Original subtitles

LL COOL J: So, Marley Marl, you produced Roxanne Shanté.

You produced my song, "Mama Said Knock You Out."

You are the guy who introduced sampling to hip hop.

Early, early, early on,

what was it that inspired you to produce hip hop?

- Now, I gotta say... - Hmm.

I didn't think rap was going that far.

Tell me why.

Because, no disrespect,

but the early rap records just wasn't hitting me.

Really?

Man, let me tell you, when I first heard hip hop,

I heard the echoes.

[hip hop beat playing]

I heard the breakbeat.

♪

I heard the zigga, zigga, zigga.

♪

And when the records came out, none of that was on there.

- Right. - I'm like, yo,

it gotta be a better way. - Right.

[laughter]

Gotta be somethin'.

♪

LL COOL J: Hip hop is everywhere,

every corner of the globe.

To understand the power of hip hop today,

you have to go back to where it all started...

♪ Ain't no love

LL COOL J: ...my hometown, New York City.

Because listen when I tell you...

- ♪ SINGER: Ain't no love - ...hip hop was born here.

SINGER: ♪ In the heart of town ♪

♪ Ain't no love

♪

The magic of New York City has always been collaboration.

♪ Say "H" is for Hollis and Hollis town ♪

LL COOL J: That's also the magic of making hip hop.

♪ Somebody say ho, oh

LL COOL J: Community, collaboration.

Everyone sees the artist on the album cover,

but there's a whole team behind the finished product--

a team led by the producer.

From Kool Herc's "Merry-Go-Round" technique

to Rick Rubin's mastery at bridging musical genres.

The Beastie Boys, one of the finest groups

in music today right there.

Iconic elements of hip hop's New York sound

were many times created behind the curtain,

away from the spotlight by men and women in the producer chair,

men and women who pushed hip hop forward.

You got that?

I'm headed to the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music

in Brooklyn to speak to one

of the earliest hip hop producers and innovators.

I'm talking about none other

than Queensbridge's own Marley Marl.

Take one.

Marley Marl!

- James Todd, what up? - What up, baby?

- How you, bruh? - Excellent, my man.

Yes.

♪

A founding member of the Juice Crew,

he brought unique beats,

revolutionized how drum machines could be used,

and is known for bringing sampling to hip hop,

forever changing the game.

Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, Biz Markie, Biggie, RZA

all count him as a mentor or an influence on their music.

This man's impact on hip hop cannot be measured.

Let's go back to the beginning.

What was your musical influence,

and how'd you become an engineer?

My musical influence was before hip hop.

I heard a song called "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer,

and I heard the electronics in it,

and I was like, how did they do that?

Then one day I was jamming in Queensbridge Park.

The band was on one side of the park.

I was on the other side of the park with the DJ equipment.

So, they came and plugged into my set,

and they started jamming, but then the very next day,

the musicians started coming to my house in Queensbridge.

And that's how I started learning how to EQ the bass...

- Mm-hmm. - ...and the guitars and stuff.

DONNA SUMMER: ♪ I feel love ♪

Okay, so tell me about how that kinda

evolved into production.

I used to hear a guy named Shep Pettibone on the radio.

- Mm-hmm. - He was doing remixes.

And I'm hearing him putting different elements

into his productions,

and I'm like, wow, I hope-- I got musicians with me.

I could do the same thing. So, I started doing remixes

and started submitting them to WBLS.

So, you would take the instrumentals

and put, what, a capellas to 'em or...

What we would do is extend the instrumentals

and take the choruses out.

By me doing remixes, I used to put,

like, little rap breaks that didn't belong on the remixes.

That's when I got into producing.

Guess I'm a producer now.

LL COOL J: Your craft--sampling. Let's get into it.

Well, when I first started out sampling,

I was using an 808 to trigger my samples.

So, your one time would be a snare...

one time would be a kick... and one time would be a hat...

- Yes. - ...et cetera.

At first I was just taking kicks,

snares, and hi-hats... - Okay.

...and just making my own patterns.

- Okay. - That was fire because

I would take, like, a James Brown kick and a snare

and make my own beat.

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Come on now

♪

MARLEY MARL: Everybody's like, "How'd he do that?"

♪

How did you decide which drums to sample?

What was the vibe, you know?

Whatever I was getting reaction from, from being a DJ,

I was gonna sample that record because

it gave me instant reaction already.

So, you were programming people by using certain popular sounds

and incorporating those sounds

into every record in a different way.

- 100%. - What you did, it really

revolutionized the sound of hip hop.

There's no question about that.

