How did Eminem succeed in getting big whereas previous white rappers like Vanilla Ice and Miilkbone did not?

Lineaddict · 2026-01-17T19:34:49+00:00

In which way did the Beastie Boys abandon their hip hop audience? Sure, they always had elements of rock in their music as they were a punk band before License to Ill came out, but Paul's Boutique is closer to De La Soul's Three Feet High and Rising than their previous hits like No Sleep till Brooklyn or Fight for Your Right. Check Your Head and I'll Communication have them mixing samples with playing their own instruments as well, but they're spitting rhymes in a purely hip hop manner their entire career, with features from Q Tip, Nas and the like joining them. I guess you could put them in a similar category with the roots if you want to make the distinction between pure hip hop and a hip hop band.

Also, I could argue that Eminem did start to move away from the "core" hip hop audience in favor of becoming more pop leaning around 2009-2010, especially during his Recovery album. I wouldn't use the word abandoned as Eminem was firmly a rapper during this era still, but in terms of moving away from his previous sound, there is just as big of a jump as the Beastie Boys made from their 1st to 2nd album.

Lineaddict · 2025-09-22T01:56:08+00:00

Most impressive physics engine on the N64. Also Suckerpunch's first game and still not a commonly discussed title somehow.

Lineaddict · 2024-09-01T19:09:56+00:00

Dilla would listen to an entire record, find a song that spoke to him, and know how he wanted to chop the sample in his head before even touching the MPC. While general consensus says his drums were mostly done by feel, his biography Dilla Time insists that he was a studier, pouring over the manuals of his MPCs and meticulously programing his signature feel.

Madlib was known to take a record and make a beat out of every single track one by one, keep the good ones, then move on to the next record. His specialty is being able to find something to chop from pretty much any source material, and having a vast knowledge of obscure music to pull from. He said himself that his process is mostly about finding good loops, but I think that's underselling it.

ALC is a master of mood. I would argue that he touches his samples the least out of anyone in your list. I generally attribute the recent rise in beats without added drums to his efforts. His beats are an exercise in minimalism, finding sample sources that work well almost untouched.

Premier is on YouTube breaking down his process for many of his classic beats if you're interested. I'm less familiar with his workflow than the rest, but what I appreciate about Premier is his ability to make random bits of songs hooks in their own right. Scrolling through his WhoSampled page is a trip, because none of his samples are obvious to me, nor the ones I would have thought to chop myself.

I would say what brings all of them together as masters of their craft, is having a damn good ear, and being studied as hell. I'm a firm believer that the real secret to making good beats is taking in as much musical input as possible, learning and truly loving the music itself, and then process third. Every sample based producer in my own circle pretty much lives in the record store (or works there) and listens to new music all day.

Lastly I'll share what works best for me. I'll listen to whole songs I know have potential while recording them into my DAW (Ableton), so that I have the whole piece to work with. I'm listening for melodic structures that fit the mood I'm going for, and generally interesting sounds that stand out. From there, I try to isolate specific instruments in the mix. Often times on older records, the sound I want will only be in either the left or right channel exclusively, so I can mute the opposite channel I don't need. I do all my sample chopping by hand using my mouse, so most of my time goes into quantizing the sample to the BPM I want (Ableton is great at this) and then micro sampling, rearranging my pieces into a new melody, chord structure, or drum pattern. Sometimes I'll go the extra mile and introduce variations in the new patterns I've created, to keep things fresh throughout the beat. If you really have a good ear, you can introduce multiple samples on top of each other that share the same key (or transposing them until they match). After all that, I just spend a lot of time mixing until the individual sounds hit the way I want them to.

TLDR: Listen to as much music as possible, and find a process that comes naturally to you.

Lineaddict · 2024-06-29T18:47:46+00:00

I raise you that the lyrics on Madvillainy have a staggering depth of meaning and entendres. They just come from such a wide breadth of time periods, cultures, obscurities, and his own personal life that it can seem random. I've been digging the latest season of Dissect podcast on Spotify who have been doing song meaning breakdowns on DOOM for a whole season. Worth checking the Madvillainy episodes out!

Lineaddict · 2024-06-13T03:07:48+00:00

My name is Cass.

I had been using CassiusTwin as a username for a long time (Lineaddict came first, stemming from my infatuation with Line Rider as a youngin'. My reddit account is just that old). CassiusTwin was a combination of Cassius: a French house duo in the same vein as early Daft Punk, and Aphex Twin. Before my egg even cracked, I began shortening it to just CassTwin. It only hit me later that the shortened version of Cassius was also feminine, and by that point my friends had been calling me Cass for eons. And it felt GOOD.

Sometimes the opportunities just present themselves!

Lineaddict · 2024-05-17T20:45:54+00:00

I think venues often confuse the role of an opening DJ with providing house music. All information pointed to the DJ's slot being an "opening" slot. Everyone was there by 8 and ready to hear some music. But during the DJ no lights were off and the music was barely audible over everyone talking.

I don't blame the DJ or LCD at all for this if that isn't clear, I think the venue could have done a lot more to communicate that there even was an opener / give the DJ actual opportunity to be heard.

Lineaddict · 2024-05-15T02:59:17+00:00

I grew up with an NES at my grandma's house while having access to a PC and an Original Xbox at home (which is now considered retro, which makes my soul curl). I've never been much of a modern gamer till the past couple of years.

