defend the indefensible: PUFFY

I bet puffy would like to think his importance to the genre has been that impressive.

Anyway, how can anyone who produced "Victory" have "lowered the standards of production"?

Bullshit. Without him, we don't get Biggie's Ready to Die -- perhaps the best of all hip-hop records -- we don't get Mary J. Blige, we don't get Black Rob and we don't get Bad Boys For Life, which is great.

Puffy is very, very smart. He has an ear for what the public wants and he understands what party music should feel like. Granted, some of his shit truly is some of the corniest music ever made. But it all comes from the place and it all somehow connects.

And I don't think he's a great producer so much as recognizing and fostering the great works of others and in matching voice to beat and aesthetic to more aesthetic. Hence, this is why Ready to Die works so well. Those beats fit both Biggie and the subject matter damn-near perfectly. With another rapper, they might not work as well.

One other thing to admire about Puffy: Even if Bad Boy went away (and lots of wolks dream of said scenario), he'd still make a shitload of money. The guy has real foresight into what the black community wants to consume. Choosing to make Raisin in the Sun his Broadway show as an actor took real balls, but he's pulled it off and has helped the show become significant to the continuing appreciation and nurturing of black culture. Plus, he can out real estate the white folks out in the Hamptons. AND he brought Mase out of retirement; pretty good considering Puffy's materialism and fueding with Suge probably brought Mase to God in the first place.

All in all, not bad for a cheesy, cheesy motherfucker who once hit a guy over the head with a bottle and allegedly shot at a guy for tossing money in his face. :-)

isn't that an Easy Mo Bee track? I don't have the liners w/ me so I can't confirm.

e.g. Stevie Wonder

lamest reasoning ever.

How'd you make your money? And can you convince people your attitude is worth spending $17.99 over and over and over again? :-)

And Black Rob is really good. Very underrated. Whoa!

Which is self-evidently so much worse than the one boring, indistinct 60s funk, 8-bar phrase looped thru the entire song that all the respectable hip hop producers peddle.

Don't confuse talent with taste Shakey.

Of course a lot of people take the opposite view, decrying the way "Every Breath You Take" - a stalker song - is turned into a bittersweet memorial to Biggie. So there is *some* recontextualisation/juxtaposition going on. I agree that it's not terribly convincing or compelling (at least from my perspective) but it seems as though the track's success encourages people to upgrade it from being a not-great-track into THE WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO HIP HOP. Which is bullshit.

-- lemin

The only thing Puffy produced on that was the intro.

Puffy is a great businessman and...and I think I'll leave it at that.

I like the way Kelefah Sanneh put it last year, reviewing the Bad Boys II soundtrack:

"This is P. Diddy's new album, whatever that means. He raps on three of the songs, takes a co-producer's credit on five and talks on a few more; he's also listed as one of the CD's executive producers. He's a mogul, not a musician: he doesn't make songs, he makes choices. And much of the time he makes good ones...

All pop stars are brand names, but P. Diddy exists almost exclusively as a brand name. It may be hard to figure out what he does, but CD's associated with him are invariably worth listening to and are often very good. Maybe that seems like the least we can ask of him, but isn't it really the most?"

Why don't you guys just read stock reports instead of listening to the radio?

perhaps in another way prefiguring kanye! (just kidding ... kind of)

puffy's a 'colloborator'; maybe he doesn't flip all the samples and program the beats himself; REGARDLESS, this does not mean that he fails to contribute musically, and i mean that literally -- affecting the notes/chords/rhythm what have you. i think that it comes out more in the 'feel' of the music though. like in hypnotize, his interjections kinda push the song along and project a feeling of the type of cool that biggie is describing lyrically. his role in the recording process i'd wager was something other than just 'rapper' or 'beatmaker'. and i don't think that what i just attempted to describe is unrelated at all to his so-called business acumen.

Which is self-evidently so much worse than the one boring, indistinct 60s funk, 8-bar phrase looped thru the entire song that all the respectable hip hop producers peddle.

PLEASE STOP BASHING THESE EARLY 90s-WORSHIPPING STRAWMEN NOBODY LOVED MY FAVORITE MUSIC WHEN IT WAS AROUND AND NOW ALL THE CRITICS ARE BASHING IT PLEASE STOP.

(And shakey's response proves it!)

But millions of people thought Every Breath You Take was a sweet, romantic song before Puffy regurgitated it.

I don't understand the rest of yr point about 90s strawmen and what have you, I'm not even sure what you're referring to as your "favorite music".

"It may be hard to figure out what he does, but CD's associated with him are invariably worth listening to and are often very good. Maybe that seems like the least we can ask of him, but isn't it really the most?" -KS

And the second part referred to Tim Finney holding Puffy up against the canonized rap that was never actually accepted by any sort of canonmakers.

"he doesn't make songs, he makes choices. And much of the time he makes good ones..."

WHICH IS EXACTLY what everyone's trying to say in this thread, shakey.

Hey, did anyone mention Making the Band? Puffy was pure genius in that.

And for what it's worth I love a lot of late 80s/early 90s hip-hop. But I wouldn't describe it as "indistinct 60s funk, 8-bar phrase looped thru the entire song". That description does not fit Ice Cube/NWA, Digital Underground, the Jungle Bros., Stetsasonic/Prince Paul productions, Public Enemy, etc.

x-post

I did! I did!

We should also mention the infamous line "I don't write rhymes/ I write checques." It's a brilliant line, and evidence of his genius, unless of course he paid someone to write it for him.

also, 'in depth', hfkaghisdnvibxcbvisdofhpiosdoadfjisdjopfdfoiopdfsdmfs fsdf sdnj

No I don't think this stuff is bad djdee, I just think that there's no reason why it's inherently better-made than, say, "I'll Be Missing You". Simply looping an 8-bar sample is pretty standard practice for a lot of hip hop, and I don't think that strictly speaking the sample being pop or well-known makes the practice stupider or easier. My point was that it's as easy to make a stawman out of Illmatic (even though Illmatic is better than "I'll Be Missing You").

"And the second part referred to Tim Finney holding Puffy up against the canonized rap that was never actually accepted by any sort of canonmakers."

This however is untrue. Perhaps it wasn't praised to the high heavens at the time but as soon as dirty south came along a lot of this stuff was retrospectively canonised.

No I'm not. Just saying his ability to read the public's tastes and his ear for what works in that context is its own kind of genius. Musically, the guy is average. Dude, I'm not that stupid. ;-)

My point, though, is that he's not the WORST thing to ever happen because of the artists and sounds he's fostered.

"I gave you extra cheese, made you hotter than the west indies, you wanted ice so I made you freeze."

Yeah, that about sums it up. I don't question hitmaking. I accept it -- and kind of admire it.

But once in a while, Puffy does get it very right. Is launching Biggie, the LOX, Craig Mack, Mase and Mary J a bad thing?

i was just talking about Shyne two days ago. i realized that I'd forgotten the precise details of that night at Club New York, i.e when Puffy and J.Lo were fleeing the scene, and Puffy was offering his driver his pinky ring in exchange for taking the fall, where was Shyne?