We going to make history.

Right now.

I'm walking into a session,

and inside this session is the great Marley Marl.

Let's see what happens.

Marley Marl was a major contributor

to the changing of the time.

JUST BLAZE: Hip hop--obviously it originated from park jams,

and dudes were rhyming over breaks.

Most of the early records were

bands recreating the breaks that were played in the park.

♪ ...tell it like this you would never discover ♪

♪ That mess is in the lover ♪

JUST BLAZE: You fast forward a bit later,

and the sound starts to change.

Now it's heavily reliant on drum machines and synthesizers.

♪

You fast forward a few years later and to Marley Marl...

he introduced a form of sampling that was very different

and quite revolutionary and still prevalent to this day.

♪

There was a Marley Marl sound.

We usually go over her rap first before I even do a track,

then fit a beat up under it.

And then, you know, we find a hook. The rest is history.

POKE: He made sounds, like, real gritty.

He also sampled records that no one

was ever thinking of sampling at the time,

and it led the way for other producers

to broaden their mind and start sampling things

that they wouldn't normally sample.

♪

♪ Impeach the president ♪

♪

He realizes, "Oh, I can take

the "Impeach the President" snare.

And instead of just looping "Impeach the President,"

I can take the kick, the snare, and the hi-hat

and sequence them differently.

Now you have this new form of sampling where instead

of just looping something, it's like the kick, the snare,

the hat are all resequenced into a different arrangement.

And that kind of changed the sound of hip hop forever.

♪

Tell me about the response and what it was like

being Marley Marl as you revolutionized the game.

♪

It was kind of hard in a way because now the musicians

are looking at me like, "You just sampling.

You ain't no musician. That ain't music."

I was hearing all that.

I wasn't a musician,

but I knew how to make everything sound good.

Well, that's a musician. You were able to take what was

inside of you musically and put it out there.

- You used different tools. - No doubt.

There is something to be said

for the intuitive soul aspects of the craft.

They was coming with everything to stop me from doing it,

but I just felt that this is what the music needed.

♪

Hold up, hold up. We're doing this for the Bridge.

We don't need that tonight.

Ain't gon' be none of that tonight.

Yo, we doin' this in peace for the Bridge.

♪

Okay, so now let's make a sonic comparison.

- Yes. - From how sounds were when

you first started sampling... - Mm-hmm.

...and compare that to now.

Sonically, once virtual instruments got involved,

it changed the whole game.

Taking chances creates change in the music.

To put it simply, our music is going from a live band

to a basic beat, all the way to a producer's medium

of complicated, rich samples with a sophistication of sound.

The evolution of the tools in production

have changed immensely.

In the beginning, we talking about 2-inch tapes.

♪

Outboard gear.

Everything was tubes. Everything was analog.

Even the mix consoles was analog.

♪

We're talking about 24 tracks,

flying in vocals, flying in choruses.

And if you had to do an edit of any sort,

we say, "All right. We going to lunch.

Let the engineer do the edit. We'll come back."

'Cause that's how long it took.

JUST BLAZE: Technology always has to evolve.

It's never gonna sit in one place.

As long as there's innovation to be had,

as long as there's money to be made,

change is gonna happen.

♪

Eventually, tools like the SP, the MPCs,

the ASR-10s, give way to the digital audio workstation.

And you have programs like Logic,

programs like FruityLoops, Pro Tools.

It just made it so much easier to create.

It lowered the cost of entry.

I do mostly on the laptop.

You could just buy a computer

and have the somewhat of an equivalent,

instead of a studio in New York, you know, all in one box

that allows you to sample, sequence, and everything

you could do on these machines at a fraction of the cost.

♪

Digital is more of a frequency range than analog would be.

♪

It's a tunnel. You can only put a certain amount

of information through that room.

But when you're doing digital, there is no room.

It's empty space.

You can just put as much stuff in it as you want.

♪

As technology advances,

eventually you can just do the whole thing,

you know, on a mobile device.

These days, it's not so much what you use,

but how you use what you have available.

The reality that that presents

is that the greatest tool you can have in the studio

is your ear and your brain.

♪

LL COOL J: So, let's talk about these upcoming producers.

MARLEY MARL: Mm-hmm.

- These young artists. - Mm-hmm.

What would your advice be to them?

MARLEY MARL: It's important to have chemistry with the artists.

You know what I'm saying?

Now, we first met when you came to WBLS...

- Yeah, I remember. - ...and did "In Control."

And I was like, "Yo, L., I like the album.

It's one song I think I could fix for you."

I was like, "A'ight."

