WEEK 5 – MOOR MOTHER INSPIRED BEAT

Creating a beat/instrumental inspired by the timbres and blends of genres used in Moor Mother’s music to achieve an Afro-futurism sound.

For this task I got paired with Loui again, and we decided to start our beat by thinking about the elements and components described in the Red bull interview video, to blend these different styles of music and to give a feeling of Afro-futurism to our beat, but also incorporate influences from Moor Mother’s childhood music taste and have our beat mainly centred around a political idea which clearly motivates and paints the majority of her music.  

To start our piece we decided to begin with the elements of politics, and use this as the foundation to build the piece from, so we added a political speech by Malcom X called “Malcolm X’s Fiery Speech Addressing Police Brutality”. We used this as we considered the lyrics being the part of importance which she focuses on in her own music, but also the idea of her mentioning she was involved in protests of police bombings, so we decided a protest speech would work, and Malcom X was specifically picked due to his far left views and more being linked to some of Moor Mother’s political beliefs, and which lined up with Rock against Racism act, possibly inspired by Moor Mother to use this idea of music to fight politics and support issues worth discussing.

https://contentstore.cla.co.uk/EReader/Index?guid=b28bf9f8-3b4b-ef11-991a-ebf013606e83&pcid=3241960&t=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJqdGkiOiIyMzNiNDAzYy05MWZkLTQ3YTEtODhiYS0xZTI4MzIyMzY0NWMiLCJuYmYiOjE3NjQwOTcwNDEsImV4cCI6MTc2NDA5NzM0MSwiaWF0IjoxNzY0MDk3MDQxLCJpc3MiOiJEQ1MiLCJhdWQiOiJSZWFkZXIifQ.eaI1YttwBJp6SqNqNx_toi7N-vL9P6Psgiip436_dwo&b=False

We layered this with a Mellotron choir to give a “Spooky gospel” sound that Moor mother grew up with from her father’s musical side. This plays added note chords and sounds haunting and dissonant which I though helped add to this sound we were trying to create of an uprise and give this feeling of dread but in a powerful way. We also tried to include an idea of the chords being. sort of similar to the idea of “Hip-hop loops can range from a single bar to eight bars or more” said in Looping: The Key to Today’s Hottest Rap Songs, so we looped in a four chord progression like the old gangsta rap styles of Moor Mother’s influence Public enemy and their track “Fight the power” with a strong political message.

Looping: The Key to Today’s Hottest Rap Songs

We chose to have a sampled drum beat, in which we looped, whilst also cutting up the audio file and re arranging it to make our own drum pattern. We cued this in the piece as if it was being played on a sampler to give a more gangsta rap sound of something like Wu Tang Clan’s “Wu‐Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta F’ Wit”. This plays throughout the majority of the piece, although we did add distortion to give a more “DIY” sound of the punk scene that Moor Mother achieves in her own personal works.

For our bass sound we had a blend of a “Sliding Structure Bass” pre set sound from Logic Pro X, and a midi cello sound which we merged together to have two moving bass parts that interweaved with each other in the beat. I made it so it was still harmonically correct, but wanted it to sound sad but also exciting so we mostly used flattened notes, with Loui writing the cello part and me writing the synth bass part. The choice to have both of these bass sounds bordered on what we believed as Afro-futurism to a certain degree, of combining certain “tools to envision alternative futures ethically grounded in the Black experience” with having a bass sound similar to that of Jungle music and to have a cello sounds combining the style of orchestral music.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2025/apr/03/afrofuturism-imagine-futures

I think this way of working is very interesting for a producer to try and develop their versatility in blending and fusing different styles of music. But also using music as a political power and centring a piece around a certain aspect of a track can give producer different ways to start a piece but also produce a sound and tone appropriate for the political message you are tying to go hand in hand with and give a feeling that leaves your listener empowered and focused on lyrically rather than musically.

Here are some links I used to find out and support my research

• https://contentstore.cla.co.uk/EReader/Index?guid=b28bf9f8-3b4b-ef11-991a-ebf013606e83&pcid=3241960&t=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJqdGkiOiIyMzNiNDAzYy05MWZkLTQ3YTEtODhiYS0xZTI4MzIyMzY0NWMiLCJuYmYiOjE3NjQwOTcwNDEsImV4cCI6MTc2NDA5NzM0MSwiaWF0IjoxNzY0MDk3MDQxLCJpc3MiOiJEQ1MiLCJhdWQiOiJSZWFkZXIifQ.eaI1YttwBJp6SqNqNx_toi7N-vL9P6Psgiip436_dwo&b=False
• https://canyonentertainmentgroup.com/hip-hop-loops-vs-samples/
• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2025/apr/03/afrofuturism-imagine-futures
• https://youtu.be/VPWi2wJELh4
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPwTMMhGGI
• https://youtu.be/jRJKjiCtVco
• https://youtu.be/YKa5tyjLbi8

1. Fight the power: music as mobilization – by John Street
2. Looping: The Key to Today’s Hottest Rap Songs – Canyon Entertainment Group
3. How Afrofuturism can help us imagine futures worth living in – The guardian
4. Moor Mother on Sampling, Afrofuturism and Collaboration – Redbull Music Academy via Youtube
5. Afrofuturism mixes sci-fi and social justice. Here’s how it works – Vox via Youtube
6. Public Enemy’s track “Fight the power” – Channel Zero via Youtube
7. Wu Tang Clan’s track “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta F’ Wit” – Wu Tang Clan via Youtube