All language subtitles for Hip Hop Was Born Here (2025) S1E5

LL COOL J: So, Marley Marl,
you produced Roxanne Shanté.

You produced my song,
"Mama Said Knock You Out."

You are the guy who introduced
sampling to hip hop.

Early, early, early on,

what was it that inspired you
to produce hip hop?

- Now, I gotta say...
- Hmm.

I didn't think rap
was going that far.

Tell me why.

Because, no disrespect,

but the early rap records
just wasn't hitting me.

Really?

Man, let me tell you,
when I first heard hip hop,

I heard the echoes.

[hip hop beat playing]

I heard the breakbeat.

♪

I heard the zigga, zigga, zigga.

♪

And when the records came out,
none of that was on there.

- Right.
- I'm like, yo,

it gotta be a better way.
- Right.

[laughter]

Gotta be somethin'.

♪

LL COOL J:
Hip hop is everywhere,

every corner of the globe.

To understand
the power of hip hop today,

you have to go back
to where it all started...

♪ Ain't no love

LL COOL J: ...my hometown,
New York City.

Because listen
when I tell you...

- ♪ SINGER: Ain't no love
- ...hip hop was born here.

SINGER: ♪ In the heart of town ♪

♪ Ain't no love

♪

The magic of New York City
has always been collaboration.

♪ Say "H" is for Hollis
and Hollis town ♪

LL COOL J: That's also the magic
of making hip hop.

♪ Somebody say ho, oh

LL COOL J:
Community, collaboration.

Everyone sees the artist
on the album cover,

but there's a whole team
behind the finished product--

a team led by the producer.

From Kool Herc's
"Merry-Go-Round" technique

to Rick Rubin's mastery
at bridging musical genres.

The Beastie Boys,
one of the finest groups

in music today right there.

Iconic elements
of hip hop's New York sound

were many times
created behind the curtain,

away from the spotlight by men
and women in the producer chair,

men and women
who pushed hip hop forward.

You got that?

I'm headed to the Clive Davis
Institute of Recorded Music

in Brooklyn to speak to one

of the earliest hip hop
producers and innovators.

I'm talking about none other

than Queensbridge's own
Marley Marl.

Take one.

Marley Marl!

- James Todd, what up?
- What up, baby?

- How you, bruh?
- Excellent, my man.

Yes.

♪

A founding member
of the Juice Crew,

he brought unique beats,

revolutionized how drum machines could be used,

and is known for bringing
sampling to hip hop,

forever changing the game.

Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One,
Biz Markie, Biggie, RZA

all count him as a mentor
or an influence on their music.

This man's impact on hip hop
cannot be measured.

Let's go back to the beginning.

What was your musical influence,

and how'd you
become an engineer?

My musical influence
was before hip hop.

I heard a song called
"I Feel Love" by Donna Summer,

and I heard
the electronics in it,

and I was like,
how did they do that?

Then one day I was jamming
in Queensbridge Park.

The band was
on one side of the park.

I was on the other side of
the park with the DJ equipment.

So, they came
and plugged into my set,

and they started jamming,
but then the very next day,

the musicians started coming
to my house in Queensbridge.

And that's how I started
learning how to EQ the bass...

- Mm-hmm.
- ...and the guitars and stuff.

DONNA SUMMER: ♪ I feel love ♪

Okay, so tell me
about how that kinda

evolved into production.

I used to hear a guy named
Shep Pettibone on the radio.

- Mm-hmm.
- He was doing remixes.

And I'm hearing him
putting different elements

into his productions,

and I'm like, wow, I hope--
I got musicians with me.

I could do the same thing.
So, I started doing remixes

and started submitting them
to WBLS.

So, you would
take the instrumentals

and put, what, a capellas
to 'em or...

What we would do is
extend the instrumentals

and take the choruses out.

By me doing remixes,
I used to put,

like, little rap breaks that
didn't belong on the remixes.

That's when
I got into producing.

Guess I'm a producer now.

LL COOL J: Your craft--sampling.
Let's get into it.

