Check the Technique
Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies is a 2007 book by music journalist Brian Coleman that offers an in-depth oral history of 36 classic hip-hop albums from the 1980s and 1990s, drawing on extensive interviews with the artists, producers, DJs, and other contributors involved in their creation.[1] The work provides track-by-track analyses, revealing the creative processes, sampling techniques, studio challenges, and cultural influences behind these landmark recordings.[1] Featuring a foreword by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of The Roots, the book serves as a comprehensive resource for understanding the golden age of hip-hop production and artistry.[2] Published by Villard, an imprint of Random House, the 528-page volume was released on June 12, 2007, and quickly became a bestseller among hip-hop enthusiasts and scholars.[2] Coleman's approach emphasizes authenticity, compiling firsthand accounts from figures such as Rakim, Ice-T, RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, and Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest to demystify the making of influential works.[1] Key albums covered include Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Eric B. & Rakim's Paid in Full, De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, and Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), among others spanning artists like Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, and Slick Rick.[3] The book's structure dedicates individual chapters to each album, blending narrative context with direct quotes to highlight technical innovations, such as sampling methods and beat-making strategies that defined the era.[1] It received widespread acclaim for its detailed insights and accessibility, earning recognition as a 2008 New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age selection.[2] Coleman's expertise as a contributor to publications like XXL lends credibility to the project, which has been praised for preserving the voices of hip-hop's pioneers and bridging gaps in the genre's documented history.[1] A sequel, Check the Technique Volume 2, followed in 2014, expanding on additional albums from the same period.[4]Background
Author and Influences
Brian Coleman is a Boston-based music journalist and hip-hop historian whose career spans over two decades, beginning in the mid-1990s when he started contributing articles and reviews to prominent publications.[5] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he moonlighted as a hip-hop writer while promoting avant-garde jazz, eventually becoming a regular columnist for outlets such as XXL, The Source, Scratch, CMJ, URB, and Wax Poetics, where he penned hundreds of pieces exploring the genre's evolution.[5][6] Coleman's deep passion for hip-hop history profoundly shaped his writing approach, driving him to document the genre's creative processes through direct artist perspectives rather than secondary analysis. This interest culminated in his 2005 book Rakim Told Me, which featured in-depth interviews with Rakim and other pioneers, inspiring the liner-notes style of Check the Technique by emphasizing firsthand accounts of production and artistry.[7] Similarly, extended interviews with Chuck D, conducted over multiple sessions, reinforced Coleman's commitment to uncovering untold stories from hip-hop's foundational era, blending personal enthusiasm with rigorous oral history methods.[7] In selecting albums for Check the Technique, Coleman focused on culturally significant works from hip-hop's golden age, primarily spanning the 1980s and 1990s, prioritizing those with lasting influence on the genre's development.[7] His methodology emphasized historical impact and personal resonance, drawing from East Coast roots like DJ Red Alert's broadcasts to ensure a balanced representation of pivotal records from 1986 to 1996, while excluding more recent releases to allow time for classics to emerge.[7][3]Conception and Research Process
The concept for Check the Technique originated in 2005, when music journalist Brian Coleman identified a significant gap in hip-hop historiography: the scarcity of detailed, firsthand accounts documenting the production processes behind classic albums.[7] Motivated by this void, Coleman envisioned the book as an oral history project, expanding on his earlier work Rakim Told Me (2005) to create comprehensive liner notes through direct artist testimonies, addressing how albums were crafted amid the genre's golden age.[1] This approach aimed to preserve technical insights often absent from standard album credits, which typically limited themselves to basic producer listings and samples.[7] Coleman's research process was intensive and spanned 2005 to 2006, involving extensive phone interviews with producers, MCs, engineers, and other contributors, often lasting several hours and requiring multiple sessions to delve into track-by-track breakdowns.[6] He conducted over 100 such conversations, leveraging personal networks, publicists, and archival resources like Cornell University's hip-hop collection for context, while navigating logistical hurdles such as securing access to reclusive figures—for instance, it took months to reach Rakim, and contact with Kurtis Mantronik was limited to rare email exchanges.[6] These interviews highlighted the analog-era challenges of the time, including limited studio technology and creative constraints, providing raw narratives that formed the book's core.[7] The selection of the 36 albums focused exclusively on releases from 1986 to 1996, chosen for their pioneering technical contributions, such as innovative sampling methods, drum programming, and beat construction that defined hip-hop's sound during this period.[6][3] Coleman prioritized works where artists could offer substantive insights into production techniques, ensuring the book emphasized conceptual and methodological aspects over mere discography, while balancing well-known classics with underappreciated gems to illustrate the era's diversity.[7]Content
