My homie from The Scratch days, The Gooch wanted to give his take on the beat-jackin’ accusation-filled, finger-pointin’ foolery goin on between Charles Hamilton and Black Spade. The following views don’t necessarily reflect YN’s, but this is my house and I live here. The floor is Mr. Cantor’s.
There’s been much debate going on in the rap blogosphere today about whether or not Charles Hamilton beatjacked St. Louis producer/MC Black Spade for a track he claims he produced and uploaded to his Myspace player in 2007. There’s apparently a dialogue going on between all parties involved (Kenny Fresh, of Freshselects.net; Black Spade; and Charles Hamilton), obviously Spade is sticking to his story, and Charles to his.
After carefully listening to each track multiple times, it’s obvious that there are similarities and differences between them. Any time producers are working with samples, there’s the possibility that two different beatmakers can flip the same sample in similar ways. Still, it’s rare that producers will use the same types of drum sounds, the same swing on the rhythm section, same tempo, and so on. Because Spade’s version is a rough mix, you need to listen to each track with a pair of headphones, and you can very clearly hear that young Charles was working off Spade’s skeleton of a track. The whole beat is noticeably beefed up. There are some portions that sound like they have overdubbed vocals and additional layers of keys added, which Charles alluded to in his defense that he actually made the track.
This is a great reminder of how powerful and lasting Lauryn Hill’s influence has been in music. The fact that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill eventually reached diamond status after so many years shows that truly meaningful music can continue finding new listeners long after its original release. I also like how the article highlights the combination of hip hop, R&B, neo soul, and reggae that made the album so distinctive. Achieving more than 10 million sales is an incredible milestone, especially considering how much the music industry has changed since 1998. The album’s success feels less like a temporary trend and more like proof that strong songwriting and authentic artistic expression can remain relevant across generations. It is interesting to see how numbers can tell part of a story, whether we are looking at album sales or using a proportion calculator to understand relationships between different figures.