a positive part of my brain is overly excited to the setup of this battle. really excited to download that zip pack and get chopping out some choice sounds.
the blind element is the secret sauce and i’m hoping to be surprised by guessing (totally incorrectly) to what i know of people styles so far.
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Hey all! Sample first, background after:
If you have a current gen MPC, you can put this .xpm file and the sample into your programs folder. It will load up pre-chopped (adjust as you like) and pre-effected to hopefully make it sound better. 
Elekntronauts Hip-Hop Beat Battle 9 Sample Chopped.xpm (1.3 MB)
Now for background:
I have lived in Texas all my life, and while I considered posting a country music sample (arguably the most representative music of Texas), I decided to instead include a sample much more connected to me as a musician.
The sample is from a recording of some friends and I jamming (in a church of all places) about a month ago. We are fortunate to be able to have some short jam sessions there about twice a month, and it is always the highlight of my day when we get to do this.
While I love making beats, my first and favorite instrument is the drums, and the act of making music collaboratively with some friends brings me a lot of joy, joy that I hope to impart to you in a way as well.
(Here is some Texas sky for good measure)
@surfacescan and @Unifono I know my sample follows more the spirit than the exact wording of your prompt. If you’d like me to contribute something more accurately representative of where I live, I can oblige. 
But, I think my current sample is pretty fire just sayin’. 
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Easy people, here’s mine. Excuse being a few seconds over but that’s as much as I could edit it down to!
It’s a live recording of uk mc General Levy I made on my old phone back in 2014 at a local pub/venue. The quality isn’t great but the energy is real and I think it captures something about where I’m from, namely south-east London, UK. Obviously, Caribbean culture and sound systems have had a huge influence on the UK and very much so in my little pocket of London. Not sure how usable the sample is but would be great to hear it chopped and mangled into someone’s beat!
Here’s the wav:
Image of outside the venue. Bins, knackered phone boxes and grey skies. Very London! You also can’t get more south London than Morley’s Fried Chicken on the right.
Location:
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When I was a child, my father and I used to watch a lots of Sergio Leone’s movies (the western genre) and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is still one of my favourite. Growing up I learned that Ennio Morricone (an Italian composer that you probably know) wrote the soundtrack and this track is probably the most known.
The sample I propose is the beginning of the song used when the three guys were doing the final three-way duel.
The location that I choose is Cinecittà the Rome area in which most of the Italian movies are filmed. The good, the bad and the ugly was filmed there but also in Spain
And finally the sample:
Hope you enjoy.
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Since @Jedilicious already represented Amsterdam, the city I was born and raised, I’ve decided to take this more literal:
My (late) father used to be an audio/recording engineer, and he recorded a lot of experimental jazz records. As my submission, I recorded a snippet from an LP he did in '86, by the Guus Janssen Septet, pictured below. It’s Dutch jazz straight from Amsterdam.
This album was recorded at the old Bimhuis, one of Hollands main jazz clubs, located in Amsterdam. It has since moved to a new location, but here’s a random picture of how it used to look like on the inside. I spent a lot of my childhood in there sitting around and listening while he had to work.
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All of these are amazing. Enjoying watching from the sidelines.
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that’s crazy I was going to post general levy down at Streatham common for my snippet, as that’s my area, the clip I was gonna post was very similar to this so i’m now trying to think of something else haha
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Great story, awesome sample! I did some reading and have to admit that I wasn’t aware that our city played such an important role in the development of experimental jazz.
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Apologies if I’m being dim witted here, but where are the compulsory African samples?
Great question. @Unifono and I will post them on Thursday March 17th at the same time as we also post the sample packs gathered from the community.
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Ahh ok, I get it. 
As some friendly feedback, and maybe there are others who’d think like me, I would base my involvement specifically on what those main samples are (as in- do they spark ideas? Can I flip them? Etc)…
These battles always become a big time commitment for me because beat making/sampling isn’t my forte, and I don’t want to say I’m in and then just drop out.
So I’m gonna have to pass this time.
All of the other ideas and changes (the zip packs, the actual battle theme, blind voting) are great.
Good luck everyone.
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Ha, wow that it mad! Sorry for getting in there first mate. But cool we’re on the same thinking 
@Sleepyhead, thanks for sharing this man. I’ve been to the new Bimhuis a couple of times and wondered about the history but never got round to looking it up as it seemed very established for such a modern looking building. Saw Fly Lo and Hud Mo there back in 2008! That’s an amazing photo of the old venue and what a place to grow up around.
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Damn, I never knew Fly Lo played there, It’s a shame I missed that one.
I am very lucky to have grown up in Amsterdam because all the hiphop greats perform here when they tour Europe, and a lot of them play smaller venues here before they blow up. I guess it’s the weed and the city’s reputation making it a popular stop.
I never went to big shows or payed a lot for tickets, but I did manage to see Nas, jay-z, Kendrick, krs, pharcyde, epmd, dj premier, mobb deep, de la soul, mop, immortal technique, little brother and others perform in small venues on walking distance from where I grew up. For some reason I did one day decide to skip a free performance by tyler the creator because back then I thought he’d be a one hit wonder 
.
