808 Page #7

to do with an 808 record, right

like Jimmy Hendrix records,

and Yauch having this

split second innovation. Nobody could

have ever imagined it would be this

backwards, stripped down drum machine

loop vibrating windows around the world.

We just tried to find ways to amp it

up, to be as over the top as possible.

Overloading things to just take

them to an extreme place.

Our intension really was to

like shatter windows.

We wanted to take it to a place where

it was really like abusive kind of.

Rick Rubin had a period in 1985

where

he did 'Together Forever'

for Run DMC,

'Slow and Low' for the Beastie

Boys,

and at the same time Russell

Simmons got a Columbia deal,

two million dollar Columbia

deal, put out 'Crush Groove',

and then boom LL Cool

J is the poster boy.

And suddenly 'Rock the Bells' is on

the top forty charts with full bass.

'Planet Rock' introduced the

808 to hip-hop music.

From there, Rick Rubin figured out that you could

get bass out of it by tuning it to full decay.

The rumor is Dr. Dre of Original Concept showed

him how to even get a fuller tone out of it.

To me the most incredible use of it

was Dr. Dre from the East Coast.

He created the record

called 'Knowledge Me'.

One of the early Def Jam records that nobody

knows, under the name of Original Concept.

He took the 808 and did something

to it that made it huge.

I remember Original Concept,

and they started really

misusing the boom kick drum,

and it just went boom.

-You know what I'm saying, man? I went to

see Rusty J man -And where you go next?

Rusty J with the headline

on the radio, man?

Yo man Rusty J be fresh, you know what

I'm saying cuz? Yo he had a lot of

That record, I would go

in and sample that,

and that was my 808 for the

rest of the records.

'Bring The Noise', 'Rebel Without

A Pause', and the list goes on.

'Party For Your Right To

Fight', you know, Terrordome'.

Anything that I could possibly

put, had to have that.

When you listen to Rubin's

stuff or you listen to

the stuff that LL was making

or you listen to the Shocklee

or Eric Sadler

or Bomb Squad Productions,

it was just larger than life. I mean it literally

felt like it had come from, from Mars or something.

And a lot of the intrigue was just trying to

work out what the composite of that sound was.

I was listening to a

Marly Marl record,

and he sampled the kick and the

snare from records all right,

but then he also added a sustain kick on the

one so you get this kind of like kick-boom.

And I'm sitting there going like,

"Yo, I want to sample that."

So I sampled that a million

different ways.

And from that point on, that

particular sound was in everything,

it's kind of like milk

or adding water,

it's like you cannot make a record

without having that 808 sound.

It's just, it's just not, it's just

not hip-hop, it's not authentic.

I am taking no prisoners,

taking no shorts

Breakin' with the metal

of a couple of forts

While we're hearin' that

boom supplement the mix

Gonna rush 'em like

the Bears in the 46

Homeboys I don't know but

they're part of the pack

In the plan against the

man, bum rush attack

For the suckers at the door,

if you're up and around

For the suckers at the door,

we're gonna knock you right down

Yo! Bum rush the show, yo!

Come on man lets go back to 'Yo! Bum

Rush The Show', 'Rightstarter',

'My Uzi Weighs a ton'.

It didn't matter.

It's like whatever record

I was making, it's like,

it wasn't complete unless, "Yo, we've

got to put the 808 in this sh*t man."

Bang, and now the record's finished, all right.

But I didn't care if it was a ballad.

It was like, "Okay, I'm doing an R&B

ballad, okay it's not complete,

"put the 808 in it,

it's hot now."

It's been a long time

While hip-hop and electro

dominated in New York,

a new sound was developing

further south.

A sound fueled by

the 808 kick drum.

In the 80s and part of the 90s,

the 808 really found a

home and an identity in Miami,

you know, the whole Miami Bass

sound.

It really comes from 'Planet Rock'

to be honest. I mean the 808,

I wonder if 'Planet Rock' was done on a different

drum machine if Miami Bass would sound different.

In New York it was like TKA,

Lisa Lisa and all these people,

so nobody out in Miami

was doing it.

So I go, "You know what,

let me try doing it."

The first record I did was 'Fix It In The Mix'.

That went platinum.

If you got a problem that

you cannot really fix

Let me hear your problem and

I'll fix it in my mix

The problem I had was, the first record I

did went platinum they go, "He's lucky,"

because if it wasn't from New

York, it can't be real.

Second went platinum,

"He's still lucky."

Third one, "I've got to watch

this guy he might..."

And then by like four and

five I was accepted.

I was one of the first people that I

knew about put bass boom on a record,

and it just sound awesome, so I was

just coming out of being a DJ,

so I go, I reflected back to my crowd

and I go they would love this.

Problem was when I went

to the mastering lab

they go, "You can't do that."

I go, "What do you mean?"

"You can't put that boom on a record." I said,

"Well listen I'm paying you, put it on."

And I took it from the mastering lab to

the radio station, and it went crazy.

In Miami all of a sudden it was this

very local music, it was very southern,

and it talked about the

neighborhoods there.

You know, there was probably

six to eight different

acts that were all just 808,

808, 808.

You couldn't use no other drum

machine, for the Miami Bass

style of music, it was a must.

It spawned this huge scene down in Florida where

it no longer was just in the skating rink,

now it was making its way out into the

masses, and to the high school dances,

and to the clubs.

My first experience of the 808

came when we were

running a small studio up in

Hollywood.

We used to call it The Box. In

those days Luther Campbell,

Luke Skywalker was running the place

with a song called 'Throw That Dick'.

So Mr. Mixx, Mr. Hobbs who was the main guy,

who was the beat producer at that time,

he would come to the studio and me and my

other partner was the engineers there.

My blueprint was taking elements

of the 'Planet Rock' record,

you know, using that as the tempo

guide and then actually taking

hot records that was at the

same beat per minute speed

and mixing those into

the 808 drum machine,

and then putting comedy stabs of

wild and crazy stuff being said.

You know, that was my gumbo pot of making

what they ended up calling Miami Bass.

Back in the days the iPhone wasn't there where

you could film Mr. Mixx making his loop,

and two tracks at a time,

you know what I mean.

He would be using the SP-1200 for

his music sampling, chopping up.

And you'd leave him there about,

say one o'clock in the day.

By about six thirty you'd come back and

what you would hear would be crazy.

He would have the meters do do

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