than simply being anti-commercial on principle? Or simply that what qualifies as commercial music today doesn't play to Nas' strengths?