Kendrick Lamar Thinks Like A Jazz Musician
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In our new series on the art of sampling, hip-hop producers demonstrate how they find inspiration in classics, hidden gems, found sounds and other raw musical materials to create new hits. For each of the five videos in the series, NPR Music has asked a writer we love to do something similar. Their only instruction was to watch one of the videos, pick an element that inspired them, and spin it off in a new direction — to sample it.
Today, writer Marcus J. Moore, the author of the forthcoming book The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America, looks at Lamar's relationship with contemporary and historical jazz musicians. Lamar's song "DUCKWORTH." is made up of three beats by producer 9th Wonder (the subject of today's video) that are each built around a different sample from a different genre and different generation.
For certain older jazz heads thinking of their beloved genre, the image that comes to mind— stuck somewhere between the 1940s and '50s, before Miles Davis plugged in his trumpet, and before John Coltrane blew his sax to summon God. To them, pianist Herbie Hancock should've left funk to hippies like Sly Stone, and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders needed to cool it with the "."