Book Structure and Format
Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies is organized into 36 chapters, each focusing on a single classic hip-hop album from the 1980s and 1990s, providing an in-depth exploration of its creation through interviews with the involved artists, producers, and other contributors.[8] Each chapter begins with a background essay by author Brian Coleman, followed by track-by-track commentary that incorporates direct quotes from the creators, detailing the songwriting, recording processes, and creative decisions behind individual tracks.[8] The book's style emulates the format of album liner notes, offering an immersive, conversational tone that blends Coleman's contextual analysis with firsthand accounts, including specifics on sampling sources, studio techniques, equipment like drum machines, and production anecdotes.[8] This approach covers over 400 tracks across 75 artists, supplemented by 52 black-and-white photographs, resulting in a comprehensive 528-page volume published in paperback.[2] The presentation prioritizes oral history, allowing the voices of hip-hop pioneers to drive the narrative while illuminating the technical and artistic evolution of the genre. An introductory essay by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson sets the stage by reflecting on hip-hop's development during its golden age, framing the book's focus on the era's innovative production methods.[1]Covered Albums and Artists
Check the Technique profiles 36 seminal hip-hop albums primarily from the late 1980s and early 1990s, selected for their influence on production techniques, lyrical innovation, and cultural impact within the genre. Through exclusive interviews with over 75 artists, producers, DJs, and industry figures, the book delves into the creative processes, sampling methods, drum programming, and studio challenges that defined these records, often highlighting underrepresented contributions from engineers and lesser-known collaborators.[3][9] The selections span pioneering works in conscious rap, hardcore street narratives, and experimental sounds, providing firsthand accounts that illuminate how these albums were crafted under budget constraints and technological limitations of the era. The albums are organized chronologically by release year to reflect the evolution of hip-hop production during its golden age. Representative examples underscore unique insights from the interviews, such as the meticulous sampling layers and engineer roles that shaped individual tracks. Late 1980s (1986–1989): Foundations of Sampling and Storytelling This period's profiles emphasize the shift from rock-influenced rap to dense, sample-heavy beats and socially charged lyrics, with interviews revealing early innovations in drum machine use and vinyl digging.- Run-DMC – Raising Hell (1986)
- Schoolly D – Saturday Night: The Album (1986)
- Boogie Down Productions – Criminal Minded (1987)
- Eric B. & Rakim – Paid in Full (1987), where Rakim details the drum programming contributions of engineer Patrick Adams, emphasizing how manual sequencing on the SP-1200 created the album's signature sparse yet punchy rhythms.[9][10]
- Big Daddy Kane – Long Live the Kane (1988)
- Biz Markie – Goin' Off (1988)
- EPMD – Strictly Business (1988)
- Ice-T – Power (1988)
- MC Lyte – Lyte as a Rock (1988)
- Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), featuring discussions with the Bomb Squad on their chaotic layering of numerous samples, drawing from over 100 sources across the album to evoke revolutionary urgency, including rare insights into Chuck D's vocal processing techniques.[9]
- Slick Rick – The Great Adventures of Slick Rick (1988)
- Too hort – *Life Is... Too hort* (1988)
- Marley Marl – In Control, Volume 1 (1988)
- 2 Live Crew – As Nasty as They Wanna Be (1989)
- De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising (1989), in which producer Prince Paul shares how the group sourced obscure samples from Hall & Oates and Johnny Cash to craft their eclectic, jazz-infused sound, underscoring the experimental ethos of Tommy Boy Records' studio environment.[9]
- Brand Nubian – One for All (1990)
- Digital Underground – Sex Packets (1990)
- Poor Righteous Teachers – Holy Intellect (1990)
- X-Clan – To the East, Blackwards (1990)
- Geto Boys – We Can't Be Stopped (1991), where producers detail the raw drum programming on the SP-1200 for tracks like "Mind Playing Tricks on Me," revealing how Scarface and engineers adapted horrorcore themes through looped breaks and minimalistic basslines to heighten psychological tension.[9]
- Cypress Hill – Cypress Hill (1991)
- A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (1991)
- Beastie Boys – Check Your Head (1992), highlighting the transition to live band recordings blended with samples, as Adam Yauch explains the role of engineer Mario Caldato Jr. in capturing the group's raw jam sessions at G-Son Studios.[9]
- Das EFX – Dead Serious (1992)
- Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth – Mecca and the Soul Brother (1992)
- The Pharcyde – Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde (1992)
- Redman – Whut? Thee Album (1992)
- Black Moon – Enta da Stage (1993)
- Digable Planets – Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) (1993)
- Onyx – Bacdafucup (1993)
- Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)
- M.O.P. – Firing Squad (1996)
- Common – Resurrection (1994)
- The Roots – Do You Want More?!!!??! (1995)
- Mobb Deep – The Infamous (1995)
- Fugees – The Score (1996)