The Best Hip-Hop Producer Alive, Every Year Since 1979

1997: THE HITMEN

Original Article: https://www.complex.com/music/2018/10/best-hip-hop-producers

CREDENTIALS: Life After Death (The Notorious B.I.G.); No Way Out (Puff Daddy & the Family)

While the untimely murder of the Notorious B.I.G. could have signaled the end of Sean Combs’ Bad Boy imprint, the mogul instead turned up the dial and soared to new heights. Much of that success was due to the sounds coming from the Hitmen—a conglomerate of producers Combs worked with (and effectively took over rap and R&B radio with) in 1997. The squad featured the likes of Stevie J (pre-reality TV), Mario Winans, Chucky Thompson, and Nashiem Myrick, but it also included heavy hitters (no pun intended) like Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie and Ron “Amen-Ra” Lawrence, who were monstrously important in shaping the Hitmen’s sound.

If there’s a definitive example of that sound from this time period, it’s “Hypnotize.” Take a classic groove like Herb Alpert’s “Rise,” beef up the bass and make the drums knock, then get someone like Biggie to spit some Cristal-soaked lavish fantasies over it, and you have a certified hit. Sure, it was a formula, but it worked perfectly. Its legacy was surely heightened by the fact that B.I.G. was murdered a little over a week after the single’s release, but the D-Dot-and-Amen-Ra-produced song was already crushing it.

Their impressive strategy was employed on hits like Puff Daddy’s Mase-assisted “Been Around the World,” the massive posse cut “It's All About The Benjamins (Remix),” Mase’s “Feel so Good,” and the Lox’s “If You Think I’m Jiggy.” The Hitmen also got love outside of the Bad Boy imprint, with the likes of LL Cool J, Brian McKnight, Tracey Lee, LSG, and SWV linking with the group. The sound may have caused a rift in the scene (“jiggy” vs. boom-bap-y “real hip-hop”), but the Hitmen proved that rap could explode into the mainstream and they helped set Bad Boy (Combs, specifically) onto the path to greatness.