Madlib the Beat Konducta

There’s a reason why everyone, from fellow producers to music critics, have been riding Madlib’s tip so excessively for the last five years. This latest issue of dusted loops and sloppy samples should give further indication that Madlib is easily one of hip-hop’s greatest assets and that he is the modern day equivalent to this generation’s soul music, thanks to his talent of resurrecting records from the grave and giving new life. This collection of instrumentals isn’t the Beat Konducta’s greatest work by any means when compared to the rest of his résumé. On the other hand, there’s not much else out there that can compare to it as even biters would have a hard time mimicking that Madlib sound given the fact that you simply can’t fake his passion. The amount of snippets contained in this 35-track collage seems so involved and versatile that we should be so lucky if more producers felt compelled to release such interesting listens. For the most part Movie Scenes is Madlib looping a beautiful string section or piano loop with cinematic results and most of the time it works perfectly, creating a warm blanket of jazz, soul, funk and dirty hip-hop that sounds completely hands-on with its off time placements similar to Dilla’s Donuts. Sure there are times when Madlib strays off course and might get a little more abstract than some would prefer, but given the strength of the overall product you realise that he would never misguide and every angle will eventually fall into place when it comes to this wonderful movie-less soundtrack.