You might say it was Drake, DJ Premier, or Ice Cube. But the real idea of a beat flip starts with the DJ. In the early days of hip-hop—when DJing was the center of the action and park jams at rec ...

Hip-hop beat-makers are usually unseen. Not all sample-based producers are as reclusive as the torch-bearing loop artist Madlib, but even the most prominent among them are part of the backdrop. After ...