Some musical genres are natural fodder for hip-hop beats: funk, soul, jazz -- even hard rock. But light rock? Mixing soft acoustic strains with aggressive 808 beats can be a recipe for disaster -- or ...

Hip-hop beat-makers are usually unseen. Not all sample-based producers are as reclusive as the torch-bearing loop artist Madlib, but even the most prominent among them are part of the backdrop. After ...

For at least a decade now, rap beats have been getting fiercer every year. The biggest producers in the genre largely abandoned traditional acoustic instrumentation, instead embracing the abrasive ...