Every Producer’s Best Sample Flip – East Coast

What would music be without producers? From the well-known ones like Quincy Jones, Dr. Dre, and Teddy Riley, to the more underground ones like The Alchemist and Conductor Williams, producers have shaped the way music is made for over half a century. But, the one genre where producers are the most recognized is, of course, hip-hop, due to its heavy reliance on sampling. A good producer needs to have a musical ear for things that most humans might not hear, it could be a one-second snippet, or many layered chops of random parts of a song. This series will comprise the best sample flip from producers from each coast (East, West, Midwest, and South). The criteria is simple: each producer can only have one song to their name, the beat has to contain a sample, the song needs to be officially released, and the track has to include rapping on it (so no ‘beat tape’ albums like Donuts or Special Herbs).

Let’s start in the area where I live. EAST:

Pete Rock – Public Enemy “Shut ‘Em Down” (1991)

Pete Rock is an incredible crate digger. He can hear a sample out of almost any instrument; any noise for that matter. And, during his early career, that ear for sampling really shows. The sample is from the song “Never My Love” by Tom Scott and The California Dreamers. Rock takes a random string of notes at 2 minutes and 21 seconds, slows/pitches it down, pans it, and gives it a whole different vibe, so different that I didn’t even know that the sound was coming from a saxophone until I did research for this article. Even crazier is that 3 years later, Rock flipped this song again for his song “It’s On You” (the sample of that is at 1:26), and flipped another song from this album (“Today”) into “They Reminisce Over You”. Pete is a sample G-d! Honorable mention goes to “Worldwide”, which is also a beautiful sample flip, but I couldn’t see it beating “Shut ‘Em Down” for the life of me.

Q-Tip – Mobb Deep’s “Give Up The Goods (Just Step)” (1995)

Known as the main producer for the legendary group A Tribe Called Quest along with Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Q-Tip was held in high regard in 90s New York, working with iconic New York acts like The Crooklyn Dodgers, Craig Mack, & Nas. But, he struck gold when he mixed the intro of Esther Phillips’s “That’s All Right With Me” with drums from “Fly, Fly, the Route, Shoot” by If to create Mobb Deep’s “Give Up The Goods”. The beat sounds gritty, but not gritty in a way that it would be used in a riot-type setting. It feels like you are walking through the slums of NY on a cold winter night, just waiting for something bad to happen. I feel like that’s the reason why many rappers have freestyled to it, from the established, to the up and coming. Honorable mention goes to “Excursions”, “God Lives Through”, and “Youthful Expression”, all by A Tribe Called Quest.

Havoc – Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones Pt. II” (1995)

No question the most iconic beat here, Havoc cooked up absolute perfection when he layered the clicking of a stove with Quincy Jones’s “Kitty With a Bent Frame” and Herbie Handcock’s “Jessica” (two different sample breakdowns). Almost every MC has rapped on this beat: Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, ScHoolboy Q, Juice WRLD, Fabulous, J. Cole, Eminem, Method Man, Redman, and even a f**king 12-year old. Honorable mentions (obviously) go to “Survival of the Fittest” and “Hell on Earth”.  

Diddy – Mary J. Blige’s “My Life” (1994)

Look, I have to talk about him now, before the allegations get worse. 

P. Diddy has an incredible ear. He obviously knows what to do with samples, and how they can fit in with a traditional hip-hop beat. But, surprisingly, my favorite flip by the Diddler is from an R&B record. The sample is true nostalgia bait, with it being the Roy Ayers classic “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”. I really love how Puffy uses the “My life, my life, my life, my life, in the sunshine”  line and flips it into a different meaning so it can link with what Mary is singing about. Honorable mentions go to Ma$e’s “Feel So Good”, The Notorious B.I.G. ‘s “Mo Money. Mo Problems”, JAY-Z’s “Young G’s”, and The Notorious B.I.G. ‘s “Who Shot Ya” (song starts at the one minute mark). (Fun drinking game, take a shot every time I used a different nickname for Sean Combs during this segment)

Metal Fingers – King Geedorah & Hassan Chop’s “I Wonder” (2003)

Metal Fingers is another alias for the rapper MF DOOM, focusing more on the production side of his music. The sample is from a recording of Brazilian musicians Antonio Pinto & Jaques Morelenbaum from 1999. I love the orchestral beat, as it makes what Hassan Chop says even more powerful and contrasts the deep, depressing lyrics. Sadly, DOOM doesn’t spit a verse as King Geedorah, but his impact is known behind the boards. Honorable mentions go to “Gas Drawls”, “Hey!” and “Underwater” by Ghostface Killah.

