To Recall & To Extend A Memory

For as much music as I’ve heard, especially in hip-hop, it has become clear to me that each producer acts as a storyteller. Each production aims to tell a story and the producer has to decide how to tell that story. Some producers tend to tell their story with the less-is-more mindset, using as few elements as possible to get to the emotional or musical points. Some producers tend to operate with a world-building mindset, transforming or morphing a song into something completely different and new to what it started out from in the beginning. 

Not only is this true for producers but different production styles that we see across music. Sampling for instance. For readers who are not aware of what sampling is, it is a technique whereby a producer takes an element of an existing song and either loops it or rearranges it while also adding on multiple elements to create a new song all together (For a more detailed analysis on sampling, specifically within the sub-continent, please refer to the piece). In other words it is a style that finds a building block from an existing song or story to create another completely new story.

Sampling and producers that specialize in sampling as a style of production or storytelling intrigue me the most. Intrigue might not be the right word; I’m not an anthropologist studying them. It’s just that as a listener they presented a style of storytelling that felt so accessible, so emotionally rich, so grand and so fulfilling. I got that feeling when I would listen to J Dilla’s music or RZA’s or any producer who would use samples as the central musical component driving their music, which felt vulnerable and powerful. 

Some producers from Pakistan bring about the same emotion in me, even if they’re working with samples or not. One such example for me would be Umair, whose music exemplifies doing more with less. To me, Umair’s music has always felt absorbed with the idea of getting to that core feeling and emotion that is to be conveyed to me or the rest of his audience, as quickly as can be. And finding sounds that are in service to that feeling or emotion. Whether this be a song that is loaded with multiple sounds or operates with only a very few, his music never feels like it has elements added in just for the sake of it

This feels clear to me especially in the context of his new album, Rockstar without a Guitar. Take the song THANK GOD with aleemrk. The song’s structure is very clear from the beginning and doesn’t change too often throughout its run time but is potent in what it wants to convey - a sense of hope born out of adversity and struggle. This works perfectly for aleemrk who comes into the song laser focused and succeeds with Umair in conveying beauty & emotion. The song’s simplicity is its strength. Sometimes, maybe actually most times, the best skill is finding a combination that brings out the brightest of feelings and letting it be. It feels like being thrown into the feeling and replaying it again & again. Similar to how we want to hear a story a month after we first heard it, or a year or 10 years later. It transports us somewhere. More than anything it reminds me of this tweet by the producer Conductor Williams: