The Hustle Simmons Report

What Pete Rock is to me is nothing less than a messiah, of sorts. As a music producer myself, technique is everything. Music will always be music, but how YOU play it, shows YOUR fingerprint, and how YOU can manipulate the established set of notes. Just like Tribe, Pete Rock's crates reflected a collection of rare and obsure jazz, soul, funk and experimental records. Not your mom and dad's regular collection of records, more like your mom and dad's, mom & dad. Artists and groups like Cannonball Adderley, Black Heat, Milt Jackson, The Crusaders, Alice Coltrane, and countless others, they were forgot about by newer generations, but they possessed the mood, the feel, and the atmosphere for alot of Pete's treats.

I remember hearing "Reminisce" for the first time...those horns, incredible, the filtering technique, epic. This was 91-92, and NOTHING in hip-hop sounded like Pete Rock. I can remember sitting in my dorm room, dumbstruck, as I listened to it over and over and over. "How can he find SO many open basslines and samples like that?!" This is before I learned about low pass and high pass filtering, mind you. "Where is he getting these samples????!!!" or "How did he do that?!?!" I was like a babbling idiot, I couldn't comprehend how he made it work. Usually, in the world of sampling back then, there were only so many records they were sampling. James Brown, Zapp, Parliment/Funkadelic records used to get sampled so much, if you sampled from them, you got clowned. Funky Drummer was like AutoTune...EVERYBODY was using it!

Originality was the rule back then, if you bit someone's style, you was WACK, period..."be yourself, get off my jock", is what we'd used to say. But Pete, like Tribe, went back past the recognizable albums and artists of the 70's, and went back further, drawing from the well of some of music's most incredible, but largely unheard of albums and artists. I personally have all of the sources of Pete's samples, and I usually backtrack and look up records on the instrumentalist for those albums, as jazz albums were rarely groups, more like, different independent artists who played together for certain albums, or were hired by a producer to illustrate his ideas. And what I found was nothing short of astounding...you would be AMAZED how much incredible music is out here...Pete knew it, and made music history with it. His ear is amazing, his ability to catch samples where he did, and how he used them, was beyond imagination. Listen to Tom Scott's "Today", then listen to "T.R.O.Y"...and what you will have witnessed, is pure genius. I still shake my head, "How does he do it?" I know all the tricks, tips, and techniques, but he still stumps me from time to time.

His use of spatial dynamics, during the mixes, was paramount. Jamie at Greene Street Studio, kept Pete's sound ahead of the game. Pete's characteristic horns were his fingerprint. He was so skillful and precise in his manipulation of them. Mind you, he took different records of various tempos, song keys, genres, and notes, and made them work together...harmoniously!!  His use of panning, instrument FX, echos, and reverb made his mixes stand out more than anything during that time. I met him in Atlanta in '92 and shook his hand. I felt like one of those people on late night TV, when you see a "minister" touching someone then they fall out, that was me, but on the inside. "I just met Pete Rock" I remember saying over and over.

He brought his brand of production to the game. Those are type of producers I respect, not ones who sound like the next guy, but ones who make you screw your face up and be like, "who's that?"...I would have my head between two speakers because headphone couldn't get loud enough, and I wanted to hear everything!

I am proud to count Pete as an influence, here are some Pete's joints that shaped me...I wouldn't be the bad ass I am today, if it wasn't for him. Thanks Pete.


THEY REMINISCE OVER YOU - The most best produced hip-hop beat ever. I have the Tom Scott record this came from, and I still don't know how he turned it into what he did...incredible..Heavy D backup dancer Trouble (T-Roy) was killed in Indianapolis on tour in a accident. I personally got to see his last show, the night before he died, the tour stopped in my hometown, Heavy, Eddie F & T-Roy & G-Wiz, were all baldheaded, Tupac was on that tour too as a backup dancer with Digital Underground.


MECCA & THE SOUL BROTHER - This is genius at work...listen at the mix...GAWD!!


SOUL BROTHER #1 - Intros, Bridges, Outros, are you kidding me?!! These were unheard of in Hip-Hop...the sheer number of samples on this ONE song staggers the imagination on the simple fact that they do not CLASH!


FOR PETE'S SAKE - His attention to detail was unparalleled on this one. This track was pure murder, plain and simple. Listen to his sample placement, everything is deliberate and intentional. On each 8 bar verse, he COMPLETELY switches the color of the beat on the 5th & 6th bar, then brings it back to it's original groove..I mean, who does that?!?!


ONE IN A MILLION - I picked this one strictly off the sickness of the sample. I found this one skimming thru some old records I bought, and as soon as the sample played, I was like OOHHHH SHHHHIT!! It was Brother Jack McDuff, the name of the song, Electric Surfboard. You would've thought I found the Hope Diamond how I reacted!


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