Great hip hop drummers?

lxh039

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I know that most hip hop music these days is produced electronically, but there are a few groups out there who have begun recording and performing with traditional instrumentation. So, who do you guys think are the greatest hip hop drummers out there?

I'll get the obvious one out of the way now: ?uestlove from The Roots is probably on the list.
 
Yeah Quest is probably the best known.Dunno how old you are,but its always been sampled or drum machine.I was suprised back in the 90's Snoop was on SNL doing lodi dodi w/ a live band.
Sly and Robbie have played w/ a few hip hop groups.

I love putting on a hip hop album and just jamming along w/ it,super fun and pretty easy to follow.Been playing alot of Beastie Boys lately.And that is like AC/DC and Led Zep samples.

I'm a 45yr old newbie(drummer) metalhead.Been playing guitar for over 30yrs,had a few bands that did mostly original speed/thrash metal,a few old school Slayer and Metallica covers.But w/ my old ass and lack of competent drummers I decided to get a decent Ddrum kit and do all my recording myself.
 
Not sure if he qualifies as a drummer (he may be thought of as a drum programmer), but J Dilla put out some truly amazing stuff during his unfortunately short life.
 
Well I'll make the obvious Royster Jr mention, but he's not necessarily a hip hop drummer I suppose, it just happens to be his current gig.
 
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Second Chris Dave. What a player!

Aaron Spears and Ron Bruner Jr are serious gospel chops players.

Amon Tobin's drum programming / sampling is a good listen.
 
Madlib plays drums on his various Yesterday's New Quintet projects (credited as Otis Jackson, Jr.), but I don't know how much of his hip-hop output is real vs. sampled drums.
 
The topic is what's called an oxymoron....

Oxymoron? Yeah a lot of hip hop is just drum machines and simple grooves, but there are uber talented drummers in just about any genre.

This is a pretty recent sweet performance of Tony Royster during a live hip hop show at the famous Sayer's Club in Hollywood. Check it out at the link below if you don't believe me, especially the drum solo at 1:37...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a4kCGh4Tp0
 
Deantoni Parks is one of my favourite. He played on most of Flying Lotus's 'You're Dead'. Great innovative approach to beats and fantastic groove.
 
"Counting Stars" was the first track I heard by Japanese musician/producer/dj Nujabes, and I immediately fell in love with his music. I was especially enthralled by the fact that his drums sounded like someone was really playing them, which is rare in modern hip-hop. I am convinced he has worked with live drumming or drummers because of how organic they sound in his songs and if they are sampled than the cuts are extremely deep (which wouldn't surprise me). These beats are fun to play because of their funky uniqueness, dance-ability, and are sometimes a few measures longer than the average loop which makes them a little more challenging than most hip-hop rhythms. RIP Jun Seba a.k.a Nujabes.

https://youtu.be/4axI4nFcB3Q
 
There's a UK hip-hop band called Son Of Sam with a guy called John Sam on drums
 
Bernard Purdie, Jeff Porcaro, Clyde Stubblefield, the mowtown guys, probably Roger Hawkins, Jim Gordon, Hal Blaine and way too many more.

It's all sampled (stolen) from people with talent to make a lot of money for people without talent.

Do you get playing royalties if someone steals your playing?
 
Bernard Purdie, Jeff Porcaro, Clyde Stubblefield, the mowtown guys, probably Roger Hawkins, Jim Gordon, Hal Blaine and way too many more.
True.

It's all sampled...
False. Most of it is, but some hip-hop bands use real drummers to record, and a lot more will use drummers for live shows.

True/False. There are certainly a lot of independent artists out there who "steal" sounds for their demo work, but they will likely run into problems if they try to profit from it directly. Any sort of major label release will have paid licensing fees for sampled sounds.

...from people with talent to make a lot of money for people without talent.
False. If it takes no talent, why isn't everybody doing it? I'd love to hear another album as great at The Chronic or Paul's Boutique. Why don't you make one if it's so easy? I'd love to hear it and it will make you rich!

Do you get playing royalties if someone steals your playing?
It all depends on the original licensing contracts, most of which only pay royalties to the songwriters. See, most artists were ripped off by recording industry execs long before their work was ever sampled.
 
Pauls Boutique...gosh I love that album! Could possibly make my short list for a desert island. So many great grooves and so much hilarity! Sorry I just saw that and had to pipe in.
 
Pauls Boutique...gosh I love that album! Could possibly make my short list for a desert island. So many great grooves and so much hilarity! Sorry I just saw that and had to pipe in.
It's a gem. Did you catch KEXP's special on it? They played all the original tracks that were sampled for Paul's Boutique, plus history and trivia about the album. The show went on for a full day. It's really great for background listening. All the tracks are listed out below the sound files.

http://blog.kexp.org/kexp-steps-inside-pauls-boutique-on-friday-july-24/
 
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