Production Breakdown - Gilbere Forte’s “Take One x Dawn”

Is it just me, or did this past week's slate of Booth features include some of the freshest, smoothest production to hit the net in a minute? From high-profile releases like Rick Ross' epic, conspiracy theorist-baiting “Free Masons” and Houston mainstay Paul Wall's Travis Barker-produced “Live It” (I can't get enough of that saxophone sample), to more under-the-radar material like The Kid Daytona's “On the Hill” and The Illz' “Amnesia, Forget It All,” our front page was as packed with high-quality instrumentals as the air is with, um, humidity and pollen. Seriously, f**k summer allergies.

Uh, what was I talking about again? Oh, right: amidst all this freshness, there was just one track that received not one but two consecutive reader reviews consisting entirely of the word “Damn!” I speak, of course, of “Take One x Dawn,” the latest leak off recent reader fave Gilbere Forte's forthcoming, Booth-sponsored 87 Dreams mixtape (set to drop next Tuesday, the 20th. As the dual title indicates, the track found the restlessly-creative Philly up-and-comer flowing over two separate beats – two beats which, as it turns out, could hardly have less in common with each other.

“Take One,” the highly-acclaimed front half of the track, features production borrowed from “Lost at Birth,” the instrumental opener to Public Enemy's fourth full-length, Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black.



Crafted by the Grand Imperial Ministers of Funk, the beat's grimy, sampled sound screams “classic,” and Forte adopts an old-school-informed flow to match. Then, just hen listeners are happily vibing out to the throwback groove, the record does a 180, transitioning seam-fully (you know, the opposite of “seamlessly”) into an exhilarating instrumental grabbed from Australian psychedelic-rock group Tame Impala's “Alter Ego,” off recently-released debut full-length Innerspeaker.



My first thought upon hearing 'Alter Ego's blistering instrumental, with its furious breakbeat and reverb-drenched Wall-of-Sound style, was “Hey, how have I not heard of Tame Impala?” But, keeping it one-hundred, my initial reaction to “Take One x Dawn” as a whole was less “Damn!” and more “Huh?” As in, “Huh? Why take two dope beats with little in common beyond consisting of audible vibrations in the air, either of which could have been a several-minute freestyle in its own right, and cram them into one freestyle?”

The more I thought about it, though, the more the combination made sense; as an artist who seems to reinvent his sound with each successive feature, Gilbere Forte seems emblematic of a new generation of rappers who don't feel that they have to choose between authenticity and progressiveness, instead freely mixing (or, in this case, juxtaposing elements of the classic and the cutting-edge, the pop-appealing and the experimental. Or maybe I'm over-analyzing this – but, hey, that's my job. Regardless of whether “Take One x Dawn” is an artistic mission statement or just another way for Forte' to show off his versatility (and record collection), though, you can put me down as a “Damn!”