Ski Beatz- JAY-Z’s “Dead Presidents”

Ski, to me, is like when Nas drops a new album. Yes, it’s going to be good, maybe even one of the best things he’s ever done, but it will never top his best work. For Nas, I’m referring to Illmatic and for Ski, I’m referring to “Dead Presidents”. The sample is “A Garden Of Peace” by Lonnie Listen Smith and the sampled part is at 2:17. Then, if it couldn’t get any better, Ski adds a new element: a loop of the line “I’m out for dead f**king presidents to represent me” from the Remix of “The World Is Yours” by Nas. All of these elements combine for a majestic beat, something that is so easy to flow to that any half-decent rapper can flow on it and it will still be good. But, lucky for our eardrums, JAY-Z is not a half-decent rapper. Here’s the beat breakdown from Ski. 

Large Professor – Nas’s “It Ain’t Hard To Tell (Remix)” (1994)

Large Professor is a member and main producer of the group Main Source in the 90s. In 91, while recording for their album Breaking Atoms, the Extra P invited some young rapper by the name of Nasty Nas to come to the studio. Long story short, Nas spit his classic “Live at The Barbeque” verse and hip-hop was never the same again. So, when it came time to work on Illmatic, Nas wanted Extra P to produce some of his songs. So, he produced lead single “Halftime” and “It Ain’t Hard To Tell”. But, Large Pro wanted to do a remix of the track too.  So, he sampled The Blue Jays’s “What Do You Want From Me Woman?” and the drums from “Why Can’t People be Colors Too” by the Whatnauts. Lastly, as the cherry on top, he used the McGurk effect to turn Biz Markie’s line “I’m highly recognised as the king of discoing” to “Nas, Nas, Nas is the king of discoing”, which is pretty awesome. 

Boi-1da – Drake & JAY-Z’s “Pound Cake”

Boi-1da is the best producer from the Toronto area, and is Drake’s go-to producer for hit singles. So, when presented with an idea of producing a track for Drizzy and H.O.V.A, Boi-1da got in the studio and used Elie Golding’s “Don’t Say A Word” as the base of the song. The sample kicks in at the 25 second mark, where Elie harmonizes with the track. I love the drums, with a unique pattern and no hi-hats. The beat is so good that KaiGoinKrazy rehashes the beat for Lil Baby’s “In A Minute”. Honorable mention goes to Kendrick Lamar’s “The Blacker the Berry”, but I didn’t choose it because the only sample are some chopped up drums from Cold Grits “It’s Your Thing”. 

The Alchemist – Kendrick Lamar’s “FEAR”

Known most for his work with Dilated Peoples, The Alchemist has built up quite a resume for himself, producing for multiple A-list rappers. But, his best work (in my opinion) was with Kendrick Lamar. There are multiple chops from “Poverty’s Paradise” by the band 24-Carat Black, all used excellently to paint a picture of Kendrick’s life. Throughout the track, K. Dot talks about his fears at ages 7, 17, and 27. At the end of the first two verses, you hear a haunting refrain, as Lamar says “If I could smoke fear away, i’d role that motha****er up”, in a screeching voice. Then, if the song couldn’t get better, Lamar names almost all the songs on the album in one whole rhyme-scheme. My only honorable mention is “We Gonna Make It” by Jadakiss and Styles P. 

Just Blaze – Jay Electronica’s “Exhibit C” (2009)

Just Blaze was one of the R.O.C.’s top producers in the early to mid 2000s, producing songs for JAY-Z (“Girls, Girls, Girls” & “U Don’t Know”), Joe Budden (“Pump It Up”) Kanye West (“Touch the Sky”), Cam’ron (“Oh Boy” & “Welcome to NYC”), and Jadakiss (“Throwback”). But, the crown jewel of his set of legendary beats comes with Jay Electronica’s “Exhibit C”, a pump-up anthem that made Jay Elec a household name in most rap circles, before he vanished without a trace years later. Blaze samples “Cross My Heart” by Billy Stewart. All he really did was chop it up and add drums, but it changes the whole vibe of the song. I fully encourage you to check the track out; the flow that Elec pulls out on the third verse is stuff of legends. Honorable mentions go to Freeway’s “What We Do” (if you know, you know) and “Compton” by Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre.