Well, when I first started out
sampling,

I was using an 808
to trigger my samples.

So, your one time
would be a snare...

one time would be a kick...
and one time would be a hat...

- Yes.
- ...et cetera.

At first
I was just taking kicks,

snares, and hi-hats...
- Okay.

...and just making
my own patterns.

- Okay.
- That was fire because

I would take, like,
a James Brown kick and a snare

and make my own beat.

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Come on now

♪

MARLEY MARL: Everybody's like,
"How'd he do that?"

♪

How did you decide
which drums to sample?

What was the vibe, you know?

Whatever I was getting reaction
from, from being a DJ,

I was gonna
sample that record because

it gave me
instant reaction already.

So, you were programming people
by using certain popular sounds

and incorporating those sounds

into every record
in a different way.

- 100%.
- What you did, it really

revolutionized the sound
of hip hop.

There's no question about that.

We going to make history.

Right now.

I'm walking into a session,

and inside this session
is the great Marley Marl.

Let's see what happens.

Marley Marl was
a major contributor

to the changing of the time.

JUST BLAZE: Hip hop--obviously
it originated from park jams,

and dudes
were rhyming over breaks.

Most of the early records were

bands recreating the breaks
that were played in the park.

♪ ...tell it like this
you would never discover ♪

♪ That mess is in the lover ♪

JUST BLAZE: You fast forward
a bit later,

and the sound starts to change.

Now it's heavily reliant on
drum machines and synthesizers.

♪

You fast forward a few years
later and to Marley Marl...

he introduced a form of sampling
that was very different

and quite revolutionary
and still prevalent to this day.

♪

There was a Marley Marl sound.

We usually go over her rap first
before I even do a track,

then fit a beat up under it.

And then, you know, we find
a hook. The rest is history.

POKE: He made sounds,
like, real gritty.

He also sampled records
that no one

was ever thinking
of sampling at the time,

and it led the way
for other producers

to broaden their mind
and start sampling things

that they wouldn't
normally sample.

♪

♪ Impeach the president ♪

♪

He realizes, "Oh, I can take

the "Impeach the President"
snare.

And instead of just looping
"Impeach the President,"

I can take the kick,
the snare, and the hi-hat

and sequence them differently.

Now you have this new form
of sampling where instead

of just looping something,
it's like the kick, the snare,

the hat are all resequenced
into a different arrangement.

And that kind of changed
the sound of hip hop forever.

♪

Tell me about the response
and what it was like

being Marley Marl as
you revolutionized the game.

♪

It was kind of hard in a way
because now the musicians

are looking at me like,
"You just sampling.

You ain't no musician.
That ain't music."

I was hearing all that.

I wasn't a musician,

but I knew how to make
everything sound good.

Well, that's a musician.
You were able to take what was

inside of you musically
and put it out there.

- You used different tools.
- No doubt.

There is something to be said

for the intuitive soul aspects
of the craft.

They was coming with everything
to stop me from doing it,

but I just felt that this is
what the music needed.

♪

Hold up, hold up.
We're doing this for the Bridge.

We don't need that tonight.

Ain't gon' be
none of that tonight.

Yo, we doin' this in peace
for the Bridge.

♪

Okay, so now let's
make a sonic comparison.

- Yes.
- From how sounds were when

you first started sampling...
- Mm-hmm.

...and compare that to now.

Sonically, once virtual
instruments got involved,

it changed the whole game.

Taking chances
creates change in the music.

To put it simply, our music
is going from a live band

to a basic beat, all the way
to a producer's medium

of complicated, rich samples
with a sophistication of sound.

The evolution
of the tools in production

have changed immensely.

In the beginning,
we talking about 2-inch tapes.

♪

Outboard gear.

Everything was tubes.
Everything was analog.

Even the mix consoles
was analog.

♪

We're talking about 24 tracks,

flying in vocals,
flying in choruses.

And if you had to do an edit
of any sort,

we say, "All right.
We going to lunch.

Let the engineer do the edit.
We'll come back."

'Cause that's how long it took.

