what???? no Jay Dee? this guy was a major contributor to the Tribe Called Quest sound, not to mention his work with common, the roots, slum village, d'angelo, he is a major pioneer of that soulful, philly vibe.
timbaland hasnt recieved much love either! not that i like the current state of hip hop, but the sound that timbaland innovated has been either bitten or formed the base for the style of many of todays hits. Missy Elliot, one of the supposedly great (she irritates me to no end....) innovators of hip hop (whatever) owes a large art of her success to her collaberations with Timbaland. Alliyah, one of the VERY few female RnB artists of the last decade of any real substance (mary j is the only one that tops her in my book..) has Tim to thank for the soundtrack.. look at "one in a million", "are you that somebody", and "try again".... all three of these employ a very different sound than the others, and all were very ground breaking. and what about genuine? he falls off the second he takes a break from tim as his main producer, but there is no denying that his albums had great music on them until now. Tim is the most influencial of the last 5-6 years, hands down.
the thing is, a truly great producer will do far more than his own little camp, and be able to revolutionize the art form in some way. there has to be a contribution like this, and there has to be longevity. for this reason the neptunes have to be included, because they have been at it for the last decade (at least) and in the last threee years have become the bigest overall force in production, having locked the radio down on multiple formats with multiple artists from entirely different types of music, including the sub-genres within hip hop. common, jay z, snoop dogg, clipse, justin timberlake, brittany spears.... hell they even gave the teen pop icons of the last 7 years a makeover that made them acceptable to the hip hop crowd!!!! (ok, so what if the "hip hop" crowd is the same white, middle class suburban kids?)
i dont believe pete rock should be included among the great influencers in hip hop history, because of his lack of across-the-board impact. Premier does, however, and by quite a long margin! EVERYONE wants to rock a premier track. backpackers, thugs, pretty boys, even rock stars... every hip hop artist who is serious would love to rock a premier track. not as their single, not for their video, but for the sake of lacing this guys music. its almost as if you havent arrived until you have spit at least 16 over his beats. plus he has shown a nack for bringing out the very best in an artist. nas has always been at his absolute best over premier, biggies "ready to die" was laced thouroghly with his music, jay's reasonable doubt, m.o.p's classic "how about some hardcore" (that was premier, wasnt it?) Mos Def was as sharp as he has ever been over "mathamatics" ...
of course dre has to be included. 19 years, spanning the sound of three decades... the west coast would look very different without this man. this is the guy who has helped bring about two of the biggest stars EVER- in eminem and snoop dogg... as well as being the major piece of deathrow, before pac came along...
thats four, cant think of the fifth... i am all for respecting the originators, but the major artists of the last 15 years have just been mentioned... and the early guys just didnt seem to have the overall impat that these 4 did in their respective generations. of course, as times change, so does acceptance and visability, so that is purely subjective.
