Crate Missions takes readers inside the world of Hip Hop producers, where dusty record stores, forgotten albums, and decades-old recordings become the raw materials for new musical creation. Drawing on qualitative research, autoethnography, and oral history, Crate Missions combines the author’s more than twenty-five years of experience as a producer and DJ with interviews conducted with influential Hip Hop practitioners, including Pete Rock, Diamond D, Buckwild, Ski Beatz, K-Def, Mr. Walt and Evil Dee of the Beatminerz, and Breakbeat Lou. The online audio component allows readers to hear three new beats created by Rawls for this project, as well as “producer’s commentaries” in which Rawls walks listeners through his inspiration and process. Together, the text and audio reveal how crate digging is far more than collecting records—it is a form of historical discovery, cultural preservation, and creative expression.

Jason D. Rawls is Assistant Professor of Hip Hop at The Ohio State University.

Foreword by Pete Rock
Introductory Liner Notes
Framing the project
Key Terms
Sampling as Craft, Culture, and the Practice of Digging
Developing a Hip Hop Producer’s Ear
The Web of Relationships
Relational & Aesthetic Dimensions of Digging
The Sampler’s Code
Source Materials as Cultural Memory
Sound Manipulation as Transformation
Creativity vs. Infringement
Digging as Archival Research
Producers as archivists
The Origin of Crate Missions
Conceiving the Project
Adapting the Method: Monthly Travel, Relational Logistics, and Research in Motion
Listening to the Producers (Findings from the Field)
Learning to Dig and Develop Archival Literacy
Diggin Strategies and the Search for Discovery
Producer Intuition and Affective Listening
Collaborative Culture and Shared Record Collections
Early Listening and the Formation of the Producer’s Ear
Observations in the field
Connections to My Work
Reflections on Methodology
Primary Data Sources: Producer Interviews
How to listen to the audio portion of this project
Structure of the Album
How to Experience This Project: Developing a Producer’s Ear
Framing the Between the Tracks Liner Notes
Between the Tracks Liner Notes
Track-by-Track Written Commentary
Beat One: Poogy Tales
Beat Two: The Impossible
Beat Three: Third Eye
Revisiting the Hip Hop Producer’s Ear: Crate Digging and Beat Making as Pedagogy
From Listening to Understanding through the Producer’s Ear
Hearing Differently After the Project
Learning Through the Producer’s Ear
Applications in Educational Practice.
Digging in the Crates as Methodology
Final Reflections
Next Missions