Jermaine Dupri Recognized By Georgia

Jermain Dupri Mauldin, also known as JD is an American record producer. He is also well established as a famous rapper. In the year 2006, JD became the youngest inductee to the "Georgia Music Hall of Fame". The music career of JD was self made and the credited hits are the "Money Ain't a Thang" (1998) with Jay-Z "Its like That" (2005) with Mariah Carey, "Welcome To Atlanta"(2001) in collaboration with Ludacris are the prominent ones in his career. In the year 2004 and 2005, Dupri had the experiences of working with Usher and Mariah Carey on their solo releases "Confessions" and "The Emancipation of Mimi" respectively. There are many other albums that he produced along with Carey that include "Its Like That", "We Belong Together", "Get Your Number", "Shake It Off" and "Don't Forget About Us" are the most significant ones in the line.

JD's album "Jermain Dupri presents….Young, Fly & Flashy, Vol. 1" proved controversial because of the content that had his girlfriend Janet Jackson in a peep show club, collected much criticisms and controversies. However, in a survey in the year 2006, Dupri was selected one of the top ten riches of the world of hip-hop music. Dupri again worked with Jackson for the production of the album 20 Y.O. that was released on September 2006. However, it never proved as much successful as Jackson's previous albums with JD. Because of the commercial underperformance by the company, Dupri left Virgin Urban Music and was appointed the head of Island Records. Quite recently, JD recorded few albums with Janet Jackson for the album "Discipline".

Who Is The King Of Crunk?

Lil' John was born as Jonathan Smith on January 27, 1972 at Atlanta, Georgia; He is an American hype man, a rapper and producer. He is better known as the creator of a sub-genre of hip-hop music called "crunk". Crunk's most notable acts are his group "The Eastside Boys", which has Big Sam and Lil Bo as its members. Lil John and The Eastside Boys created "Put Yo Hood Up" in the year 2002 and in the same year, Lil John released his breakthrough album "King of Crunk" that reached the top twenty charts in the year 2003. John is also the producer of the hit single "Salt Shaker" for the Ying Yang Twins. However, his breakthrough album is the Usher's single hit "Yeah!" In the same year, Lil John also helped in the production of two other big hits they are the "Goodies" by the new R&B artist Ciara and the other was the Petey Pablo's "Freak-A-Leak". His most recent album is the one that is going to deal with Rick Robinson, CEO of iMG Recordings. The album will come out in the recent year sometime later.

The music of Lil John has a strong flavor of the Miami Bass. His songs characterized by the Roland TR-808 kick, explicit lyrical comments and high dance tempos. His themes of the songs deal mainly with sex and sings songs that uses the expression of the Miami streets. His songs were versatile in the sense that some of them contain the disco flavors like in "What U Goin' Do". According to Philip Sherburne," Sharp, spiky rhythms, programmed on primitive drum machines and bass synthesizers". His music comprised of the dull trunk-thumping drums and crisp claps.

Why Do You Need New Sound Samples?

Have you ever noticed if you use the same sound samples that after a while your beats start to sound very similar. This is a very common problem with producers. Keeping a fresh source of sound samples is a must for anyone who makes beats - no matter what type of music you produce.

If you listen closely, you'll hear the super producers changing their sound samples every once and a while. For example, many of the beats the neptunes were doing started to really sound the same. Check out the drum sounds used in the following songs:

Ray Jay - "Formal invite"

Usher - "You don't have to call"

Kelis - "Get along with you"

Jadakiss - "Knock yourself out"

These are just a few examples of songs with really similar drum kit sound samples. But you'll notice that the sounds have changed considerably in more recent songs like:

Nelly - "Hot in herr"

Snoop Dogg - "Drop it like it's hot"

Neptunes aren't the only producers to do this, you can find the same trend in any major producer. Check out some of Timbaland's earlier work and you'll here the same prominent snare used over and over. But you don't hear it that often in tracks like Omarion - "Ice box".

I believe this is what really defines a super producer. We all fall in love with certain sounds that go together. This is a natural occurrence as a producer. But super producers will keep coming out with new sound samples and redevelop their signature sound over and over.

Look at what's happening to Lil Jon. His signature synthesizer and club claps and kicks were used in at least a dozen songs, but now you don't really hear anything from him. I don't want to classify Lil Jon as a super producer or not, but I guarantee that if Lil Jon doesn't come out with new sounds to define his beats that he'll be a nobody in no time.