By: Matik for Duepayer.com

Everybody has a complaint about the current state of hip-hop. I on the other hand, along with other members of the duepayer collective, just miss a certain element in hip-hop that used to mesmerize us when we listened to our home made cassettes of our favorite songs at the time. Reminiscent of the time when you could walk around the block and hear a new joint that made the whole block come together and just vibe to what was coming out of the boom box. I’m talkin’ bout that SOUL!!

Soul music wasn’t called soul music for no reason. It was a universal sound that expressed our struggle and our triumph and damn it, you felt it deep down. Soul music expressed everything you felt or wanted to feel at the time. Instruments were played with emotion - each note accentuated the many moods of life and the bass grooved low enough to reach the depths of our heart. That’s why back then, sometimes there wasn’t even a need for a singer in a band such as MFSB or the Young Holt Unlimited, because the music spoke for itself.

Pete Rock, Rza, and Jay Dee (R.I.P.) were the Isaac Hayes, Barry White, and Curtis Mayfield of our generation. Geniuses behind the production of the records we’ve come to love and appreciate time and time again - records that stood the test of time.

Now, I can’t say that Soul is completely gone in hip-hop today, but it is surely lacking a whole lot. What ever happened to the creative sampling and re-arranging of chops from various records that would become the backdrop for the MCs blessing the mic. I don’t have anything against keyboard beats, but if you’re no Chick Corea then the kid doesn’t wanna hear it. Because these two finger beats flooding commercial radio all sound the same to me. So step your piano game up fellas. It doesn’t hurt to know an instrument, which I believe will separate the good from the best. If you want to sample and have that soul feeling in your beats, then you gotta dig in the crates and find that sample that no one has discovered yet and turn it into your own. Recycling of samples gets to me and just tells me that you’re 1)lazy or 2) don’t know your history, which makes you a swagger jacker, and no true hip hop head wants that label.

Anyway, enough of me babbling, I got music to make and music to appreciate. Believe me, there’s more to come. Signin off this is Matik! Ya’ll Soon See … Peace!!

Here’s a taste of that soul from “Sweet” Charles Sherell…