JUST BLAZE: Technology always
has to evolve.

It's never gonna sit
in one place.

As long as there's
innovation to be had,

as long as there's money
to be made,

change is gonna happen.

♪

Eventually, tools like the SP,
the MPCs,

the ASR-10s, give way to
the digital audio workstation.

And you have programs
like Logic,

programs like
FruityLoops, Pro Tools.

It just made it
so much easier to create.

It lowered the cost of entry.

I do mostly on the laptop.

You could just buy a computer

and have the somewhat
of an equivalent,

instead of a studio in New York,
you know, all in one box

that allows you to sample,
sequence, and everything

you could do on these machines
at a fraction of the cost.

♪

Digital is more of a frequency
range than analog would be.

♪

It's a tunnel. You can only
put a certain amount

of information
through that room.

But when you're doing digital,
there is no room.

It's empty space.

You can just put as much stuff
in it as you want.

♪

As technology advances,

eventually you can
just do the whole thing,

you know, on a mobile device.

These days, it's not so much
what you use,

but how you use
what you have available.

The reality that that presents

is that the greatest tool
you can have in the studio

is your ear and your brain.

♪

LL COOL J: So, let's talk
about these upcoming producers.

MARLEY MARL: Mm-hmm.

- These young artists.
- Mm-hmm.

What would your advice
be to them?

MARLEY MARL: It's important to
have chemistry with the artists.

You know what I'm saying?

Now, we first met
when you came to WBLS...

- Yeah, I remember.
- ...and did "In Control."

And I was like, "Yo, L.,
I like the album.

It's one song
I think I could fix for you."

I was like, "A'ight."

♪ Rollin' over punks
like a redneck trucker ♪

♪ Innovating, devastating,
and dope on a single now ♪

And then you found
that bass line on the reel...

- Yeah.
- ...that I had put on there.

- Just...
- Didn't even turn it up on it.

- Didn't even turn it up.
- Right.

And I'm like, "Yo, hold up.
Yo, that's fire."

♪ You're jingling, baby ♪

- ♪ Go ahead, baby
- ♪ Break down ♪

And then you turned around
and put the...

♪ Duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh

And that boom...
[imitating drumbeat]

And you was like,
"Yo, let me do the vocals over."

I remember doing 'em over.
And you were like,

"Yo, but calm it down."

♪ Uncle L, future of the funk ♪

♪ Records are recorded
minus all the junk ♪

♪

- You have to trust me.
- Yeah.

I gotta trust you.

We gotta have
that belief in each other.

Yeah, I agree. And also,
you gotta know when to know

and when not to know.
There's times when I'd be like,

"Yo, Marley, I'm telling you."
And I'm sticking to my guns,

and I'm right. And there are
other times when I'm like,

"Okay."
- Yeah.

- Right?
- Yeah, of course.

Peace!

Okay, so... one word.

Legacy.

- Legacy. End of the day.
- Yeah.

What y'all gon' know
about me when I'm gone?

That I birthed
all y'all motherfuckers.

[laughter]

Every producer out there,
I birthed you.

It's your daddy talking
right now.

[laughter continues]

- You know, just seriously.
- My man, Marley Marl.

James Todd right here, y'all.

Right here. Love.
Let's go. Bounce.

♪

♪

It's--It's like a jigsaw puzzle,

you know, when you're making
a song.

Sometimes I'll start out
with the beat first,

and then I'll, um,
have someone come in,

spit on it, like, you know,
on some vocals or whatever.

And then
I'll arrange the music around

and make it more exciting.

♪

When it's already over,
they wanna hear it again.

I just go to another place
where--where people--

other people don't go.

LL COOL J: As hip hop evolved,
there's no doubt Marley Marl

left a mark on
a new generation of producers

who brought new sound...

♪

...new tools.

What will they think up next?

...the new perspectives
to the New York hip hop scene.

There's a lot
of competition out there,

but, you know, when it comes
to our thing, you know,

we trendsetters,
we all about making it happen.

