808 Page #10

again a decade later where we could

bend the 808, where we could, we could

harness its power. You know what I mean.

People could tune their kick drums, so

the kick drum could play the bass at the

same time, and that was something

that to be honest when I first put

headphones on I was like,

"Hang on a minute."

There was drums and there was bass,

but now the two were sort of fused

so the feel was not just complex and

rhythmical but it was also tonal.

For me the first idea of bending it was

Hit Factory, KRS One. I always wanted

to do a track with Kris, and I always

felt that a homage thing would use an 808

on the VIP especially of KRS One for me was...

You know... that's like...

I've met my heroes I might as well

go and get hit by a Mack truck now.

KRS One, come back

in digital

KRS One, come back

in digital

The biggest problem we had with it was

how do you cut it. How do you effect it

and cut it on a lathe, because I'd have

people like Stuart at Masterpiece going, or

Leon at Music Power, "Boy, the thing it

just jumped out man, it's blowing the

"head, it's blowing the head out man.

The thing's got too much bass man, on

"the bass man. Too much bass

this and bass that."

And it was true because

we were cranking it and

you would see the cutting arm

go across and it would go...

That's the bass. So we would have

to go back and tone it down,

or cut it in mono. And then we started trying

to echo it and reverb it where it would

just be shuddering around, and you would

see the speaker going... Woom woom woom...

That's the 808 lads,

that's the 808.

It wasn't until we had spectrum analyzers

where you could see, ah there's your problem.

You've got all this sound going like

that and then there's this one peak,

that's the bass line, just out of the roof,

there's nothing else, it's just gone.

Throughout its life the 808 has continued

to inspire and influence musicians,

lending its beats to countless

iconic recordings.

Throughout the 90s, 2000s

and into the present day,

the 808 sounds continue to

be as relevant as ever.

Without an 808 you couldn't

have what we call bass music.

You couldn't have what I did,

crunk music, you couldn't have

the Memphis movement,

you couldn't have New

Orleans bounce music.

It's the foundation of those tracks, those

tracks won't sound the same without that boom.

It's got to have that drop.

I think the 808 stayed really

alive in the south

for a long time as it became

probably dormant

in the rest of the world and

then southern rap just rose.

A former Miami Bass producer out

of New Orleans, Mannie Fresh,

who was the in-house Producer for Cash

Money Records and working beneath the

radar, he kept the New Orleans bounce

sound alive which is heavily related to

Miami Bass. And when Master P

became a powerful independent

record label owner and Universal

Records

went down to New Orleans to

find out who else

was working down there, they found

Cash Money they found Mannie Fresh,

and that's why the 808 became today's

pop music, today's hip-hop music,

because bounce became more influenced.

Lil Jon with the whole Atlanta

Crunk scene and TBT Records got on board

and Atlantic Records got on board

with Trick Daddy, and now we

have today's top 40 music.

I think my biggest record of my

life ever

with an 808 is

'Yeah!' by Usher.

Yeah, yeah

Okay, okay, Usher, Usher

Lil Jon, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

let's go

It's Usher's biggest record of his career,

the album went on to sell ten million

records, and that was the single that

blew that album up. It was an R&B

singer, singing over an 808, and really a dance sound.

Like nobody had really kinda bridged

those worlds together before me. And

that's also why I see myself as an 808

guy because I mean I really had

the 808 booming in that track.

So I got up and followed

her to the floor

She said baby let's

go, let's go

When I told her I said

yeah, yeah, yeah

What really made that song so big, it was

that it appealed to people in the hood,

ghetto mother f***ers, to pop mother f***ers.

And that's a wide variety and

range of people to appeal to. To appeal to super

pop and super hood, you know, is amazing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

There is a whole school of rap beats

currently that use the 808 kick pretty

much exclusively. And the thing that's

amazing is that there are still new

patterns being created with it. The type

of really stuttery and pitched snare and

hi-hat patterns that you hear in this current

era of Lex Luger, Drummer Boy, kind of

post Mannie Fresh southern hip-hop production,

that's a whole other kind of evolution.

One really defining 808 thing

for me and I was actually

talking this yesterday with

Tiga, we started

talking about how the 808 actually

changed both of our lives quite a bit.

I was a DJ and I owned a

nightclub and a record store.

I was doing well for myself in

Montreal in Canada.

Anyway I had obviously lots of

dreams and stuff

and it all hinged on production

and I was a bit lazy. And then

one day my friend Jori

Hulkkonen, he came to Montreal, I brought

him to Montreal for a New Years Eve

party and we had like a day off

or something the next day.

We had nothing to do

so Tiga had an 808.

I had a Juno, and

we rented an MPC.

Miss Kittin & The Hacker had just done this EP.

They had done a couple of

cover versions. I think they had like 'Sweet

Dreams' with Miss Kittin re-singing it.

Kind of like dirty electro version and we

thought, "Oh we want to do something like this."

We started screwing around and we made

'Sunglasses At Night', this track.

It took like an

hour and a half.

Which is almost entirely 808, no effects

chain nothing it was just raw 808 to DAT.

That became one of the biggest club records of

that year and kind of started Tiga's career.

I wear my sunglasses

at night

So I can, so I can

Watch you weave then breathe

your story lines

The track became super successful

and it completely launched me.

I mean I don't think I'd be

here if it wasn't for that.

That was the first record that Tiga was

ever part of producing and making of

so that kind of started

Tiga's whole career.

Don't masquerade with the

guy in shades, oh no

I think the record sold like two

hundred and fifty thousand copies.

And it was beyond raw, I mean beyond

ghetto, it was exactly punk rock or

exactly how I imagine the old

Chicago guys making their tracks.

That kind of changed a lot of things for us, so the

808 actually has been a big influence in my career.

I love the 808 for me

it changed my life.

Oh no

I wear my sunglasses

at night

So I can, so I can, watch you

weave

A lot of the use of the 808 is

down to people who

are open to new technology using

the thing.

Producers, it's like

the thing that I really like

about Rick and obviously about

Bambaataa and certain people that take

things and use them in a different

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