♪ Rollin' over punks like a redneck trucker ♪

♪ Innovating, devastating, and dope on a single now ♪

And then you found that bass line on the reel...

- Yeah. - ...that I had put on there.

- Just... - Didn't even turn it up on it.

- Didn't even turn it up. - Right.

And I'm like, "Yo, hold up. Yo, that's fire."

♪ You're jingling, baby ♪

- ♪ Go ahead, baby - ♪ Break down ♪

And then you turned around and put the...

♪ Duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh

And that boom... [imitating drumbeat]

And you was like, "Yo, let me do the vocals over."

I remember doing 'em over. And you were like,

"Yo, but calm it down."

♪ Uncle L, future of the funk ♪

♪ Records are recorded minus all the junk ♪

♪

- You have to trust me. - Yeah.

I gotta trust you.

We gotta have that belief in each other.

Yeah, I agree. And also, you gotta know when to know

and when not to know. There's times when I'd be like,

"Yo, Marley, I'm telling you." And I'm sticking to my guns,

and I'm right. And there are other times when I'm like,

"Okay." - Yeah.

- Right? - Yeah, of course.

Peace!

Okay, so... one word.

Legacy.

- Legacy. End of the day. - Yeah.

What y'all gon' know about me when I'm gone?

That I birthed all y'all motherfuckers.

[laughter]

Every producer out there, I birthed you.

It's your daddy talking right now.

[laughter continues]

- You know, just seriously. - My man, Marley Marl.

James Todd right here, y'all.

Right here. Love. Let's go. Bounce.

♪

♪

It's--It's like a jigsaw puzzle,

you know, when you're making a song.

Sometimes I'll start out with the beat first,

and then I'll, um, have someone come in,

spit on it, like, you know, on some vocals or whatever.

And then I'll arrange the music around

and make it more exciting.

♪

When it's already over, they wanna hear it again.

I just go to another place where--where people--

other people don't go.

LL COOL J: As hip hop evolved, there's no doubt Marley Marl

left a mark on a new generation of producers

who brought new sound...

♪

...new tools.

What will they think up next?

...the new perspectives to the New York hip hop scene.

There's a lot of competition out there,

but, you know, when it comes to our thing, you know,

we trendsetters, we all about making it happen.

LL COOL J: That essential hip hop sound,

that raw heart and spirit of the music

spread around the globe but was born in New York City.

It's the cool vibe. That's energy.

And you still hear it in the music the city

is putting out today.

♪

[needle scratches]

When I do these things, I'm kind of thinking ahead.

As I'm hearing it, I'm already kind of piecing together

how I'm gonna put them together.

So, it's kind of like you have all these ideas

fighting to get out. It's like different personalities

trying to get out all at once.

I know I'm making it sound extra dramatic,

but that's how it feels sometimes.

TONE: New York producers had a unique sound.

We were sort of in our own bubble.

What we were doing with hip hop

was really keeping the roots really intact.

♪

The dirty kick, the dirty snare, the dirty hi hat.

- We kept the grit. - ♪ Ow

♪ Yeah, uhh, uhh, ow

We really wanted it to sound like there was real drummers

rather than, man, that came out of a keyboard.

That shit sounds terrible.

♪ I say it now like I said it before ♪

♪ I'm lookin' at the front door ♪

♪

In New York, our swag is different.

And sonically, like, we would sample James Brown heavy.

James Brown A1, B4.

We sampled soul music heavy.

♪ Hey ♪

We sampled disco heavy.

But we took all of that and made it as gritty as possible.

So, it has this authentic kind of vibe,

and it rings off different, you know what I mean?

♪

There was always certain drum patterns,

certain feelings, certain moods.

♪

Tempo, even, you know, the New York tempo was always

somewhere, between, like, 87 and, like, 95.

♪

In retrospect, that's what we would call boom bap.

♪ This or that, this... ♪

KIM OSORIO: This boom bap sound

originated in my mind from the lunchroom, right?

So, it's just like you're, like, banging on the table.

- [imitating rhythmic drumbeats] - ♪ Ooh, come on ♪

There's a certain swing to the drums.

♪ Who's the black sheep? What's the black sheep?

♪ Know not who I am, or when I'm coming, so you sleep ♪

It can be soulful, it can be jazzy.

There's a certain sonic quality to it.

It's not the most sonically robust.

♪

CRYSTAL CAINES: I feel like New York had a unique sound,

and it just grew into different things

as the era grew and generations changed.

New York now is just open to creativity.

They just wanna take it up a notch.

The style is there. The confidence is there.