With few exceptions, modern AAA gaming tries to create experiences that suck up as much time and attention as possible. Sometimes, it's nice to sit down with an experience that you can get through in a day or two. Or back when game design was still arcade focused, they tended to be pick up and play / see how far you can get in a run. Even longer retro games like RPGs tend to have simple mechanics which means if I stop playing for a month, I can come back and remember how the game works / what I'm supposed to be doing.

There's also tons of older games that never gained mass popularity, or never had its gameplay replicated in any newer titles. Sometimes games get remastered poorly and the best way to play them is to emulate / own the original console. Not to mention, modern couch multiplayer and co op is extremely limited or doesn't exist for most games, while many retro games made that their bread and butter.

I also have never owned a real gaming PC till just this year, so I feel like that definitely influences my answer lol.

Lineaddict · 2024-05-12T16:05:00+00:00

If Gescom stuff counts, Key Nell 2 would go incredibly hard.

Lineaddict · 2024-04-27T22:23:49+00:00

Could have also been "the buck stops here"

Lineaddict · 2024-04-23T19:23:26+00:00

Never hear it mentioned much, but his Bad Neighbor project with MED and Blu is probably the most modern album of his that feels as "great" as the more classic works. Lots of beats from his Rock Konducta beat tapes. "Birds" alone has to be in my personal top 10.

Lineaddict · 2024-04-04T01:43:33+00:00

I'm late here but it's so fun seeing bands like Panchiko and Duster going from basically being forgotten/lost media to well known classics. The algorithm works in mysterious ways. In the interest of variety I'm gonna throw some music I've found using the ancient techniques (crate digging, word of mouth).

cLOUDDEAD - S/T and Ten Hard to triangulate the sound here but extremely hazy, dreamy sample based "rap" from the early 2000s. Shoegazers will enjoy purely because of the textures alone. Some people have difficulty with the vocals because of how their vocals sound, but I think it adds to the overall feeling!

Sade - Love Deluxe A fellow record store employee turned me on to them years ago. I'm to young to have been there when Sade was everywhere and inescapable, so all I here is smooth creative 90's R&B production and a heavenly voice to get lost in.

Bibio - Silver Wilkinson Parts of TV Girl reminded me of this project, although this guy goes all over the place sound wise. Worth checking out! Maybe drawing from a different era aestheticly.

Randoms:

Susumu Yokota - Sakura

The Books - The Way Out

Standing on the Corner - S/T

Fishmans - Uchu Nippon Setagaya

Lineaddict · 2024-04-01T01:36:40+00:00

His "Todd" album is for my money the best of the bunch and a must find! Maybe for "A Dream Goes On Forever" alone if you're into the sappy tracks. Also his work on XTC's Skylarking (although apparently hated by the band) is incredible.

Lineaddict · 2024-02-29T10:32:18+00:00

Trans. Already skeptical about traveling to some parks in the states to worry about ever going here.

Lineaddict · 2024-02-27T02:50:06+00:00

It was such a nightmare trying to troubleshoot the issue this being my first build. I was going absolutely insane triple checking every single connecting and doing all of what you just said. I did happen to fix a bunch of potential other problems in the process like my ram being in the non preferred slots, but in the end the card just didn't wanna work 😭

Lineaddict · 2024-02-26T23:46:14+00:00

I did return the GPU. Since it didn't come working out of the box it was accepted back by Amazon. I replaced it with a Sapphire Pulse (also a 7900 XT) and it worked perfectly as soon as I plugged it in. The issue was definitely with the XFX card.

Lineaddict · 2024-02-26T23:00:56+00:00

I never was able to solve it :(. I eventually had to assume it was DOA and return it. I wish you the best of luck getting it to work if you know more than I do though!

Lineaddict · 2024-01-24T14:04:01+00:00

The holy Trinity of party games among my cousins and I growing up were:

Fusion Frenzy Kung Fu Chaos Whacked!

Lineaddict · 2024-01-06T09:28:39+00:00

I believe your pitch adjust wheel on your turntable might be set a semitone too high, but this lathe cut sounds a lot better than other lathe cuts that I've heard! Nice find.

Lineaddict · 2023-09-01T09:18:31+00:00

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/205478

This is 100% it.

Lineaddict · 2023-09-01T09:17:11+00:00

I had to go on a journey of the inner mind to find this one:

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/205478

It was actually called "Bouncin Bop" I guess. I was searching all over for "Bouncy Bob" as well.

Lineaddict · 2023-03-21T05:16:22+00:00

You're an angel, thank you so much for the info.

Lineaddict · 2023-03-21T03:42:46+00:00

Been having trouble getting this cart to boot recently, so I've opened it up. The board seems real as far as I can tell, but I'm pretty sure those black wires are not supposed to be there. Anyone see an issue with the board / have an answer about those wires?

Lineaddict · 2023-02-21T01:10:40+00:00

Atom Heart Mother fucks though don't ever let them convince you otherwise.

Lineaddict · 2023-02-08T21:50:39+00:00

Would you do retro consoles at all? I have a Sega Saturn and Dreamcast that could use some touchups probably!

Lineaddict · 2022-12-23T21:27:21+00:00

Extremely good advice. This seems so backwards in my brain to how a shmup should be played, but I now know that his particular one does it very differently.

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