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First, is it an implicit rule to be or living in the Netherlands to be in the contest? Because, I am happy to see that I am not the only on under the sea 
(in Haarlem but not that far from Amsterdam)
So this challenge took me down to identity crisis being a second generation, so I picked a sample that really moved me back in my teenager years coming from the song “Seconde génération” de Renaud. It is a song about an angry young man being a second generation and the anger coming from it by never fitting anywhere. It is one of the many songs or reading (I highly recommend to read “Les identités meurtrières” of Amin Maalouf, even if reading them twenty years later their publishing they are riddled by the optimism and naivety of the beginning of the millennium).
The sample is here :
Where you come from can be always a fundamental question that sometimes don’t only depend on you and I think that hip hop drove down the path that it is fine by showing it is possible to find yourself fitting everywhere and nowhere by learning roots and future that may not be yours.
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this prompt really got me thinking. i wanted to find some old cassette tapes my father recorded of conversations from around the house when i was really small, but they’re either jumbled somewhere in the basement or lost in a landfill by now. there’s a lot of history in my hometown, too. it’s a city of immigrant workers that’s gone through a lot over the years.
instead, my local sample is from where my family lives now, our hometown of somerville, ma. an annual brass band festival happens right down the street from us. bands from around the US and the world play here in the streets for a few days, march to cambridge, and basically turn the whole area into a roving musical block party. it’s pretty cool. my family hasn’t participated, but we know folks who do. it’s always a great time. https://honkfest.org
here’s a short clip of a phone recording from last year. a band (i forget the name, but they’re local and have a ton of members) performing salt-n-pepa’s “push it”
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I’m from San Francisco, CA (5th generation). My sample captures a communal drum circle that takes place every Sunday located at the beginning of Golden Gate Park that’s referred to as Hippie Hill. I spent many weekends in high school laying in the grass there with friends, participating in the local festivities for those familiar, listening to the seemingly endless rhythms ring out. Regardless of what was going on, there was always a presence of belonging and nonchalance. This was the first place that came to mind after reading this prompt and felt only appropriate to share.
Thanks to @Unifono and @surfacescan for organizing this sick battle!
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Ah man, Fly Lo was a great gig. It was round the time the LA album came out so he was on the up but not massive like he’s become so it was quite intimate and there was an incredible buzz that night. I met him briefly as he was wandering around afterwards and he was a lovely, ego free guy too.
Off topic Amsterdam reminiscing!
Massive fondness for Amsterdam. From going to Fat Beats many moons ago to wondering around among the beautiful canals and old buildings to weird squat/art party things with friends of friends that lived there so had the inside knowledge! The only problem I’ve found is almost on every visit ‘my country’s’ ( 
) reputation has meant some people have been a little frosty which isn’t surprising. I’ve had to assure people my friends and I weren’t ‘typical Brits’ a few times!
Awesome sounds @rockpapergoat and @eerieacid!
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Hey guys - I’m beaming over here on the outskirts of Nairobi Kenya as I soak up all your posts - it’s as though a new dimension is being shaded in for our collective, from all the stories being shared. Thx. 
So for my story…
I grew up in Guelph Ontario, a working class and university town 1 hr outside of Toronto, Canada. Growing up in the 80s/90s in Guelph was all about music and purpose. It felt like our city was full of young people so we adopted a DIY and home rock culture to make life fun. We created everything ourselves: We were all in (multiple) bands and a scene was created. We were able to attract some legendary bands to come play in our small town. We had radio shows, zines, music festivals and eventually venues to support our scene.
Personally, I’ve always associated music with the opportunity to raise funds and awareness for good causes.
My own musical influences (and many of us in our scene) flowed seamlessly between genres usually based on the message and movement behind the music. In one DJ set in the early 90s (on campus radio and warehouse parties) I could go from Fugazi to Public Enemy to Linton Kwesi Johnson to Chumbawamba to Disposable Heroes of Hypocrisy to Cypress Hill. I discovered so much music and history of genres just by standing up for what I believed in and then following the thread. It was a transformative.
Junior Relaxer (1997) by Guelph band King Cobb Steelie, the album that my samples are taken from, represent this blend of funk, punk, dub and dance music. The hit song off this album, Rational, was a protest song over the state execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian pacifist and environmentalist in 1995. [Note: King Cobb Steelie’s previous album was produced by non other than Bill Laswell - a big deal for a small town rock group!]
Here is that song.
However, I’ve decided to give you guys some samples from another monster song which I feel have more potential to get creative with:
In order to get the most of the 20 seconds I kinda chopped up the most useable parts of the song into an edit. The full track is here if you want to get the vibe:
Below is a google street view of the city block in which like 75% of Guelphs gigs in the 1990s happened: Ed Video, Van Gogh’s Ear, Trasheteria and the Albion
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A gentle nudge to our comrades - get your local samples in! @Doug @Synu @drrumble @garfield @LyingDalai @Penz413 @emadb @Kpucski @xyzer @FNKSTRNG
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@Yabba @rennweg @Maisin and @DimensionsTomorrow (you know You wanna!).
Get those samples in! Anything local will do!
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