Domino = Vastly Underrated Producer
HarveyCanal
"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Ran across my Extra Prolific Brown Sugar 12" last night and was duly reminded just how much I liked Domino's productions for Hieroglyphics at least during that '93-'94 window of time. It was mostly simplistic jazz-loops material, but effective nonetheless...
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He had a real knack for matching up breaks with jazz loops. But once that sound fell out of favor....
He had some joints on the first Hiero LP too:
This could easily turn into a Diamond D thread.
Hahaha!
But let's stick with Domino's joints for now. Like this one:
Ditto--that thing was in constant rotation. But it's been quite a long time since I last listened to it--"93 Til Infinity" has become such an unbearable cliche of the golden-era rap DJ set that it soured me on hearing the album ever again (No Need for Alarm and Fear Itself still get some occasional burn, though). But maybe I'll give it another spin and just skip the title track.
I don't think it was the mid-90s since the Souls' album came out in (duh) '93. I think the GM situation was before that.
Domino had lived in an apartment behind the original GM with a door that opened into the store, as I understand it. He might've picked up a shift here or there. TD of Bored Stiff also spent a lot of time in there.
T-Mor from Elements Of Change inherited the apartment, but was not given a key to the store. Haha.
RIP.
And talk about a tape that used to get lots of run in my box...Explainin.
You're thinking of Big Kwanz (RIP).
TD is the producer & DJ, he's still around. Has a studio in West Oakland, does work for some of the young turfy dudes in addition to new projects by Stiff alumni
Oof, my bad. I had the names straight, but for some reason was thinking that TD passed in addition to Kwanz. Sorry, dude...may you live to 120.
Now that's a location if I've ever seen one
Side note=A plus is also an underrated producer.
paraphrased Saafir from "Pull Ya Card" (which was, incidentally, aimed at Hiero).
copped
1) Thanks for this--nice to hear a few of those old joints again. You know full well how much rotation all that shit got in Austin in the Before Time.
2) TD Camp is a great dude and one helluva DJ, to boot.
Diamond D didnt get locked into that "era".
Del and Casual were banging out some dope beats back then, too. Hell, Snupe made this one:
But Domino was the best of the bunch, I think.
and cosign on Domino and especially the Extra Prolific album.
agreed. diamond is one of the few old guys still working well when compared to alot of his peers from 'the golden era'
Domino was living in the back when I started working there in 1990 and had moved out by the time I left in 1993.
IIRC, Domino's whole connection with Hiero came about through the store because Dante Ross used to come through when he was in town and they hit it off. Dante then introduced Domino to the Hieroglyphics and the rest was history.
There's been a tendency in some quarters to dismiss Hiero as a result of them having become (possibly unwilling) exemplars of all things backpacker-related, a view I don't necessarily share. The stuff they're doing nowadays isn't quite so vital, but their peak-era material has held up as well as anything else from the same period.
A-Plus did his thing with this beat:
I love that remix too but i am pretty sure Large Pro didn't do it. The loop be the one James Moody.
Thank you, that's been bugging me for a long time.
BTW, I meant Extra Pro as in Extra Prolific, rather than Large Pro/Extra P.