Swizz Beatz – Busta Rhymes’s “Touch It” (2006)

Known more for being Alicia Keys’s husband than anything in his music career, Swizz Beatz should definitely get more flowers than he deserves. In my opinion, he is the only one who can take the classic club banger “Technologic” by Daft Punk, sample it, and make it even more of a club banger. It was such a hit in the mid 2000s that literally every rapper wanted to spit on top of it (i mean everybody). Honorable mentions go to Lil Wayne’s “Uproar” (basically a carbon copy of “Special Delivery” by G. Dep, Keith Murray, Ghostface Killah, and Craig Mack) and JAY-Z’s “On To The Next One” (beat breakdown). 

Conductor Williams – Westide Gunn’s “Michael Irvin” (2020)

Definitely the least known producer on this list, Conductor is the main producer for most of the artists from Griselda Records, but my favorite artist he works with is definitely Westside Gunn. The sample is “Siesta / Wake Up!!! That’s What I Said” by Billy Cobham, and the part is around the 42-second mark. Conductor left the sample virtually unchanged, only pitching it up, which leaves a bunch of room for Gunn to do his thing. I love West’s rugged flow and how it contrasts the smooth beat, but that could be said for many Griselda songs, so it’s up to interpretation if that’s really an original compliment. Fun fact: Tyler, The Creator rapped on this same beat for his song “Sir Baudelaire” in 2021. 

DJ Clark Kent – Rakim’s “Guess Who’s Back” (1997)

Mostly a producer for JAY-Z and Junior M.A.F.I.A, Clark Kent is a very well-respected beat-maker in underground hip-hop circles. For “Guess Who’s Back”, Clark Kent sampled the opening hon lies of Bob James’s “Shamboozie”. I like the fact how the sample is clean enough that there was no chopping needed, and it feels so much like a classic Rakim beat that I thought Eric B. produced it. I really love the live remix Talib Kweli, Bob James (yes, the same Bob James who provided the sample for the song) and Black Thought did at the Blue Note too.

Salaam Remi – Nas’s “Get Down” (2003)

Remi is like a musical UFO. You hear a hit song, check the liner notes, find out he produced it, then don’t hear a hit record produced by him for the next half a decade. But, when he does come out of his ‘bunker’, he makes instant classics, like Nas’s “Get Down”. Remi samples the godfather of soul (James Brown) a whopping 3 times to create 2 different beats. The first beat samples the opening 4 bars of Brown’s “The Boss” and uses the last few notes from “The Payback” during the chorus. Then, the next beat, used during verse two, loops the “Funky Drummer” break. The entire story of the song revolves around the real-life case of Free High and Worm, some of Nas’s homies. Honorable mention goes to “Fu-Gee-La” by The Fugees.

Marley Marl – MC Shan’s “The Bridge”

Usually, when I cover sample flips from the 80s, it’s mostly a simple 4-8 bar loop with some drums on top, but that’s not what Marley Marl did for this record. First, he chopped up the iconic “Impeach the President” drum break. Then, he took one note from “Scratchin’” by the Manic Disco Machine. And he pitched up and down that one note so many times to get the noise you hear in “The Bridge”. It’s a pretty advanced sample flip for a time that was pretty simple. Also, check out the remix that QB’s Finest made in 2001.

Prince Paul – De La Soul’s “Eye Know” (1989)

When starting his work with Long Island rap trio De La Soul, Prince Paul wanted to differentiate from his work with his other group, Stetsasonic. Stetsasonic’s sound was more mainstream, borrowing off of the trend Run-DMC set in the mid ‘80s, with the track suits and gold chains. Meanwhile, De La Soul was a part of the Native Tongues, an afro-centric, Jazz-rap collective that dresses in Dashiki clothing. So, instead of sampling “Funky Drummer” like Stetsasonic did on “Sally”, De La sampled Steely Dan’s “Peg” and Lee Dorsey’s “Get Out of My Life, Woman”. De La showed how they sampled “Eye Know” during a really creative segment on The Late Show. Honorable mention goes to “A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays”.

RZA – Raekwon & Ghostface Killah’s “Criminology” (1995)

Known as a founding member and main producer of the iconic Wu-Tang Clan in the mid-90s, RZA has many iconic sample flips to his name, but his best work was from Raekwon’s album “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx”, and the best song is “Criminology”. RZA takes parts from two soul tracks (Black Ivory’s “I Keep Asking You Questions” and “Why Mary” by the Sweet Inspiration) to make a beat that was made to be heard by the slums of NYC and rapped by Shaolin’s finest. Honorable mentions go to “Ain’t Nothin’ to F’ With” by the Wu-Tang Clan, “Long Kiss Goodnight” by The Notorious B.I.G., and Ghostface Killah’s “Stroke of Death”.

