From infinity and beyond: rap production and the mighty Souls of Mischief

A few years ago, I received an awesome gift for my birthday from a dear friend -- a plain blue t-shirt emblazoned with only the following:

Ordered from this hilarious website that takes famous rap lyrics and turns them into mathematical diagrams, the shirt was a fitting gift, given it is an ode to my favourite hip hop song of all time: "'93 'til Infinity" by the Souls of Mischief.



To my mind, there are a wealth of reasons for this song to be considered in the very upper echelon of the best hip hop recordings of all time. Emcees Opio, A-Plus, Tajai, and Phesto each get three verses on the track, keeping all three and half minutes constantly fresh as the lyrical flows change every handful of bars. But instead of each member stepping on the verse behind him in a stage-stealing bid, the trade-offs here are like telepathic baton passes in the chillin'est relay ever run.

Produced by a group of 18 year old kids from Oakland, California, "'93 'til Infinity" redefined the art of lyrical technique for the West Coast. Full of youthful exuberance, the four brash MCs deliver story raps with wry wit and clever asides, that escape the typical violent melodramas of their G-Funk counterparts like Ice Cube and Snoop, and recall the effortless fluidity of jazz rappers A Tribe Called Quest. The easy breezy vibe of the track is amplified by the exceptional video, where the Souls are found miles from the grimy streets of Oakland, dropped into pristine dioramas of rivers, boulders and beaches as Tajai informs you that "sometimes it gets a little hectic out there. But right now, y'know, we gunna up you on how we just chill."

While the efforts of the MCs go a long way in supporting a bid for this track's immortality, it is the warm and ethereal backing beat that puts it over the top. Twinkling piano keys, passing horn bellows, and the potato chip pop of a rhythmic snare drum invite the listener along to break out one of those icy beers and kick back. And it's here that I really fall in love with this song, and with all quality hip hop. As true masters of reinvention, the best rap producers draw inspiration from unlikely sources and present old material in unforeseen ways. For "'93 'til Infinity", A-Plus took a small snippet of "Heather", a nine minute glacial jazz melody created by Billy Cobham in the mid-1970s, and re-cut it into a rap classic. Fast forward to the two minute mark of Cobham's recording and try to figure out how A-Plus would've heard hip hop gold waiting in the middle of that floating cloudscape of a song. For me, its feats like that performed by A-Plus which elevate catchy tunes into something entirely more engrossing.




Where the similarity between "'93 'til Infinity" and Cobham's "Heather" can be difficult to discern at first blush, rap production is often more obvious in revealing from where it has plucked its samples. For instance, on another one of my personal favourites from the Souls of Mischief, "Cab Fare", you can recognize the theme song from the 1970s sit-com Taxi within the opening bars. 



However, there is often more than meets the ear in any hip hop beat, and "Cab Fare" is no different. To give "Cab Fare" the pacing and energy required, the Souls of Mischief dropped the drum beat from the Taxi theme song, and spliced the left overs with this killer back beat from "Zimba Ku" by 1970s funk band Black Heat.




For what it's worth, there's something charming about the notion that your favourite rap beats are cobbled together from bits of found treasure buried in the vinyl grooves of old and obscure records. So the next time you sit down with your cherished hip hop hooks, think about whether they are more than just a collection of bass plucks and drum pops, and that maybe they've come from somewhere special.