The creativity is there. The art is there.

The heart is there. [laughs]

And that's the most important part.

♪

LL COOL J: Oftentimes, the beats and melodies created

by producers and artists are extensions of their soul,

a feeling and a moment in time born in the studio

and captured for generations to come.

We just saw the power of this subculture

and just tried to present it, um...

as it deserved to be presented.

LL COOL J: So now I'm headed

to the legendary Quad Recording Studio in Manhattan to talk

to an up-and-coming producer who speaks from the heart...

Whassup?

...while representing the past, present,

and future of hip hop production.

- How's everything? - Pretty good.

- Good vibes? - Always.

- So, you really do this? - Hell, yeah.

Introduce yourself. Reppin' Harlem.

Crystal Caines. You already know.

Rapper, singer, producer. Let's get it.

♪

LL COOL J: Crystal Caines is a producer

who skillfully bridged that raw original sound

with the new. - Yep.

Born and raised in Harlem, she wears many hats--

producer, songwriter, engineer, and rap artist herself.

I'm a renaissance woman.

Crystal's worked with everyone from M.I.A.

to Bryson Tiller and Jack Harlow.

She's a born and raised New Yorker

determined to keep NYC hip hop on the map...

- Crystal fucking Caines! - ...for decades to come.

- State your name once more. - Crystal Caines.

- You already know. - Say it cockier than that.

[voice echoing] Crystal Caines. Ha ha ha!

So, tell me the first thing you remember

that touched you in hip hop.

I would say seeing Eve rap.

♪

Seeing her, she was a beautiful Black woman

surrounded by powerful men,

and she inspired me to rap, and I think in the beginning,

I kinda sounded like her a little bit, too.

♪ Gotta man that I think I'm gon' love forever ♪

♪ And forever we'll be together ♪

♪ No matter where he goes, I'll be thinking of him ♪

♪ Hey, I'm gonna love him, I'm gonna love ♪

Yeah. That song just put me in a different place.

As a kid, seeing that, I just felt like I wanted

to be that powerful, too. - And so--so you just--

the dream started. - Yeah.

- EVE: ♪ I'm gonna love - LL COOL J: So, you see Eve,

and you're thinking about being a singer,

and you decide to be a rapper, but then it was a point when

you started producing, right? - Yeah.

There was a point when you started creating music.

- Mm-hmm. - Talk to me about

how that transition happened and why you did that.

Okay. So, I did start as an artist.

♪

I was in college, and producers were sending me records.

The things that they're sending me,

I just didn't really feel like it was me.

I started. I would put loops together,

just find, like, a little rhythm of what I like.

♪

And then I'll start cutting up the loops

to create a bounce that's specific to me.

♪

How did that make you feel,

like, taking that creative power into your own hands?

Talk to me about that.

Producing is something I wanted to do.

I knew I had rhythm, and so once I started

incorporating my voice and the beats together,

everything just fell into place. I got an album placement.

The first song was A$AP Ferg, "A Hundred Million Roses."

I stuck with it and started figuring out new tools, ideas.

Collaborating with producers really helped me

grow as a producer as well.

Which producers kind of moved your spirit?

Who made you feel like, "Yo, I need to be doing this"?

Who moved you in that way?

Missy and Timbaland, of course.

♪

Pharrell, Just Blaze,

anyone who had a unique sound of their own.

Like, I feel like if you hear Pharrell beat,

you hear the four count, you know he about to come on.

[opening beats from "Happy" play]

If you hear a Timbaland beat,

you know everything is gon' knock.

♪ If you're horny, let's do it ♪

Everyone has their own, like, unique pattern.

And I think for me, like, that's something

that I wanna continue is just having something of my own.

So, when you hear something,

you be like, "Oh, Crystal Caines did that beat."

Crystal Caines.

[laughter echoes]

♪

Your process of making music--

distill it down for me a little bit.

I just create a melody

until I feel like something sticks to me.

It's just finding something in there that stands out to me.

As a fan of music, the way that music made me feel

when I was going to buy albums-- that's what I wanna incorporate

and bring forward, like, for me.

I'm just looking for it.

LL COOL J: When you say "it," tell me what "it" is,

when you're looking for "it." - You'll feel it, you know? So...

- Ah. - Yeah.

So, you're looking for that feeling.

Yeah. And I'll just go through sounds

until I feel that feeling.

- I love that. - Yeah.

So, you like capturing lightning in a bottle

and then sharing it with the world?

Mm-hmm. I like working with anybody who's down

to, like, push the envelope.

And I like meeting people in their world...

