by Justin Davis (@AnkhDeLillo)
When jazz artists from previous generations get sampled, there are usually a wide range of responses—pride, confusion, and brazen prejudice are some common ones. There’s a certain anxiety that often gets levied toward hip-hop in these situations: you can imagine how unsettling it might be to discover that a song you made for a particular moment and audience has gotten tangled up in a different culture, a new moment, an unfamiliar audience, that might feel achingly out of reach. In the case of Roy Ayers—the jazz, funk, and soul maestro whose extensive career has left echoes across the hip-hop diaspora—his first reaction was a pleasant surprise. Not only has Ayers been sampled countless times with his approval, but he’s also lent his playing to rap and R&B projects across the past thirty years, like Guru’s Jazzmatazz Vol. 1 (1993), Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun (2000), and Tyler, the Creator’s Cherry Bomb (2015).
Hip-hop’s deep admiration for Ayers is nothing new, but just in time for summer, we’re treated to a deep-dive into his drifting and colorful early catalog, courtesy of producer and rapper Oh No: a child of Oxnard, California, longtime veteran of iconic indie label Stones Throw, and brother of producer and rapper Madlib. Oh No’s short new double album, Good Vibes / Bad Vibes, tries to “deconstruct” Ayers, intricately reassembling the wreckage into frantic boom bap and jazz rap that show off both artists’ skills as composers and arrangers.
Although Madlib and musical polymath Anderson .Paak might be Oxnard’s biggest hip-hop stars at the moment, Oh No has an impressive catalog in his own right. He’s supplied beats and verses for artists across the West Coast and underground like Ab-Soul, Yasiin Bey, Blu, Danny Brown, and Quelle Chris; he’s dropped full-length collabs with The Alchemist (as Gangrene) and his brother Madlib (as The Professionals); and his fingerprints show up all over the score and original soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto V. Like his best peers, Oh No has a keen ear for mood-building and an encyclopedic knowledge of global music—along with a track record of focused projects that draw from one pool of source material. 2006’s Exodus Into Unheard Rhythms exclusively samples the late Canadian composer Galt McDermot, and his 2009 instrumental album Dr. No’s Ethiopium relies on “60s and 70s Ethiopian funk, jazz, folk, soul and psychedelic rock.” You can really feel that focus come through on Good Vibes / Bad Vibes, which shines (or clouds up, depending on the song) with the cohesion and pacing of an experienced craftsman.
Side A of this project, Good Vibes, came out in February; Bad Vibes was added in May with a physical release. No sample snitching, of course, but experienced Ayers listeners might immediately feel comfortable in some of the instrumental choices here—and his trademark vibraphone shows up plentifully. Part of what makes Ayers so unique is how seamlessly he fuses multiple strands of Black grooves at once; his sensibility in the 60s and 70s foreshadowed the rise of “neo-soul” at the turn of the 21st century, and the way that more and more Black artists are actively blurring the lines between hip-hop, jazz fusion, and alternative R&B. That being said, much of Ayers’ early work is especially jazz-focused, and the winding, fluid nature of that music is fertile ground for Oh No to mine from.
The difference between the album’s two sides was designed to be sharp: Oh No describes Good Vibes as “light and vibrant,” and Bad Vibes as a soundtrack for “angry moments, those times when it’s necessary to step in the mud.” Good Vibes does tend to rely on brighter sounds—the airy flutes and warm bass on “Ice Cold Coolers” are a great example—while Bad Vibes is rougher and eerier, like the dramatic, discordant key flourishes sitting in the background on “Leeches.” Throughout this project, Oh No draws both sides together with crisp, hard-hitting drums and driving rhythms; we often move quickly between the tempo of the original samples and Oh No’s flips, creating a dynamic, uneven vibe. On “Problems and Solvers,” a highlight from Bad Vibes, we start with a vocal snippet about a band that’s having bad communication, and how audiences can feel it; the song starts off slow and tense, vibraphone playing hopscotch in the front of the mix. Eventually, though, the pace picks up, and Oh No loops slivers of vibraphone over and over—giving the track this stuttering, almost lagging quality. By the time bass and horns start to pop in and out, we’re whisked away to the next song, all in about two minutes.
Many prominent songs that sample Ayers choose to leave his smooth melodies intact—how many people have done this with his 1976 classic “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”—but Oh No often avoids leaving long instrumental passages untouched. The pianos on “Bands Jukes” shift constantly, for example: they bounce around casually until the pitch starts to get higher and higher, then transition smoothly into a tight, wistful loop and back again. At some points, like the beginning of “Another Two4,” the percussion sounds so cluttered that it’s like someone’s playing a drum kit inside a storage closet. These tracks are busy, packed with movement: when you listen to both sides together, their competing moods and dynamism can make the full experience feel like you've suddenly entered an intense tug-of-war.
The focused unpredictability that defines Good Vibes / Bad Vibes feels directly in conversation with Ayers’ source material, and really makes this project stand out. How do you work with such a heavily sampled catalog except by keeping the listener on their toes—making familiar sounds into something uncanny? These sorts of experiments show why sampling continues to be such an innovative artform, and hopefully there are more Oh No beats coming down the pipeline this year. (One more thing: if you’re unfamiliar with Ayers’ work, go check out 1968’s Stoned Soul Picnic, 1973’s Coffy soundtrack, and RAMP’s 1977 album Come Into Knowledge—you’re in for another treat.)