LL COOL J: That essential
hip hop sound,

that raw heart and spirit
of the music

spread around the globe
but was born in New York City.

It's the cool vibe.
That's energy.

And you still hear it
in the music the city

is putting out today.

♪

[needle scratches]

When I do these things,
I'm kind of thinking ahead.

As I'm hearing it, I'm already
kind of piecing together

how I'm gonna put them together.

So, it's kind of like
you have all these ideas

fighting to get out. It's like
different personalities

trying to get out all at once.

I know I'm making it sound
extra dramatic,

but that's
how it feels sometimes.

TONE: New York producers
had a unique sound.

We were sort of
in our own bubble.

What we were doing with hip hop

was really keeping the roots
really intact.

♪

The dirty kick, the dirty snare,
the dirty hi hat.

- We kept the grit.
- ♪ Ow

♪ Yeah, uhh, uhh, ow

We really wanted it to sound
like there was real drummers

rather than, man,
that came out of a keyboard.

That shit sounds terrible.

♪ I say it now
like I said it before ♪

♪ I'm lookin'
at the front door ♪

♪

In New York,
our swag is different.

And sonically, like, we would
sample James Brown heavy.

James Brown A1, B4.

We sampled soul music heavy.

♪ Hey ♪

We sampled disco heavy.

But we took all of that and made
it as gritty as possible.

So, it has this authentic
kind of vibe,

and it rings off different,
you know what I mean?

♪

There was always
certain drum patterns,

certain feelings, certain moods.

♪

Tempo, even, you know,
the New York tempo was always

somewhere, between,
like, 87 and, like, 95.

♪

In retrospect, that's
what we would call boom bap.

♪ This or that, this... ♪

KIM OSORIO: This boom bap sound

originated in my mind
from the lunchroom, right?

So, it's just like you're,
like, banging on the table.

- [imitating rhythmic drumbeats]
- ♪ Ooh, come on ♪

There's
a certain swing to the drums.

♪ Who's the black sheep?
What's the black sheep?

♪ Know not who I am, or when
I'm coming, so you sleep ♪

It can be soulful,
it can be jazzy.

There's a certain
sonic quality to it.

It's not
the most sonically robust.

♪

CRYSTAL CAINES: I feel like
New York had a unique sound,

and it just grew
into different things

as the era grew
and generations changed.

New York now
is just open to creativity.

They just wanna
take it up a notch.

The style is there.
The confidence is there.

The creativity is there.
The art is there.

The heart is there. [laughs]

And that's
the most important part.

♪

LL COOL J: Oftentimes,
the beats and melodies created

by producers and artists
are extensions of their soul,

a feeling and a moment in time
born in the studio

and captured
for generations to come.

We just saw the power
of this subculture

and just tried
to present it, um...

as it deserved to be presented.

LL COOL J: So now I'm headed

to the legendary Quad Recording
Studio in Manhattan to talk

to an up-and-coming producer
who speaks from the heart...

Whassup?

...while representing the past,
present,

and future
of hip hop production.

- How's everything?
- Pretty good.

- Good vibes?
- Always.

- So, you really do this?
- Hell, yeah.

Introduce yourself.
Reppin' Harlem.

Crystal Caines.
You already know.

Rapper, singer, producer.
Let's get it.

♪

LL COOL J:
Crystal Caines is a producer

who skillfully bridged
that raw original sound

with the new.
- Yep.

Born and raised in Harlem,
she wears many hats--

producer, songwriter, engineer,
and rap artist herself.

I'm a renaissance woman.

Crystal's worked
with everyone from M.I.A.

to Bryson Tiller
and Jack Harlow.

She's a born and raised
New Yorker

determined to keep NYC hip hop
on the map...

- Crystal fucking Caines!
- ...for decades to come.

- State your name once more.
- Crystal Caines.

- You already know.
- Say it cockier than that.

[voice echoing] Crystal Caines.
Ha ha ha!

So, tell me the first thing
you remember

that touched you in hip hop.

I would say seeing Eve rap.