- Mm-hmm. - Because I get

to bring my world into it.

- Yeah. - So, I let them be comfortable

in where they are, and here I come, shake your shit up.

That creates the best music for me.

It's like making sure people's comfortable first.

I agree with that, because a big part of it is

you being comfortable and free to create and no judgment.

Right.

You let people get it out of their spirit.

- Right. - Let 'em get it out.

- Mm-hmm. - You feel me?

This is what it's all about--

just making the music you wanna make.

♪

The collaborative process can take many forms.

Today, people are collaborating over DM.

Early on, we didn't have the ability

to record remotely or email files back and forth.

The magic always happened when

the collaborators were in the same room together.

You wanna catch a vibe from the person because, you know,

the song may change just by the vibe in the room.

JUST BLAZE: The inspiration like, "Oh, he just said that?

Let me rewrite this line. Oh, he just did that that way?

Let me reprogram these drums to fit that," right?

On that chorus, we got to take out the drum.

TONE: That process of being

in the studio with an artist, talking to the artist,

put you in the same mind space as the artist

gave me an opportunity to really get to know you

and push the envelope a little bit.

Because our conversation says, "You like shit like this.

You just don't know it."

I need you to come up with a line like that

so I can behind you and sing something.

LADY LONDON: The relationship between producer and artist

is so integral.

It can make or break a project

if you guys are not on the same page with things.

I like that, like... mm, mm.

I love sitting down face to face with producers,

and a lot of things become beautiful pieces of work

when you have real, authentic conversations

about the direction you're heading in.

I love all that jazz shit. It's your hard-hitting music.

That's the shit, man. Who's the producers?

Right here.

- Very good work. - Thank you.

You look at many of the great movements in hip hop,

whether it's Roc-A-Fella, Ruff Ryders,

Sugarhill, early Def Jam, Cash Money...

- Yeah, a'ight. - The one consistency

is that you had all these great, creative minds

under one roof in one studio.

Thinking, maybe we start a capella with...

"If you're having girl problems, I feel bad for you, son.

I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one."

- Yeah, that's--that's money? - We back in the game, right?

- Guess so. - Yeah.

- Apparently so. - [laughs]

♪

LL COOL J: Back in the days, making a record

was like the equivalent of being able to make it to the NBA.

- Right. - But that vetted

a lot of the talent, too. - Right.

That mean you had to be way better.

You had to have a different level.

Tell me about what it's like today.

Just really unpack this idea

of making a song on your phone, being on YouTube, like,

you know, get into that for me a little.

Hmm. People have so much freedom to be expressive,

but now it's really just one click away.

And it starts from you releasing your art.

I started in my room. Who knew that a girl from Harlem

who started in her room

with equipment that was probably worth $300

would go straight to the radio?

LL COOL J: You're saying that nowadays you got the access.

If you can catch a wave, you can be on.

At the end of the day, though, a hit record is a miracle.

Yeah.

LL COOL J: To create something that really moves people,

that people really rock to, that is still

an amazing thrill and an exciting feeling.

And it's something that can't be bought, can't be manufactured.

- Right. - You have to really create

that music that moves people like that.

Yeah, and you know when you feel it,

'cause you start to get goosebumps.

There you go. That divining rod, right?

♪

- It's early in your career. - Yeah.

By the grace of God, of course,

a long time to go. - Yep.

- Legacy. - Legacy. Mm.

♪

At this point,

what would you want your legacy to be?

What do you think about the word "legacy"?

With the word "legacy," I think of powerhouse to me.

It's so much to do.

My greatest passion come from helping other people,

and I've been grateful enough to do that through music,

whether it's guiding them or just giving them tools

that they take forward to use on their songs.

I'm trying to leave a footprint that's extremely progressive.

I say, "What's my name?" You say, "Crystal Caines."

To be able to hear my beats and be like,

"Yeah, Crystal Caines did that."

New sounds, same energy.

That's right, 'cause hip hop was born here, right?

- Exactly. - It was born here.

It--it's not only about the Bronx.

- Right. - It's not only about Harlem.

- Right. - It's not only about Queens.

- Right. - It was born in here.

- That's a beautiful thing. - Yeah.

- Appreciate you, baby. - Thank you for having me.

- Good to talk to you. - Good to talk to you, too.

- Good vibes. - Thank you.

- Peace and love, baby. - Peace and love.

- All right. - Wait, what he do?

You know I mean? You know I mean?

[laughs]

♪

[cheers and applause]

Marley Marl.

Super producer.

♪

Make some noise for that man.

[cheers and applause]

♪