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The Producer Series: Poke & Tone (Trackmasters)

Fifty-one records from the production duo who made hip-hop commercially unstoppable and got criticised for it for twenty years.

Trackmasters (Poke & Tone)

Jean-Claude "Poke" Olivier and Samuel "Tone" Barnes are among the most consequential producers in hip-hop and among the least celebrated, for one reason: they were unembarrassed about making hits.

Their method was straightforward and enormously effective. Take a recognisable pop or soul record, keep enough of it that a listener recognises the melody within two bars, add a hard New York drum programme, and put a great rapper over the top. Purists called it selling out. It also took the music from a specialist audience to the centre of American pop, and the records themselves are far better made than the criticism allows.

What to listen for

The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Juicy" is the argument-ending track. Built on Mtume's "Juicy Fruit", it is simultaneously one of the most commercial records of its era and one of the best-written verses in the history of the form.

"One More Chance" and "Who Shot Ya?" come from the same period and show the range: one of the biggest R&B crossovers of 1995, and the most menacing record of the decade.

Nas's "Street Dreams" is the crux of the old debate — a rapper regarded as the purest lyricist of his generation, placed over Eurythmics, and it worked.

Foxy Brown's "I'll Be" and "Get Me Home" are the peak of their work with a single artist, and "(Holy Matrimony) Letter To The Firm" is the best-written thing she recorded.

Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" and "Miami" are where the formula reaches its logical conclusion, for better and worse.

Soul For Real's "Candy Rain" is the R&B production and one of the prettiest records of the nineties.

Method Man and Mary J. Blige's "I'll Be There For You" and Mary's "Be Happy" complete the picture.

Go deeper

Read the Complex oral history the duo gave in 2012 — it is unusually frank about how these records were actually assembled, and about the commercial pressures behind the choices.

Nas's It Was Written (1996) is the album where the argument about accessibility versus purity was fought most publicly, and thirty years on it sounds like a very good record.

Listening note: the craft is in how much of the original record survives. Trackmasters keep the recognisable fragment short — usually a bar or two — and rebuild everything around it, so the listener gets the hit of familiarity without the borrowed song dictating the arrangement. That restraint is why the best of these still sound like new records rather than covers.

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