♪

Seeing her, she was
a beautiful Black woman

surrounded by powerful men,

and she inspired me to rap,
and I think in the beginning,

I kinda sounded
like her a little bit, too.

♪ Gotta man that I think
I'm gon' love forever ♪

♪ And forever
we'll be together ♪

♪ No matter where he goes,
I'll be thinking of him ♪

♪ Hey, I'm gonna love him,
I'm gonna love ♪

Yeah. That song just put me
in a different place.

As a kid, seeing that,
I just felt like I wanted

to be that powerful, too.
- And so--so you just--

the dream started.
- Yeah.

- EVE: ♪ I'm gonna love
- LL COOL J: So, you see Eve,

and you're thinking
about being a singer,

and you decide to be a rapper,
but then it was a point when

you started producing, right?
- Yeah.

There was a point when
you started creating music.

- Mm-hmm.
- Talk to me about

how that transition happened
and why you did that.

Okay.
So, I did start as an artist.

♪

I was in college, and producers
were sending me records.

The things
that they're sending me,

I just didn't really feel
like it was me.

I started.
I would put loops together,

just find, like,
a little rhythm of what I like.

♪

And then I'll start
cutting up the loops

to create a bounce
that's specific to me.

♪

How did that make you feel,

like, taking that creative power
into your own hands?

Talk to me about that.

Producing is something
I wanted to do.

I knew I had rhythm,
and so once I started

incorporating my voice
and the beats together,

everything just fell into place.
I got an album placement.

The first song was A$AP Ferg,
"A Hundred Million Roses."

I stuck with it and started
figuring out new tools, ideas.

Collaborating with producers
really helped me

grow as a producer as well.

Which producers
kind of moved your spirit?

Who made you feel like,
"Yo, I need to be doing this"?

Who moved you in that way?

Missy and Timbaland, of course.

♪

Pharrell, Just Blaze,

anyone who had
a unique sound of their own.

Like, I feel like
if you hear Pharrell beat,

you hear the four count,
you know he about to come on.

[opening beats from "Happy"
play]

If you hear a Timbaland beat,

you know everything is
gon' knock.

♪ If you're horny, let's do it ♪

Everyone has their own,
like, unique pattern.

And I think for me,
like, that's something

that I wanna continue is
just having something of my own.

So, when you hear something,

you be like, "Oh,
Crystal Caines did that beat."

Crystal Caines.

[laughter echoes]

♪

Your process of making music--

distill it down for me
a little bit.

I just create a melody

until I feel like
something sticks to me.

It's just finding something
in there that stands out to me.

As a fan of music, the way
that music made me feel

when I was going to buy albums--
that's what I wanna incorporate

and bring forward, like, for me.

I'm just looking for it.

LL COOL J: When you say "it,"
tell me what "it" is,

when you're looking for "it."
- You'll feel it, you know? So...

- Ah.
- Yeah.

So, you're looking
for that feeling.

Yeah. And I'll just go
through sounds

until I feel that feeling.

- I love that.
- Yeah.

So, you like capturing
lightning in a bottle

and then sharing it
with the world?

Mm-hmm. I like working
with anybody who's down

to, like, push the envelope.

And I like meeting people
in their world...

- Mm-hmm.
- Because I get

to bring my world into it.

- Yeah.
- So, I let them be comfortable

in where they are, and here
I come, shake your shit up.

That creates the best music
for me.

It's like making sure
people's comfortable first.

I agree with that, because
a big part of it is

you being comfortable and free
to create and no judgment.

Right.

You let people get it out
of their spirit.

- Right.
- Let 'em get it out.

- Mm-hmm.
- You feel me?

This is what it's all about--

just making the music
you wanna make.

♪

The collaborative process
can take many forms.

Today, people are
collaborating over DM.

Early on,
we didn't have the ability

to record remotely
or email files back and forth.

The magic always happened when

the collaborators were
in the same room together.

You wanna catch a vibe from
the person because, you know,

the song may change
just by the vibe in the room.

JUST BLAZE: The inspiration
like, "Oh, he just said that?

