The other day, I was struggling to make a bass sound fit into one of my beats.
I started wondering if it was off-key. But I couldn’t really tell. I don’t know keys, and I can’t read music.
That reminded me of something Ballhead, one of the beatmakers featured on House Shoes Presents: BEATS!!!! The Japanese Sound!, once said to me.
We were at a beat event, and while a beat was playing, he pointed out that one part was off-key.
I had no idea what he was talking about!
Then he said something along the lines of:
“But that’s what’s cool about Hip-Hop. It’s off-key, but it still sounds dope.”
We’re entering a time when technology can help us make music that’s perfectly in key and perfectly correct according to music theory.
Or we can simply let AI make the music for us.
There are already tools that can detect the key of a sample and help match everything correctly.
I just never really feel like using them.
Partly because I’m too lazy to figure them out.
But there’s probably another reason.
I’m starting to wonder if correcting everything might also take away some of what makes my beats sound like me.
Hip-Hop has never really been about doing everything the way you’re supposed to anyway.
And now, as AI becomes part of music creation, people are once again asking questions about what counts as music and what doesn’t.
That made me think about what I’ve been doing all these years.
Am I even making music?
If someone listened to one of my beats and told me:
“That’s not music.”
I might actually say:
“Maybe you’re right.”
But if it isn’t music, what is it?
Chikara
October 18, 2026