By the time James made a song with Phat Kat called “Front Street” in early 1994, recorded in part at Amp’s place, his personal style had coalesced: a melodic jazz sample, the top frequencies filtered out to make the music more amorphous and gloomy, over hard drums, in the vein of A Tribe Called Quest or Pete Rock. But James’s snare snapped even harder; and just as distinctive, his kick drum bounced all over the place because he didn’t use timing correct on it to make the notes perfectly aligned with the grid. James played the notes freehand instead, giving the beat a looser feel. It was the
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