WAKA

The World is Flocka vs. The Waka is Flat

Hey, what did you think about Jay-Z kind of quoting your song, Bustin’ At ‘Em, on Watch The Throne—

What? He did? I ain’t know that! How did that slip that by me?!

I'm from East Atlanta 6 where the boys dump bricks but we don't bump The Blueprint 3 Watch The Throne

that girl look like halle berry when i'm on them beans
when i hit the scene, girls yellin and they scream

"flocka can you be my baby daddy?"
yes!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/lex-luger-hip-hop-beat-maker.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

def really interested in what lex has beyond gun sounds -- "that way" & "round of applause" are two really good, different productions

hilarious byline

Alex Pappademas is a contributing writer for the magazine. He last wrote about the career of Ryan Gosling.

"flocka can you be my baby daddy?"
yes!

― J0rdan S., Friday, October 14, 2011 4:41 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

love the tone of his voice there

still bewildered by the arms race people have been in to see how hyperbolically they can write about lex luger's amazing achievement that only 30 other southern rap producers have accomplished before him, all with better music

Is it a good thing that he makes his beats in twenty minutes?

for him, yeah

also when was the last time that a rapper or producer was like "yeah it took me like 3 and a half days to get this song perfectly right"

kanye duh

I bet Clams Casino takes at least half an hour

none of ya'll were shakin your heads that hard in da point only took 20 minutes to compose when it first dropped

still bewildered by the arms race people have been in to see how hyperbolically they can write about lex luger's amazing achievement that only 30 other southern rap producers have accomplished before him, all with better music

― prettyliketynandelong (some dude), Saturday, November 5, 2011 2:49 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

when was the last time a southern rap producer became singularly associated with a certain type of sound?

drumma boy got a write up in the NYT iirc

yeah but that was after he did what lex luger has done several times over

Drumma >> Lex

drumma is def >>> lex but otoh when drumma had his biggest impact he was coming up w/ shawty redd and a few others who were working in that lane

lex didnt really have any peers he had imitators

i think what i'm saying is that lex's influence appears more seismic bcuz of that

& fwiw lex has plenty of great beats

Agree.

yeah I don't think there's anything wrong with writing a story about lex, he's got a good narrative, a good angle

yeah i mean the sound has been omnipresent in rap for like a year and a half almost now

when was the last time a southern rap producer became singularly associated with a certain type of sound?

the entire decade of 2000-2010

lol. but seriously, whenever you hear a fast-paced orchestral bombast beat you're gonna automatically think 'lex' whereas other big name southern producers displayed a lot more variety out of the gates

p sure this came out before "Hard In Da Paint"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8Kog_sozBE

yeah but that wasn't as big a hit as hard in da paint?

nyt's not gonna care about timelines, they're only gonna care about a good story

While I do love the construction of lots of Lex's beats, I feel they suffer from fidelity issues on occasion, especially compared to Drumma's beats which generally always sound ironed out.

Having said that, was just listening to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7xtOkT_0zQ

and it's pretty crispy, no issues at all. idk, maybe I just dont love the bass sound that he uses on most of his beats.

i think lex's best beat this year is "Smoke That Bitch"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT3AJ-FBD2w

drumma is def >>> lex but otoh when drumma had his biggest impact he was coming up w/ shawty redd and a few others who were working in that lane

lex didnt really have any peers he had imitators

― AFAP Raggett (D-40), Saturday, November 5, 2011 6:28 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

see this makes no sense to me BECAUSE lex's stuff sounds so derivative of drumma and shawty redd and others. like if you'd told me his shit was by the same person who made jeezy's "who dat" i would've been like ok that makes sense.

oh come on lex's stuff totally has a distinctive flavor. obviously he came out of that influence sphere but however you describe his twist on the sound, its v distinctively his

there's a toddering rhythmic feel to it that sets it apart from the other guys

yes i agree that his rhythmic sense is much shakier and more amateurish -- that is an important distinction

but like people that 5 years ago couldn't tell lil jon beats from lil jon imitators are suddenly acting like this guy's tiny little aesthetic shift from drumma is some kind of timbaland-level sea change, it's just ridiculous to me

"much shakier and more amateurish"

Yeah

nobody's really calling it a sea change it's more that every single lex beat sounded exactly the same, at least for a little while

lol @ you getting in pot shots at lex, we're not arguing about whether or not his beats are any good, we're arguing about whether or not he had a distinctive sound, deej otm

yes i agree that his rhythmic sense is much shakier and more amateurish -- that is an important distinction

― prettyliketynandelong (some dude), Saturday, November 5, 2011 7:13 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

maybe its shakey and amateurish but it became an important part of his aesthetic. its like complaining about the ramones being amateurish guitar technicians

i wouldn't really call it 'amateurish,' just ... it is what it is. rhythms dont have to be 'intricate' or w/e, or consciously considered, even, to be effective or do what they need to to attract a listeners attention. your distinction seems arbitrary

well yeah if we can only talk about whether his beats are distinctive and nothing else than i'll say i don't think they are

thats ... crazy though. if you cant tell a luger beat (or a luger-imitator) a mile away....

well if he had just had that one hit then yeah I'd agree with you. but since he made an entire album with a distinct sound that didn't vary too much within his parameters, and has made hits for other artists using that exact same sound palette, then yeah I'd say he's laid claim to that 'style' in narrow terms, even though countless southern rap producers have done beats in that style before.

he didn't invent low horn riffs, or even stuttering hi-hats, though. obviously certain things are more common in his beats and his imitators' beats, but nothing that wasn't in the air before that. (xpost)

i mean the fact that i've seen people randomly credit songs like "o let's do it" and "lose my mind" to him makes me think that all the talk about how unmistakable his style is is kinda fronting tbh

'lose my mind' is a really luger-ish imitation tho

people say lil lody beats sound like luger but thats because they try to sound like luger

ppl only say 'o lets do it' is him because its waka's breakthrough, but it sounds nothing like the typical luger track

he definitely has a sound, regardless of whether or not it's pioneering in any way (i could go both ways on that) but it's without a doubt reigned over hip hop for over a year, he's definitely a notable producer

i think 'pioneering' is kind of meaningless, who's really 'pioneering' -- he's popularized a distinctive flavor of an already-popular sound, and popularized that toddering rhythmic feel to such a degree that he's the go-to auteur behind it. i mean, i think he's overrated to a degree by ppl who ignore southern production bcuz hes an easy name to grab onto, but there's no question that the sound of contemporary rap is closer to his than to drumma boy's. do you know any lil lody-type dudes for drumma, who are trying to imitate 'no hands' instead of 'bmf'?

Maybe thats part of the appeal of luger's amateurism and why he's had such a huge impact -- drumma boy is TOO skilled, he's hard to imitate, whereas luger's amateurism makes him MORE influential because its an easier sound for other artists to replicate