LAYERS: Our Biggest Breakdown Yet For Lushlife's "Magnolia"

The best thing about Philly-based rapper/producer Lushlife is the timelessness of his sound within the lifespan of hip-hop. From his sample-focused boom-bap beats, it’s clear that he was raised on the familiar staples that we call classics today, and from the intricacy he applies to the format, you can tell he’s not immune to evolution. Whereas sample-based beatmaking was a simple science when it first emerged, it became a study of composition in the decades that followed. Lushlife is a true disciple.

For this edition of LAYERS, we wanted to break down a track that fully represents Lushlife’s production style, from the delicate intertwining of melodic samples to the reworked familiarity of a classic break. He brought us “Magnolia,” the opening track of his brand new album Plateau Vision, broken into its 12 parts. Yep, 12—six parts for the verse portion, and another six for the chorus. That’s the most layers we’ve done so far, and we’re ecstatic that it was Lushlife who brought us here.

Let’s get to it!

Thinking back, “Magnolia” originally took shape as a potential instrumental for Jay Electronica. I know I'm not alone in saying that dude is one of the few MCs that has really had me hyped in the last half-decade. Anyway, I did end up getting Jay to sit down and listen to a beat reel, but in the end, the embryonic version of this instrumental never "made the cut" for his long-awaited LP. And I'm glad it didn't.

“Magnolia,” as an instrumental, is pretty representative of where my head was aesthetically during the Plateau Vision sessions. There's a Wall of Sound sense of interlocking layers that are often run through reel-to-reel tape machines and outboard compressors to achieve a warm, analog glow. I guess that's how rap music sounds to me, in my mind.

VERSE

Main Sample
I don't tell people where my samples come from for the most part. Even though they've probably already been identified and are available on sites across the internet, it just doesn't feel right to me in some Afrika Bambaataa protect-your-record-labels-while-DJing kind of way. Anyway, the rest of “Magnolia” is really built from this sample, and the most interesting thing about it is that while I was recording the sample from the record, I was slowing down the speed of the record by "thumbing" the record platter. Getting the correct pitch and vibe took some practice, as you might imagine, but even through all the layers on this joint, I think that the human element really shines through beautifully.

Harp
The other main in-your-face sort of sample on “Magnolia” is the harp. It seems to be a memorable piece of the instrumental because a lot of people keep coming up to me, talking about the "harp joint." If I remember correctly, I was actively looking for some clean harp to add some movement to the instrumental and came across this sample. Unfortunately, the phrase fit the first chord in the verse section of “Magnolia,” but not the second. In the end, I was able to pitch the sample down a few half-steps to make it work melodically with the rest of the track.

Bass
The bass for this song is imagined with two components. There's the live electric bass that I played, and a little Dilla-esque analog mid-range bass, synth touch, too. For the live bass, I ended up going with this 1-5-1 style bass line that moves down a whole step for the second part of the verse phrase. I've heard this particular type of bass line in a lot of 90s hip-hop joints, and I think it's inherited from some varying strains of 1970s jazz. For two points of reference, dig the bass line from “Breakadawn” by De La Soul, and on the jazz side, Pharoah Sanders' “The Creator has a Master Plan” (from 2:00). The trick for me was getting a take that had the right feeling of fingers sliding across the fretboard. I'm not really a trained bassist, so it took a while.

As for the synth bass part, that's purely inspired by Dilla. There are always beautiful artifacts in his work, and these plodding analog synth parts that don't fit in perfect rhythm with the rest of the track are hallmarks of that vibe. I EQ'd this particular Minimoog to sit only in the mid-range, giving it a pretty low-fi, wonky feel.

Drums
I guess it isn't earth-shattering news that the drums in “Magnolia” are based around the classic Skull Snaps break. This break was integral to so many classic 90s hip-hop records, and even transcended into pop culture awfulness, being used in shitty songs like “Butterfly” by Crazytown. The funny thing is, the atmosphere of the breakbeat makes even the most awful, piece-of-shit rap-rock song somewhat listenable. Anyway, I wanted to pay homage to this amazing break, while also breathing a bit of new life into it, so I threw it into an MPC-1000 drum machine and chopped it up massively. I also added some live shakers and a low-in-the-mix handclap. In the end, the drums for “Magnolia” have a strange, loping feel, with hi-hats that dance around the groove, but ultimately, I hope that the Skull Snaps break anchors this joint in a familiar quality.

