In the studio with 9th Wonder (Part 1)

9th Wonder who's now considered a go to super producer in Hip Hop, lifetime member of Little Brother (named after the Little Brother ARP synthesizer), waxes eleqoent here about the challenges and titans of sample based music: Pete Rock, DJ Premier, Just Blaze and particularly emphasizing Blueprint. 



He reflects on his own father's musical education which taught him arrangement, the manual challenges of physically chopping up samples, how a great producer never really has a 'throw away' beat, knowing the production history of 70's records 'what to chop and what not to chop', as well as how it takes a true musical sense- actual ability to play piano or other instruments- to reconstruct samples in a melodious way.  "It's just hard."