Mr Pay Attention: 10 hip-hop beats that blew my mind

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It’s abundantly clear that Mr Pay Attention is a busy man. “I’m in Miami right now working with XXXTentacion, and my phone’s ringing a lot. I’ve got OVO, I’ve got Ty Dolla Sign… but I don’t want to drop too many names!”

Also known as Shawn St Cyr, Mr Pay Attention cut his teeth in Atlanta, sleeping on Sonny Digital’s couch and watching a string of underground artists coming up. Now it’s his turn, thanks to his single Love You Better, with King Combs and Chris Brown.

“I actually met Christian Combs when I was in New York, and we worked on the record together. He knew Chris Brown, I knew Chris Brown as well. We were trying to see who could get to Chris first, and we kinda made a bet. He got to him first in the end!”

Click onto the next slide to dive into Mr Pay Attention’s top ten hip-hop beats, and to score some pro production advice along the way.

Keep your ears peeled for Mr Pay Attention’s first album, due out by the end of this year. Love You Better is out now.

1. Jay-Z - Hard Knock Life

“For me, for these ten tracks, it’s not only about the production, it’s also about the producers behind the beats. These are in no particular order, but we’re gonna start with Hard Knock Life. It’s one of the songs that inspired me to become a producer.”

“I love the fact that they used the sample of Annie, that was genius to me. I love the hard-hitting drums - that’s hard to come by nowadays. These records were done back in the day when they were using analogue gear, and it gave them something special.”

2. Kanye West - Touch The Sky

“I love the cadence of this record - Kanye does a lot of off-tempo drum patterns, but when he raps on it, he makes it sound like it’s on-tempo. The way he raps on it makes everything gel together. His voice is the missing piece of the puzzle on this record, 100%.

“That’s the most important part of production: knowing that the voice is the last thing, and leaving enough space for the vocal. So, when producing a record, you should be able to hear the voice - hear how someone would attack the song, so you should leave that space, that gap or that frequency for that record.

“I’m a big fan of Kanye West. He’s sample-driven, and here he used a famous sample. I love the cadence and the rhythmatic approach he took on this record.”

3. The Notorious B.I.G. - Hypnotize

“Hip-hop nowadays uses a lot of 808s, a lot of electronic drums, but what Puff did back in the day was genius: instead of using 808s, he would use a bass drum, or an actual bass guitar.

“Hypnotize was bass-led and it was a bass guitar leading that record. He would use real instruments instead of using sampled instruments - the genuine authenticity and the musicality of that record is genius to me.

“There was a really sick bassline throughout the whole record that I think Puff ended up taking out. All the drums were live, the bass was live. I try to get that same kind of musicality in my own tracks, too - Love You Better is all live instruments.”

4. Timbaland - Say Something (ft. Drake)

“I love Timbaland, he’s one of my favourite producers, and Timbaland’s signature is all about technicality in drums. But that record, right from the start, it’s infectious. The sound selection as well, very specifically with that song, and all the instruments that he uses.

“My name is Pay Attention for a reason: I dissect. I can actually listen to a song and be able to tell exactly what software, what VST, where he got the sound - everything. There was a lot of sound design in that record, I love the sound selection and I love the layering - the technicality of that song is amazing to me. Hats off to Timbaland for that.”

5. Jermaine Dupri - Money Ain’t A Thang (ft. Jay-Z)

“It’s a real simple beat, but I think less is more in this case. I love the overall production of that record - being able to take maybe five or six sounds and turn them into a worldwide record.

“That’s the genius of being a producer. Production is all about knowing when to stop, and I like to compare music production to film production. A film producer may not be the one holding the camera, he may not be the one writing the script, but he has the genius to say, ‘OK, this is enough, this shot was perfect.’ Or ‘I want the script like this.’ So, a big part of being a producer is knowing when you need less and when you need more.”

6. Kanye West - Through The Wire

“Through The Wire is genius - both production-wise and in the back-story behind it. Kanye West went through an accident, his jaw was wired shut, and he was able to take that negative and turn it into a positive within his production.

“Sometimes, producers go into the studio with their laptop and they’ll just randomly make a beat, but here’s Kanye West, who specifically knows exactly what he wants to do. He takes a sample of Chaka Khan, Through The Wire, samples it in a specific way, and makes a song about exactly what he’s going through at the time. There’s a genius in that.

“I love the production, I love the arrangement of that record. A lot of producers will take a sample, maybe a five-second sample and loop it over, or they’ll take a couple and loop them over, but Kanye West actually dissects each sample into little pieces and makes a whole other song out of it.”

7. T.I. - What You Know

“I’m a real musical type of producer, and I just love the musicality of this track. DJ Toomp produced that record. That melody line, the whole ‘sentence’ of the line is amazing to me - there’s a story in that whole melody line.

“It’s one of those beats; even if T.I. didn’t do it - if he didn’t get the record and make it what it was - it’s still a hit record, still a hit beat. Anybody could’ve gotten on that record, because there’s a story and there’s an energy that comes into the atmosphere when you’re listening to that beat.

“In layman’s terms, it’s a no-brainer record. It’s a hit, period.”

8. Kanye West - Champion

“I’m a fan of sampling - I love to sample myself - and here Kanye West takes the horns of another sample and turns it into a major, massive record. I love the fact that he was able to keep it major, and I love the fact he was able to dissect all those different sounds and then combine them into one record.

“It’s a peculiar record as well; even the writing on that record’s genius to me. It’s a positive, positive, positive record if you actually dissect and listen to it from that standpoint, but production-wise, it’s a beautiful production altogether.”

9. Pharrell Williams - Marilyn Monroe

“Pharrell is a genius at using seventh chords. Sometimes you may not understand the genius behind Pharrell because sometimes he may use just three or four sounds, and it’s just so simple, but there’s a lot that goes into those three or four sounds.

“Musically, Pharrell knows how to be complex and simple at the same time. There’s a genius in that. It’s hard to know exactly what to do with four sounds or five sounds, and be musical at the same time, and make it catchy at the same time, and leave room for the vocals at the same time.

“That’s why Pharrell has a very distinct sound. Sometimes you hear a record and you know it’s Pharrell. Even if you go to a record like Happy, Pharrell is just Pharrell, and Pharrell has a very distinct sound, period.”

10. King Combs ft. Chris Brown - Love You Better

“If I were to step back and analyse my own record with an unbiased approach, I would say the musicality here is amazing as well. The genius of taking a sample from Case [1996’s Touch Me Tease Me], which was a huge sample back in the ‘90s within the urban community. As soon as that record comes on, anybody who knows about ‘90s music, anybody who knows about hip-hop, they know - it’s just a feeling we all share.

“I think there’s a genius about being able to resurface a record from back in the day, and keeping it in its original form but making it for 2018. I sampled the record, sped up the record, but I also did a lot of things live - the bassline was recorded live, the snare was recorded live, and then run through a sampler. It’s an interpretation rather than a new version.”