Stabs
These stabs round out the verse phrase of “Magnolia,” and though they aren't a really prominent part of the instrumental, I think they provide a lot of underlying emphasis. They come from an album cut off a classic new wave record, and to me, this offers a weird sense of Debbie Harry-meets-Fab 5 Freddy, classic 80s uptown-meets-downtown shit. Maybe that's bullshit. Maybe no one else will hear this stab that way, but to me, it's part of the imagination that goes into making these joints. So, whatever.

Scratch
I started out as a DJ, but strangely enough, I've been using scratches less and less with each album. In fact, this might be the only bit of cutting I do on Plateau Vision. Anyway, I use this particular scratch in conjunction with the rhymes on the song, and to round out each verse. So, when I was writing the rhymes for each verse, I ended up working towards this sample rhyming with and finishing up the last couplet for me. At the end of “Magnolia,” I use the scratch as a little outro coda-type-thing.

CHORUS

Main Sample
Again, the chorus section is built from a single, crucial underlying sample. I really like the 1950s orchestral jazz element that this sample brought to the chorus. The flugelhorn type shit sounds so narcotic to me, so I created a bit of emphasis on them by chopping the loop in a drum machine and doing this repetitive, quarter-note triplet thing. In any case, this "third wave" orchestral jazz stuff seems to work well with what I do as Lushlife because it works as a go-between for the 90s hip-hop, jazz-based elements that I like, and the Phil Spector Wall of Sound vibes that I've tried to bring to Plateau Vision.

Mellotron
God, the Mellotron is a beautiful f—king instrument. True story: I listened to Fiona Apple's Tidal every day of eleventh grade, and on the low, Jon Brion made that album as much about the Mellotron as it is about Fiona Apple.

Anyway, I wrote and recorded these Mellotron strings to articulate the chord structure of the chorus section here, and I think they provide some late-in-the-game ear candy as the chorus comes through.

Bass
With a shift in chord progression for the chorus section in “Magnolia” (yeah, that's peculiar in rap music), I wanted to echo the same sensibility of the verse bass while following the chorus chords. So, here you have a 1-5 bass line interwoven with some midrange Minimoog that sounds squarely out of meter with the rest of the track. I think the Minimoog works especially well in the chorus because there's not a lot of percussion to anchor the rhythm.

Glockenspiel
This is the melodic underpinning of the chorus. It's not actually just a glockenspiel, as you can hear. It started life as just a glockenspiel, but I needed something to help it cut through the rest of the layers, so I added a weird, 90s Yamaha PSR-11 synth sound to double the part. I like to think that in the greater context of “Magnolia,” this melody feels like it comes from one new instrument, made from doubling two disparate ones. It's a trick Brian Wilson is well-known for using on The Wrecking Crew sessions, and whether or not anyone gives a f—k, it's the kind of nerd-out shit that helps me intellectualize my work. Ha.

Sleigh Bells
The boom-bap for “Magnolia” comes courtesy of sleigh bells, and sleigh bells only. I recorded a left and right channel take, playing the sleigh bells in two parts of the live room to create a sense of space. On the real though, the drums dropping out in the chorus is all about punctuating the drums coming back in the verse. It's some negative space shit.

Magnolia
Since this joint was originally for Jay Elec, the "Magnolia" vocal sample was first intended as an homage to New Orleans' Magnolia Projects, where dude came out of. When I'm producing joints for other artists, these are the personal touches I try to bring to the work, rather than off-loading a CD-R of 50 random snippets. In any case, when “Magnolia” got passed on for that project, I made the conscious decision to keep this vocal sample intact. What does it mean to me? Nothing in particular, but I just love the way it sounds. That's a good enough reason to keep it thorough in the hook, isn't it?

In any case, since there's no chance of retribution here, I'll tell you where I mined this particular sample. It comes from a Grateful Dead bootleg performance of, you guessed it, “Sugar Magnolia”. I screwed it down, ran it through tape, and voila, I had the emotional centerpiece for the Plateau Vision album-opener, “Magnolia.”

And here’s the full track—“Magnolia” by Lushlife.

Previously: LAYERS: Drilling For The Inner Funk Of Marvin Marlyn’s “Every Boogie”

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