Behold! The power of the producer

The era of the "producer" is upon us, where a good hip-hop CD is nothing without a cut from Kanye West, Timbaland, Just Blaze, or of course, Rap's Top 40 golden boy: Lil' Jon. \nRap used to play little attention to the production. Adding a drum beat or taking a sample was often enough. Underground rap especially could survive with mediocre beats. \nThat's far from the case today. Take the hottest verse ever spit and it's nothing unless you find the perfect, ear-raising beat to accompany it, making it even better by adding a raspy, bellowing voice in the background: "Okay! … Yeeeahh!" \nNow producers like Just Blaze, whose beats are technologically advanced, in-your-face and explosive must be summoned if your album is going to break the Top 50 or your hit single is going to go #1. \nThink about the underground rappers who always touted their lyrics over beats for their entire careers. Common and Talib Kweli used more underground producers (see Talib's collaboration with Hi-Tek). Now, both are in the "lab" (as the producers call it) and have even called upon Kanye West among others to take them to the next level in sound and most likely in sales too. Reports claim Kweli is using Kanye for as many as eight tracks on his new album slated for this summer. \nOne of the reasons hip-hop's forefathers A Tribe Called Quest's final effort, The Love Movement, flopped is because its beats were so predictable and lame, they would have made the classic Low End Theory roll its figurative eyes. Shortly after, Q-Tip dropped his solo album, which brought a brand-new sound and two very successful hit singles: "Vivrant Thing" and "Breathe and Stop," not to mention affirmed record sales. \nFast forward to today, where you've got Murs, one of the hottest up-and-coming rappers whose recent album, Murs: 3:16 The 9th Edition, is a smash with the aid of producer 9th Wonder, so much so, it can't even stay in stores (it took me two weeks to find it around these parts; the damned thing kept selling out). His previous album, The End of the Beginning, was buzz-worthy, but this past record has already been dubbed a modern-day classic. Producer 9th Wonder was even given the honor of a song on Jay-Z's Black Album. Jay-Z has aided many artists in the transformation between producer and super-producer, including Blaze ("Girls, Girls, Girls"), Swizz Beatz ("Money, Cash, Hoes"), and of course, Kanye, (who is somehow incorporated in nearly everything I write these days, so I'll lay off touting his skills). \nYou can credit Timbaland and The Neptunes for much of the producer's fame (not to mention Dr. Dre out west, who defined what west coast rap should sound like). They've been at it for about two decades from Virginia Beach. Both were at one point in the same group in Virginia (if anyone has a copy of anything they have, I'll pay top dollar for it. But they went their separate ways and have met up at the top). \nThen, far from these guys is Lil' Jon. This raspy, dirty south, energetic ball of raunchiness is everywhere. His breakout hit, "Bia Bia," is one of the hardest, in-your-face songs of the past five years. Since then, he's taken rappers who couldn't rhyme anything with "cool" but can inexplicably find things that rhyme with "tweet" to the next level. His Eastside Boyz, Lil' Flip and Petey Pablo personify this trend. Somehow Petey has summoned the best producers to work with him: Timbaland and now of course Lil' Jon. Who'd have thought a hook could be just listing a bunch of hood-fab female names? Well, when he comes on in the bar everyone goes nuts, so he's doing something right. \nOther producers (see above) keep changing their sound. Every time I'm about ready to get on the phone and tell everyone The Neptunes have been overexposed and are so played out, they come out with something ridiculous. And even though their latest effort as N.E.R.D., Fly or Die, fell short of expectations, they remain fresh despite their overexposure. \nThe fact Lil' Jon gets more airplay than fellow southern rappers and producers shows he's certainly found a niche in what he does. People in the club want to hear dirty, hard bass lines and hooks, which is exactly what he brings to the table, no matter how predictable it is. It doesn't help that Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle keep fueling it with their comedy. Help keep this guy off the jukebox! \nProducers these days can be used to transform someone's identity completely. Case in point: Justin Timberlake, who overnight went from teen pop star to cover of Vibe. How'd he do it? He recruited The Neptunes and Timbaland, the two most "can't-miss" producers in urban music to produce and help write all of his songs, and "Like I Love You," his first single which featured The Neptunes' house rappers, the Clipse, instantly had him on BET and urban stations everywhere. It's that easy, apparently. \nBack to Lil' Jon: he's respected in the south, or if not respected, people know his stuff will sell in stores and play on radio (hence his collaborations with everyone from Big Boi to the new 8Ball & MJG album). Will Lil' Jon be around in five years? Not if he doesn't find a new sound, since he's been using the same synthesizer beat in all of his songs. Is this guy famous because he's a joke? Whatever the case, he's making a lot of money and ruling the airwaves. \nBut the fact remains: the producer is playing a much bigger role now than ever, and new technology probably has a lot to do with it. Just about anybody can throw together some beats nowadays, and that's not to discredit what a good producer does -- it's art -- even Lil' Jon's shallow, predictable club-bangers.