When I first heard Kendrick Lamar’s album Section.80 album from beginning to end there were several songs that blew my mind. Not only were Kendrick’s flows and lyrics on point but he also had mostly an in-house team of producers handling all of the beats. That album dropped in 2011 and as I listen to it right now I’m still nodding my head today. There were hype songs but then there were mellow introspective songs that are played best in your headphones when you can give the songs your undivided attention. Me and my homies LOVED this album. We would carpool to work and just all be nodding our heads to the beat. Occasionally we would act like we were rapping the verses. Outside of the car we would practice our rapping so we could perfect our Kendrick rhymes. Kendrick was somebody we all vibed to. In case you were wondering, my main song was “Hol’ Up” because of that beautiful horn sample. Props to Sounwave on that beat. It also perfectly set up Sounwave’s next beat on Section.80 which was “A.D.H.D”. Back to back bangers! Here are the intro horns from“Hol’ Up” which then flows perfectly into “A.D.H.D”. Props to Sounwave on the beat!

When Section.80 came out in 2011, I was 31 years old and was living life man! But now? Man… I am 40 years old and while I still have my rap and hip hop that I bump on the daily, most of the time I like to just slow it down a little bit with some beats and instrumentals. I also work a ton so during the work day I need something that won’t distract me so beats are always good. This growing up thing is tough though! I want those Kendrick Section.80 vibes but I doubt my boss wants me rapping “Hol’ Up” at my work desk during business hours. In my head I’ll always be rapping some Kendrick bars but now in my headphones at the 9-5 you can find me bumpin’ beats on the daily. So what I can listen to in order to get that “Hol’ Up” type vibe but without the lyrics? Sounwave doesn’t have the instrumental available on Spotify so no dice there. Back to the drawing board…

Enter my man Phoniks straight out of Portland, Maine. Through my constant boom bap hip hop rabbit hole adventures on Spotify I came across a rapper by the name of Anti Lilly from Houston, Texas who was rapping over a great jazzy boom bap beat. After some research, I found out that Phoniks was the man behind the boards creating the soundtrack for Anti Lilly to spit some mellow bars. They are both on the record label, Don’t Sleep Records which is the home to some other dope hip hop albums. The song title, “Nobody’s Perfect”, and the message within the song really resonated with me. Here is “Nobody’s Perfect” from Anti Lilly and Phoniks’ album It’s Nice Outside.

From there I started listening to a lot of both Anti Lilly and Phoniks’ back catalog. There aren’t a lot of artists out there still going hard at the 90’s jazz rap vibes but when these 2 connect they hit it out of the park. I started adding a lot of Phoniks beats to my Spotify playlists and began sharing with my fellow hip hop friends. And then I found that track I had been looking for. Remember how I needed that “Hol’ Up” instrumental? Well… It’s really those horns that pull me in and Phoniks actually used the same sample on his song “Cosmos”. YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! Now I finally had the beat to bump in my headphones at work while I worked on spreadsheets and focused on hitting deadlines at the jobby job. Here is the dope beat right here for you guys to nod your head to this morning.

That horn that both Sounwave and Phoniks sampled is just as important to me as Pete Rock’s Tom Scott horn sample on “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)” which is a timeless classic. To pay respect to the classics, I have to include Dick Walter’s “Shifting Sands of Sound” where both Sounwave and Phoniks grabbed the beautiful horn sample from in the first place. Without hip hop, I would have never found this beautiful horn. Thank you to all of the rap producers out there who continue digging in the crates. You open so many fans like me up to music from all years and genres that I would never have found if it wasn’t for you.