The hip-hop duo Slash praised for always doing “something interesting”
Nothing that Slash ever listened to was about being the same kind of ho-hum rock and roll tune.
Regardless of what era he was listening to music in, he needed something with a bit more attitude behind it if he was going to spin it, whether that was first hearing Aerosmith when he was a kid or getting interested in what the grunge scene was doing when Guns N’ Roses had found their footing. Nothing got past his radar as long as it had some passion behind it, and that didn’t always apply to traditional hard rock, either.
If anything, the fact that Slash could work with virtually anybody and still sound great was a testament to what a good listener he was. He knew when to lean back and settle into a groove when he wanted to, but if someone wanted that kind of fiery lead playing, it wasn’t hard for him to find his place and know what he was doing when working with everyone from Michael Jackson to Bob Dylan to Carole King.
There were definitely people who gave him some lessons, like Ray Charles and Les Paul, but sometimes the music with the most attitude didn’t even need a guitar. The world was changing since the days of him listening to old Joe Walsh solos, and what was happening on the street was what the hip-hop scene was doing. Guns N’ Roses did seem dangerous at the time, but even they didn’t seem as scary as NWA in their prime.
Compared to the other rock and rollers working the Sunset Strip every single time they performed, Slash kept his eye out for the kind of production tricks that people like Dr Dre were doing. It wasn’t out of the question for Dre to sample a few rock and roll beats in between the various G-funk samples that he used, and when he teamed up with Snoop Dogg, Slash was always willing to give it a chance.
It wasn’t what anyone would have expected in his record collection, but Slash felt that Dre had the same kind of allure that he was looking for out of rock and roll, saying, “Hip hop is all pretty much my wife listens to, so end up hearing a lot of it. My favourite stuff goes back to NWA and Public Enemy, that real aggressive, urban war music, although Dre and Snoop Dogg always comes back with something interesting.”
And it’s not like you can’t hear a lot of that kind of intensity on a lot of hip-hop joints from around that time. Aside from The Chronic and 2001, the Bomb Squad were already making some of the most militant hip-hop that the world had ever heard when they came out with albums like Fear of a Black Planet. Some of the rock purists had their guard up, but Slash always knew it was part of the same musical stew.
And when you look at some of the biggest rock bands that have popped up in the meantime, it’s not hard to see why hip-hop has become one of the driving forces in modern music. The biggest names in rock have been used to playing it safe when it comes to bands that actually get on the radio, so it’s better for people to hear what people like NERD and Jay-Z were doing around the 2000s than whatever the hell Wolfmother was coming out with.
It might not have been easy for Slash to find his way through a recording session with Dre or someone like RZA from Wu-Tang Clan, but it wasn’t about him trying to find his way through the genre. He could appreciate something even if he couldn’t understand it, and considering how far the modern rap game has come now, the genre has practically taken up the mantle rock used to have in terms of being the genre reserved for the most punk rock acts in the world.
