15 of the Best Hip-Hop Album Interludes

Sometimes, when your hair is being blasted back by bars, courtesy of whatever LP you might be playing, how much heavy lifting the production is actually doing. I mean, sure, the beats are impossible to ignore and the melody will always carry the vibe, but sometimes producers need a little time to themselves. That’s the role interludes often play. Sometimes you’ll get skits, which tend to involve one or several of the personnel fucking around, but in some cases you get instrumental (or mostly instrumental) bridges between tunes.

It gives albums more breathing room, supports any overriding motifs and gives the producers the chance to flex their fingers a bit. There are hundreds upon hundreds you can dig out, and these are by no means the best of the best, but they’re some of my favourites.

Gang Starr – 92 (Daily Operation, 1992)

What better place to start than with DJ Premier. It’s hard to believe that Gang Starr was more than 20 years ago, and if you ask me, this album is still their greatest masterpiece, owing at least in part to production like this. There’s nothing overly complicated about ’92’, just an Aretha Franklin flip (albeit a gorgeous one), mapped around a steady, stable beat. Prem has always been able to do great things with a basic set of ingredients though, and so it is here.

J Dilla – Love Jones (The Shining, 2006)

Where do you even begin with J Dilla? Since so many of his albums were purely short instrumentals and loops, it’s hard to count anything on them as an ‘interlude’. I could have just as easily put one in from one of the albums he produced for someone else, ‘Time Travellin’ Skit’ from Common’s Like Water For Chocolate is a favourite, but in the end I landed on this. Taken from the album which dropped less than a year after his death, it’s a warming break between longer tracks fronted by Common, D’Angelo, Busta Rhymes, Pharoahe Monch, Guilty Simpson and numerous others. The sample, taken from a track by the little known 1970s prog band Placebo, is almost perfectly suited to the steady beat. This used to be my alarm clock chime.

 

DJ Krush – Interlude (Strictly Turntablized, 1994)

Strictly Turntablized is one of the most astonishing hip-hop albums ever recorded. It’s the one that really thrust DJ Krush into the limelight. Most of the tunes are instrumental, but unlike with Dilla it’s the easiest thing in the world to identify the interlude, because it’s called ‘Interlude’. There’s not a great deal of information on the sampling for this track, but whatever it is, that Herb Alpert-esque brass that ripples over the beat is on point.

 

Tyler, The Creator – Untitled 63 (Goblin, 2011)

Tyler, The Creator has such a prevailing reputation for his lyrics and attitude, that it’s easy to forget just how gifted a producer he really is. This tune, taken from his second (and arguably strongest) album, Goblin, is one such example. The drum sampling (origin unknown, sadly) builds beautifully as a warm synth tone fades in. The piano melody that drops in shortly after that brings it all together, I could keep this on loop for hours.

 

Company Flow – Lencorcism (Funcrusher Plus, 1997)

Ah Mr. Len, the unsung hero of Company Flow. The group that introduced El-P to the world prided itself on weird, off-kilter production, right from the outset. There are several interludes on Funcrusher Plus, and this is the best of them. It contains a vocal sample from one of their own previous tunes, and another from a Beastie Boys one, but the bulk of it is built from Freddie Hubbard’s ‘Red Clay’, a sprawling jazz tune from his 1970 album of same name, which featured Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson and Ron Carter.

 

CunninLynguists – So As Not to Wake You (Oneirology, 2011)

Oneirology might not quite be CunninLynguists’ strongest effort, but it’s one of their most interesting, and consistent in tone. Such is the way with this interlude. The female vocal and the recorded voiceover both deal with ideas about dreams and their relationship with reality, and it all runs over the top of a hypnotic electronic hum and a massive, rattling beat.

Busta Rhymes & Q-Tip – Pardon My Ways (The Abstract and the Dragon, 2013)

Alright, so this is actually a mixtape, but it behaves like an album in some regards. This interlude does actually feature Busta Rhymes, but he’s not so much rapping as, well, saying things, at least until the end. the more important thing to focus on is the wailing guitar sample and that infectious, raw beat.

Death Grips – 5D (Exmilitary, 2011)

Listen to this track, and try and tell me what it’s sampling, or even what kind of music it’s sampling. Done? Well I don’t know what your guess was, but you were almost definitely wrong. It samples ‘West End Girls’ by the Pet Shop Boys. Hard to believe I know, but emblematic of the kind of brilliantly twisted logic Death Grips always applied to their production. The rhythm is solid, the vibe is silly and the effect is engrossing.

