Hip-Hop Introduction - Basic Beats and Fills

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# Exploring Hip Hop Drumming

So now we're moving on to **hip hop**. Hip hop's a really interesting style of music to play on the drums, largely because when it started in the **1980s** and developed in the **90s**, the hip hop artists were using samples from old funk and soul tracks.

## The Roots of Hip Hop

- You'd get some of the greatest funk and soul drummers playing these grooves.
- The rappers would then take **two or four bars**, loop that, and then rap on top.

I used to practice with hip hop a lot, and I worked with an English rapper called **Roots Maneuver** for a couple of years. I really enjoyed it because it was great just to dig into those grooves.

### Time Feel in Hip Hop

Sometimes the time feel stretches a little bit more than in, say, **pop**, which can be very precise. In hip hop, there can be a kind of dragging feel.

**Notable Drummers:**

- Someone like **Questlove** (Amir Thompson is his real name) is a master of stretching the time feel.
- **Chris Dave**, who plays with D'Angelo, is great at that.

### Recommendations for Inspiration

I would recommend checking out:

- Some of the old hip hop
- Some of the newer stuff

Personally, productions by **Timbaland** were really interesting to me because rather than using drummers, he did a lot of beatboxing and used his mouth. He incorporated very percussive styles that **Michael Jackson** used to do on some of his recordings way back.

Also, **Pharrell Williams** from the Neptunes is a really good drummer, and his productions feature some great drum parts.

**So, enjoy listening to all of that for inspiration!**

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