There’s a great Tumblr called Hip-Hop Transcriptions. It consists solely meticulous transcriptions of classic beats and rhymes by Charlie Hely. The mere fact of these transcriptions is fairly wonderful, but even better is the way that Hely lays out his charts. He uses graph paper, with each box representing a sixteenth note. This makes the complex rhythms a lot more readable than they normally would be, essentially turning standard notation into a time-unit box system. Music should always be typeset that way. Below are my favorite transcriptions.
MC Shan in “The Bridge” and KRS-One’s diss track response in “South Bronx” by Boogie Down Productions.
Q-Tip in “Check the Rhime” by A Tribe Called Quest, giving his famous Industry Rule #4080.
Some dazzling hemiola and syncopation in “I Ain’t No Joke” by Eric B and Rakim.
M.I.A. in “Sunshowers.”
Keep transcribing hip-hop, music nerds.
Thanks a lot! Glad you appreciate it.