Common Market – Kampo (Common Market, 2005)

This album is just lovely from start to finish. While tracks like ‘Tobacco Road’ and ‘Nothing at All’ are the ones people tend to know Common Market for, many fans consider this to be their opus, myself included. The only track on the album not to feature RA Scion’s raw, thoughtful lyrics,  it provides a smooth transition between two of the album’s warmest, most heartfelt tracks – ‘Trinity’ and ‘Love One’. This was the album which really saw Sabzi start to come into his own, as evidenced by his other production credit from the same year – Blue Scholars.

 

Madvillain – Supervillain Theme (Madvillainy, 2004)

Well, hello Madlib, fancy seeing you here. I couldn’t write a list of hip-hop interludes without Lord Quas dropping in for a visit, and although some might argue that this is an obvious choice, it demands attention. The average track length on Madvillainy is pretty short, so once again the line between full track and interlude is blurry. ‘Instrumental’ might be the better term for this one, but in either case, it’s large. It mainly samples a track by 70s Brazilian psychadelic rock outfit O Terço, as if you needed any further assuring of how vast Madlib’s record collection is. It has a kind of muscular urgency to it, like you’d be hearing it in your head if you were on some manner of rampage.

 

Eyedea & Abilities – Get Along (E&A, 2004)

The late, great Eyedea’s bafflingly intricate lyrics are what most people remember this duo for, but have no doubt, DJ Abilities is a fucking beat wizard. This beautifully jazzy little bridge is probably my favourite track on this whole list, which is saying something considering that J Dilla, Madlib and Prem are all here too. The vocal sample is taken from Hal Hartman’s 2001 film No Such Thing, which starred Robert John Burke as a cynical, hard drinking devil monster who breathes fire. It’s actually quite good.

 

Aesop Rock – Breakfast with Blockhead (Float, 2000)

This entry actually accounts for 3 separate interludes spaced out across the album, titled after breakfast, lunch and dinner. Aesop does a lot of his own production, but he frequently works with Blockhead and in this instance they split duties. I’d say that ‘Breakfast with Blockhead’ is the strongest of the 3, but they’re all really good. The bass sample comes from Ron Carter’s ‘Little Waltz’, which appears on the 1969 album, Uptown Conversation. 

 

Immortal Technique – Spend Some Time (Remix) (Revolutionary Vol .1, 2002)

Every volume of Immortal Technique’s Revolutionary series is massive, but Vol. 1 stands out in particular because it was his debut release. It features a litany of talented producers, from Marley Marl to Jean Grae, but it’s G. Bennet who shines on this tune. Which track this is actually a remix of is a mystery, but it’s an enticing, soulful build up to ‘Dance with the Devil’ which remains one of Tech’s most potent, haunting lyrical offerings.

 

Cypress Hill – Something for the Blunted (Cypress Hill, 1991)

Say what you will about Black Sunday, but this is still the big one for me. A listen from start to finish will teach you everything you need to know about Cypress Hill, and this aptly titled interlude is a perfect little window into the way DJ Muggs approaches his beatmaking. Most of the structure is taken from Curtis Mayfield’s magnificently funky ‘Future Shock’, and more thematically appropriately, the drum line comes from The Harlem Underground Band’s ‘Smokin’ Cheeba Cheeba’. Some of the vocals from that track also appear, for obvious reasons.

 

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Cold on the Blvd (Piñata, 2014)

Dammit Madlib, give someone else a turn! It can’t be helped, he’s just too fucking good at this kind of thing. Piñata was perhaps the strongest hip-hop release of 2014, and 2014 was a good year for output, so that’s a pretty bold statement. The combination of his otherworldly production oddities and Gibbs’ hefty, 2pac reminiscent vocals make for a potent combination, and Madlib shines on this short little showcase. That impossibly funky bassline, crisp snare and wailing guitar evoke a kind of 70s blaxploitation vibe, similar to the kind of thing Lewis Parker does on his beats, which is far from a bad thing. The vocal sample is from a poem called ‘Too Late Blues’ by Stanley Crouch, though who is actually reading it in this instance is anyone’s guess.