Let me rewrite this line.
Oh, he just did that that way?

Let me reprogram
these drums to fit that," right?

On that chorus,
we got to take out the drum.

TONE: That process of being

in the studio with an artist,
talking to the artist,

put you in the same mind space
as the artist

gave me an opportunity
to really get to know you

and push the envelope
a little bit.

Because our conversation says,
"You like shit like this.

You just don't know it."

I need you to come up
with a line like that

so I can behind you
and sing something.

LADY LONDON: The relationship
between producer and artist

is so integral.

It can make or break a project

if you guys are not
on the same page with things.

I like that, like... mm, mm.

I love sitting down
face to face with producers,

and a lot of things become
beautiful pieces of work

when you have real,
authentic conversations

about the direction
you're heading in.

I love all that jazz shit.
It's your hard-hitting music.

That's the shit, man.
Who's the producers?

Right here.

- Very good work.
- Thank you.

You look at many of the great
movements in hip hop,

whether it's Roc-A-Fella,
Ruff Ryders,

Sugarhill, early Def Jam,
Cash Money...

- Yeah, a'ight.
- The one consistency

is that you had
all these great, creative minds

under one roof in one studio.

Thinking, maybe we start
a capella with...

"If you're having girl problems,
I feel bad for you, son.

I got 99 problems,
but a bitch ain't one."

- Yeah, that's--that's money?
- We back in the game, right?

- Guess so.
- Yeah.

- Apparently so.
- [laughs]

♪

LL COOL J: Back in the days,
making a record

was like the equivalent of being
able to make it to the NBA.

- Right.
- But that vetted

a lot of the talent, too.
- Right.

That mean you had
to be way better.

You had to have
a different level.

Tell me
about what it's like today.

Just really unpack this idea

of making a song on your phone,
being on YouTube, like,

you know, get into that
for me a little.

Hmm. People have so much freedom
to be expressive,

but now it's
really just one click away.

And it starts
from you releasing your art.

I started in my room. Who knew
that a girl from Harlem

who started in her room

with equipment
that was probably worth $300

would go straight to the radio?

LL COOL J: You're saying that
nowadays you got the access.

If you can catch a wave,
you can be on.

At the end of the day, though,
a hit record is a miracle.

Yeah.

LL COOL J: To create something
that really moves people,

that people really rock to,
that is still

an amazing thrill
and an exciting feeling.

And it's something that can't be
bought, can't be manufactured.

- Right.
- You have to really create

that music
that moves people like that.

Yeah, and you know
when you feel it,

'cause you start to get
goosebumps.

There you go.
That divining rod, right?

♪

- It's early in your career.
- Yeah.

By the grace of God,
of course,

a long time to go.
- Yep.

- Legacy.
- Legacy. Mm.

♪

At this point,

what would you want
your legacy to be?

What do you think
about the word "legacy"?

With the word "legacy,"
I think of powerhouse to me.

It's so much to do.

My greatest passion come
from helping other people,

and I've been grateful enough
to do that through music,

whether it's guiding them
or just giving them tools

that they take forward
to use on their songs.

I'm trying to leave a footprint
that's extremely progressive.

I say, "What's my name?"
You say, "Crystal Caines."

To be able to hear my beats
and be like,

"Yeah, Crystal Caines did that."

New sounds, same energy.

That's right, 'cause
hip hop was born here, right?

- Exactly.
- It was born here.

It--it's not only
about the Bronx.

- Right.
- It's not only about Harlem.

- Right.
- It's not only about Queens.

- Right.
- It was born in here.

- That's a beautiful thing.
- Yeah.

- Appreciate you, baby.
- Thank you for having me.

- Good to talk to you.
- Good to talk to you, too.

- Good vibes.
- Thank you.

- Peace and love, baby.
- Peace and love.

- All right.
- Wait, what he do?

You know I mean?
You know I mean?

[laughs]

♪

[cheers and applause]

Marley Marl.

Super producer.

♪

Make some noise for that man.

[cheers and applause]

♪