Hip-Hop Listening Spotlight: Smoooth Mellow-Dee’s Stylistic Links and Features of Tracks

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Hip-Hop Listening Spotlight 2
Like the artists and producers of hip-hop music, DJs in the Hip-hop culture tend to integrate the sampling and interpolation of selected tracks and artists in preparing their mixes or sets. For instance, a DJ may select and sample tracks from different genres of music in a given set to entertain and provide musical information to the audience. However, the selected and sampled tracks from different genres have to share some stylistic links and features to evoke the audience's desired reaction towards the set. Smooth Mellow-Dee offers a unique experience of sampling and interpolation in his live DJ set from November 8. The first two songs played in the DJ set were “Hypnotize” by The Notorious B.I.G and “Rise” by Herb Alpert. Playing the two tracks from totally different genres makes for a unique approach to selecting, sampling, and interpolating tracks in a DJ set. Released in 1997 after the artist’s demise, Hypnotize by The Notorious B.I.G. is one of the greatest hip-hop singles characterized by a unique sampling and interpolation of equally great tracks from another musical genre. The rapper unleashes his lyrical prowess by rapping about different aspects of his life as one of the best in the hip-hop culture. The track samples Herb Alpert’s Rise, a jazzy instrumental single released in 1979. It is masterfully sampled by the producers of the hip-hop track, who amplified the baseline and guitar chord of the jazz instrumentals to produce a bouncy hip-hop beat w...