Hank Shocklee On Creating Public Enemy’s Hip Hop Sound

This Hank Shocklee interview, though a promo for Propellerhead Reason, takes a warm look back at how and why Shocklee created Public Enemy’s sound, with the Bomb Squad.

Shocklee goes on to discuss how he uses Reason, and how is choices have been shaped by legal issues surrounding sampling.

It’s great to see companies do promotion work that actually doesn’t suck, isn’t it?

Here are the outtakes from Propellerhead’s Hank Shocklee interview:

via PropellerheadSW:

It’s no exaggeration to say that were it not for Hank Shocklee, hip hop would probably sound entirely different. His early Bomb Squad production with Public Enemy didn’t just break all the rules in rap music at the time… it rewrote them, forever changing the trajectory of the still-young cultural movement. To this day, Shocklee’s production stands alone in its identifiable sound. We spoke with him recently to find out how he learned about Reason and what caused him to adopt it as his ‘weapon of choice’ for beat production.

7 thoughts on “Hank Shocklee On Creating Public Enemy’s Hip Hop Sound

  1. "Back in those days there wasn't no manual, there wasn't no preset if you would. It was all trial and error and you had to pretty much come up with your own style."

    Now go buy some refills…

  2. He's only a genius because he had to take the time to create his own sound. Try doing that with refills. It ain't happenin.

  3. Stupid straw man argument. Not once in the video he pushed anyone to buy any refills. This is a lie or you did not bother watching the video.

    Even better, because of all of those copyright lawsuits and sampling problem, he loved the fact you can now sample your own sound on the fly, not just from records….

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