Erick Sermon – Redman’s “A Day of Sooperman Luva” 

Erick Sermon is one half of the rap group EPMD, and, along with DJ Scratch, produced most of their records. So, when it was time to produce some songs for Redman’s “Whut Thee Album?” Sermon was ready to create new material for the Brick City MC. The song samples a bunch of different loops from John Watson’s “Superman Lover”, and uses small little vocal chops to enhance the wackiness of Reggie’s story. That story is a parody of the classic Superman “Cat Stuck in the Tree” cliche, but it ends with Redman returning the cat to the owner, then sleeping with the owner. Probably the best part about the song is that it is told from a drunk dad telling his kid a story to try and put him to sleep. My other honorable mentions are from the rest of the wacky Sooperman Luva series, Sermon did a great job with those instrumentals. 

Easy Mo Bee  – The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Warning” (1994)

Probably the most underrated producer from Bad Boy Records, Easy Mo Bee is an underground legend. And, he produced the majority of  Biggie’s classic debut, Ready to Die. This album features, and Mo Bee’s catalog, features a boatload of samples, but my favorite by far is “Warning”, and it’s for an unexpected reason: simpleness. The song samples Issac Hayes’s “Walk on By” for a slight 4 bars at around 1 minute and 34 seconds. And that’s it, that is the entire song. All “Warning” is comprised of is the Issac Hayes sample looped with drums on top. So, the energy is handed off to Biggie, and he delivers. “Warning” tells a story about a set up at Biggie’s house, which Biggie only knows about because his boy Pop called him at 5:46 to warn him about the attack. And that flow, “There’s gonna be a lot of slow singing and flower bringing, if my burglar alarm starts ringing”, is so funny and dense at the same time. My honorable mentions are Busta Rhymes’s “Everything Remains Raw”, Method Man’s “The What”, The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Party and Bullsh*t”, and Craig Mack’s “Flava in Ya Ear” (I used “Warning” instead of this because I’m not sure if “Flava” contains a sample).

Diamond D – D.I.T.C.’s “Day One” (2000)

Known mostly as more of a rapper than producer (the self proclaimed ‘best producer on the mic’), Diamond D is more than capable behind the boards, and this flip shows. It is relatively simple, with the sample being “On the Hill” by Oliver Sain, and the sampled part being at 3 minutes and 34 seconds. All D does with the sample is loop it for 4 bars. But, the fact that D found a song that fit D.I.T.C.’s vibe so well that he could leave it unchanged is kinda incredible. Honorable mentions go to “Flow Joe” by Fat Joe and “The Score” by the Fugees 

DJ Premier – Nas’s “Nas Is Like” (1999)

Where the hell do I begin with DJ Premier?! Mostly agreed to be the greatest hip-hop producer of all time, Primo has worked with what feels like every artist that has ever had a top 40 record on the Billboard Hot Hip-Hop/R&B charts in the 90s. What most people love about Primo is that he tailor-makes a beat for every artist he works for, whether it be Big L or Christina Aguilera. So, when he got a call from Nas that he wanted a beat for his new single, Primo got to digging. He found a christian record named “What Child is This?” by John V. Rydgren and Bob R.Way and some chirping birds via Jack Holesman. He turned those two things into a HIP-HOP BEAT and used former lines from Nas on previous records to turn into a cohesive sentence. Here’s a beat recreation that proves how crazy it is that Primo randomly thought of this. Honorable mentions go to “Above the Clouds” by Gang Starr, “D’evils” by JAY-Z, “Ten Crack Commandments” by The Notorious B.I.G., “Mostly Tha Voice” by Gang Starr, “The ? Remainz” by Gang Starr, “Represent” by Nas, “Livin Proof” by Group Home, “You Can’t Stop the Prophet” by Jeru The Damaja, “Unbelievable” by The Notorious B.I.G., “The 6th Sense” by Common & Bilal, and “Devil’s Pie” by D’Angelo.

Next up, I’ll cover the West Coast. Tell me, in the comments, your thoughts about my selections — disagreements welcome. Also, let me know if there’s an iconic East Coast producer I missed.