Production Breakdown: Eric B. and Rakim’s “Don’t Sweat the Technique”

A couple weeks back, I used “Show Me Change,” a cut off ArtOfficial's Payback street album, as an excuse to delve into the genius that was Just Blaze's “Show Me What You Got” instrumental (off Hova's Kingdom Come LP). Well, this week, the Miami ensemble stepped into the Booth again, this time to put their own spin on “Don't Sweat the Technique,” title track and minor hit off Eric B. and Rakim's final full-length as a duo. And, as we all know, I'm not one to pass up the opportunity to dissect a hip-hop classic of this caliber.

Where “Show Me What You Got” was relatively simple, but ingenious, “Technique” is, a little more intricate – and, to keep it one-hundred, had me sweating while trying to untangle its various strands.



What made this one tricky? Well,as usual (not un-unusual, anyway), Wikipedia led me off-course with some very dubious information. Also, I got distracted by the fact that today's Google logo is a playable (if sorta repetitive) version of Pac-Man – try it! But mainly, it was Eric B.'s detail-oriented technique, and the cleverness he showcases in twisting samples around one another – at points, it can be hard to tell where each musical element originated. Take the bassline, lifted from jazz group Young-Holt Unlimited's “Queen of the Nile,” off their '71 album, Born Again.



Not only is the main bass loop (at 2:22) switched out for a different section of the bassline at a few points in “Technique,” (listen for the organ to make an appearance), but the main bass loop comes accompanied by a clicking percussion (rimshots? wood block?) which sounds like part of the main breakbeat. In actuality, the main rhythm is taken from Kool and the Gang's '69 track “Give It Up.”



Listen for the break that begins at 1:37 – I'm guessing that's where Eric B got it. (Wikipedia cites the beat as being from Bob James' oft-sampled cover of Paul Simon's “Take Me to the Mardi Gras,” but as mentioned above, they're, um, wrong. I wasn't hearing the Curtis Mayfield either.). “Give It Up,” of course, also yielded 'Techniques's signature saxophone riffs, as well as the brass-fortified snippet heard at the end of the record's "chorus" sections.

And there you have it: just one of the many deceptively intricate, classic sampled beats concocted by the legendary Eric Barrier. Until next time, RefinedHypesters!