The Hustle Simmons Report

Hearing ATCQ for the first time, was like a revelatory experience. They were TOTALLY off the beaten path, there was no groups that sounded like them. The Low End Theory album was the next infusion of inspiration from a musical standpoint, as it made me, as a producer, seek to find where they were finding these records they were sampling from...these were the albums that your PARENTS parents had..as I was a crate digger, I came across many of these original gems, as I got older, my collection grew, and it was a great time finding them, but there's nothing like that feeling of finding a wide open, unheard of sample, just begging to be used IMMEDIATELY!!! Like my man, Sh'mello, who produced Busta Rhymes, "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See", he found a sample NOBODY touched and made a BANGER!! Although Tribe's whole body of work is outstanding, I'm adding these because this was Tribe before Dilla. So here are a couple of Tribe Called Quest songs that changed my life...

EXCURSIONS - When I 1st played my new Low End Theory CD, I couldn't get past this one song!! It was on repeat for a whole month before I even listened to the rest of the album...This is an Art Blakey sample with one of the HARDEST break beats in existence, and notice, Tribe had the breaks NO ONE had...whatever their source of records were (some say they were Q-Tip's pops collection), they were definitely expert in their use of them. I had that much more respect for Tribe because, they introduced my most favorite producer into the world, as he was initiating the beats or producing many of ATCQ albums, even though nobody knew it. His name was J-Dilla, I will have post on him later...


BUTTER - One the hardest, smoothest joints in Hip-Hop. This was their forte, obscure samples, and cracking break beats! I used to listen to this album extensively through headphones, analyzing every nuance of it. Here's was another banger!!!


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