How Pause Button Became Hip-Hop's Secret Weapon

Hip-Hop has always found new life in ordinary machines and this is story of how humble cassette deck became rough, homemade sampler for some of genre's most important producers. Hip-Hop has way of taking whatever gear is available and pushing it far beyond what it was designed to do. In this video, we follow unlikely journey of cassette, from Dutch engineer trying to make tape recording smaller and simpler, to Bronx parties where live DJ sets were captured, copied and passed around by hand. But cassette didn't just document early Hip-Hop. In bedrooms, on family stereos and cheap tape decks, young producers discovered that pause button could be used to trap tiny moments from records and loop them over and over again, creating rough, handmade beats before samplers became widely available. This is story of pause tape and how tiny plastic button became entry point for future legends like Q-Tip, Pete Rock, Public Enemy, Easy Mo Bee, De La Soul, Beastie Boys, RZA and J Dilla. Timecodes: 00:00 - Intro 00:46 - Tale of Tape 02:47 - Live from Boombox 04:53 - One Pause at Time 07:30 - Pause Tape Blueprint 13:07 - Still on Pause Playlists: | | #SecretWeapon Original video: