Hi-Tek’s five best beats of all time
Throughout the second half of the ’90s and the early ’00s, there’s an argument to be had that Rawkus Records became the defining label of the underground hip-hop scene. Notable primarily for the success of Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Rawkus came to be associated with a very specific sound that was beloved by hip-hop connoisseurs and even, from time to time, by more mainstream audiences, too. But one of the figures most responsible for that sound maybe doesn’t get quite enough credit for his contributions: the producer Hi-Tek.
Born and bred in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hi-Tek started producing music for the hip-hop group—and his fellow Cincinnatians—MOOD, whose debut album included several contributions by Brooklyn native Talib Kweli. This led Hi-Tek to establish a working relationship with Kweli and Mos Def, producing most of their classic Black Star album, which has since become an out-and-out classic. He has since collaborated with each of them on other projects, too—most notably, perhaps, as Reflection Eternal, his duo with Kweli.
Hi-Tek was behind a lot of Rawkus’ music, including as one of the producers on the label’s compilation series Soundbombing, which really helped to propel Mos and Kweli’s respective careers. There were plenty of other lesser-known artists on those compilations, too, and the albums are today widely considered to be underground classics that defined the era. Hi-Tek’s contributions were vital to them.
Hi-Tek’s productions are certainly less frequent these days, but he’s still around—and in fairly recent years he’s played a part in some great hits. But even if he was to never put out another song ever again, his legacy as one of the great underground producers is already firmly secure. Here are five songs to prove it.
Hi-Tek’s five best beats of all time
50 Cent – ‘Get In My Car’
Hi-Tek may be an underground great, but he has certainly enjoyed forays into the mainstream. And, in the year 2005, rap didn’t get much more mainstream than 50 Cent, who was releasing his second album The Massacre. Pushed by the success of the single ‘Candy Shop,’ the album was a massive success, topping the charts and selling more than a million copies in a matter of days following its release.
Hi-Tek contributed to only a couple of the songs—‘Get In My Car’ and ‘Ryder Music’—but he was delighted to be involved in any capacity, as he admitted during a 2017 interview with DJBooth. “I’m spoiled, man. I was very honored to be a part of [The Massacre]. Being able to land two joints on the album that were very solid—for people to tell me those were some of their favorite songs on the album—it’s really humbling.”
Hi-Tek – ‘The Sun God’
While known mainly for producing other rappers’ work, Hi-Tek’s debut solo album is a classic in its own right. Released in 2001, and spawning two sequels released in 2006 and 2007 respectively, Hi-Teknology saw Hi-Tek bringing together artists such as Slum Village, Buckshot and Cormega, as well as his regular collaborators Mos Def and Talib Kweli, for an album he solely produced himself. Arguably the record’s best track, ‘The Sun God,’ features Common and Vinia Mojica, and, in 2021, Hi-Tek spoke to Okayplayer about the experience of putting it together with them.
“I just remember making that beat and I knew the beat was dope,” he said. “I let [Common] hear it and he really loved it and then we got in the lab. I remember being in a long studio session, just me, him and Vinia Mojica at Electric Lady Studios. When it came to the mix, we were on crunchtime. I know we were trying to meet the distribution deadline, so I remember being in the studio 40 hours mixing the record.”
Anderson .Paak – ‘Come Down’
Anderson .Paak’s ‘Come Down’ is a groovy number that really helped to put the man on the map, but the fact that Hi-Tek was the one who produced it is easy to miss. But he did, and the wild thing about that is that a crucial part of the track, which became so big in the mid-2010s, was written way before that. It was, in fact, initially intended to be a song for Reflection Eternal, the hip-hop duo Hi-Tek was in with Talib Kweli.
“This is a good story,” Hi-Tek told DJBooth. “That beat—well, the bassline—I recorded that idea during the second Reflection Eternal album. I kept going back to it every so often, but I could never find the right drum pattern for it. One day, in 2015, I finally figured it out. I was chopping these drums up and it just clicked in my head, so I went back to that bassline. It was maybe 100 BPMs at the time, so I slowed it down—the Anderson .Paak joint is 98 BPMs, so I didn’t have to slow it down too much—but I slowed it down and added it to the drum track.”
Reflection Eternal – ‘The Blast’
Reflection Eternal’s debut album, Train of Thought, arrived in the year 2000, and arguably its standout track is ‘The Blast.’ The song was obviously produced by Hi-Tek, but it also allows him the space to rap alongside Talib Kweli—Hi-Tek is a talented rapper, as well as being a wiz in the studio. “That’s one of my favorite songs,” said of ‘The Blast’ during his chat with DJBooth. “At the time, I was pushing myself to be innovative.”
Production-wise, Hi-Tek was trying to avoid looping throughout the track. “I was trying to do something different,” he said, “so I time-stretched a song that was one of my favorite songs as a kid [Heatwave’s ‘Boogie Nights’] and ran it through an auto wah pedal. I kinda stripped the sample all the way down. It was done on the MPC60, that was the first sampling drum machine I really worked on.
Black Star – ‘Definition’
‘Definition’ was the first single to be released from the self-titled debut album by Black Star, and it remains arguably the best. Lyrically, the song sees Mos Def and Talib Kweli taking on the theme of violence in hip-hop, which, at the time of its 1998 release, was a serious subject following the murders of 2Pac and The Notorious BIG. The rappers reveal their aversion to all the depictions of violence within hip-hop at the time, but musically, it was powered by Hi-Tek’s beat.
“I gave Mos the beat and he liked it,” Hi-Tek recalled to DJBooth. “He flew me and Kweli out to LA—he was out there doing some movie stuff—and found a studio through a good friend of ours. Even when he gave me the idea, I felt like it was too simple for me. At the time, I felt like I had something to prove to separate myself from a lot of other East Coast producers. I always try to do something different.” As it happens, his beat was perfect as it was.