Humpty Breaks by Generator

It gets flavorful!
'Humpty Breaks' by Generator, where crunchy beats meet finger-smudged samplers! This eclectic beat tape serves up a mix of old and new tracks, showcasing the evolution of the producer's sound while paying homage to the early days of rap beats.

INTERVIEW:

"Yo, Generator! We get tons of demos channeling that rad 90s-2000s vibe, but most scream today which is completely fine. Your beats, though, got us scratching our heads about when you crafted them. When did you create these gems?”

Most of these beats were produced in the early 2000’s around the end of high school. I first started producing in grade 11 which would have been 2001. It’s crazy to think that some of these beats are 20 years old.

I still have some of the first beats I ever made. Nothing was sequenced or quantized. I programmed everything in Cubase VST using generic midi. I would transfer everything to Mini Disk as one layer of audio, cause non of the computers I was on had built in CD burners… Then I had to travel uptown to my friends house and drop all the audio into Sound Forge. Sometimes I would layer audio samples taken from VHS recordings… It was a process for sure… I wonder if people would be interested in hearing that stuff?

"We also need to know, what fueled your breakfast when crafting these tunes?”

I think the fuel always came from the fact that I didn’t DJ. Production was my main focus and skillset. So when I crewed up I was always the beat guy, and rappers were amped to jump on my shit cause it was nasty… The Toronto Hip Hop scene had a taste for underground music, being next to New York and all. We had Ghetto Concepts, Mathematic, Frankenstein, Choclaire, Saucratese, then later on came Dj Serious, Abdominal, 4th Pyramid… We had a lot of local underground heroes that got exposure outside of Toronto…so that was probably another element that fuelled me. Trying to get acceptance outside of Canada.

"What's your core memory with Humpty Dumpty snacks?”

Oh.. Well. Humpty Dumpty is the Canadian chip brand of choice. Haha. In all seriousness, I was always drawn to the scratch record format, Bully Breaks, Super Seal, Butt Crack Breaks… They were hysterical to me. So I wanted to borrow from that aesthetic, and I was looking for a character that was unique to my childhood. Humpty Dumpty just came to mind. On another subject...If you had techs and were DJing or producing back then, break records were extremely useful. They made huge money selling these things because it made beat making accessible to just about anybody. It also contributed to lawsuits over sampling, and a lot of people got upset because the sampling component of Hip Hop was so crucial. It drove the price of records up and brought a lot of artists back to mainstream popularity… but as soon as the major record industry caught on, it became about licensing and lawsuits… if you listen to Gangstar’s Moment of Truth album, at the end of the track Royalty… you can hear Dj Premier address the issue from his perspective.

"What was the first Rap CD or Cassette you bought and how do you feel about it today?”

Hate to say it was probably Vanilla Ice, or MC Hammer. This is how I was introduced to Hip Hop. I was probably 8 years old... That was just a phase until I met Ghostwhip in grade 5. We grew up and went to school together, he got me into Metal, Jungle, Hip Hop. He basically smashed my Vanilla tape and introduced me to groups like Death, Deicide, Testament and DRI. I was hooked. Then laster I double backed to hip hop and discovered Wu Tang. Wu got me into groups like Sunz Of Man, Killarmy, OGC Boot Camp, Helktah Skeltah and from there I was addicted. Looking back, I realize how I could have been dragged into a world of mediocre, shit mainstream music. Had I not been influenced by Ghostwhip to dig deeper into underground, who knows where I would be.

ALL LINKS: https://linktr.ee/Formercity

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