Back in the days on the boulevard of Linden, A Tribe Called Quest looked for a definitive sound for their upcoming sophomore album, “The Low End Theory”. For that definitive sound, they joined forces with producer, engineer and composer Bob Power. Little did they know, they’d usher in a completely new sound. Check out his side of the story after the jump.
While interviewing with Red Bull Music Academy, Power speaks on the genius that is Q-Tip and the process to find specific sounds hidden deep in samples.
“It was very clear,” says Power. “It was the name itself. The bass and bottom was so important to the Hip Hop ethic. Both the name itself as well as [Q-]Tip and Ali [Shaheed Muhammad] pushing me towards certain things sonically… Yeah, it was pretty clear that Low End Theory, this record at least sonically a lot of it is going to be about the bottom.”
The success from ’91s “Low End Theory” led to ’93s “Midnight Marauders.”
“Tip was very specific and told me that he didn’t want to clean it up,” Power says. “He wanted it to be gritty. On Low End Theory I took a lot of care to clean things up. For example, if there was a sample that was meant to be there primarily for the flute part, I would do everything I could to get rid of the parts in the music other than that flute part. Same thing with surface noise from the record or kicks and little clicks and pops.”
