WARM SOUNDS, THICK GROOVES
HEADLAND FLOW fuses thick grooves from traditional drum machines with live, funky breaks, R&B-flavored instrumentation, and gritty percussion to bring Southern hip hop’s musical jambalaya to MASCHINE.

THE CORNER OF HEADLAND AND DELOWE
“A couple of years ago on Headland and Delowe / Was the start of something good…” -Outkast, Elevators (Me & You)

Throughout the 1990’s, a new type of hip hop started bubbling up across the American South. Unlike its sample-driven cousins in New York and California, Southern hip hop dropped soulful keys, bluesy bass lines, and funky breaks played by live musicians on top of traditional drum machine programming. And although Houston and New Orleans helped lay the groundwork, the epicenter of the "Dirty South" was at the corner of Headland and Delowe, in the heart of Atlanta’s East Point neighborhood.

DISTINCTIVELY SOUTHERN
Out of its African American communities, the South sprouted blues, jazz, and gospel, creating the roots of all modern American music. And nowhere do you see this influence more than in Southern hip hop. Reflecting this rich cultural background, HEADLAND FLOW focuses on R&B instrumentation dropped on top of thick, loose grooves, and punchy drum machines.

A versatile toolkit, HEADLAND FLOW has been painstakingly recorded. Each vintage drum set was surrounded by over a dozen different mics all running from an analog mixing board to the SSL stereo bus compressor, giving each hit a penetrating sound that feels like it came from vinyl itself. Fender bass, Fender Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster and Les Paul guitars provide an authentic, analog vibe. While the Rhodes and Wurlitzer keyboards, flutes, and winds add melodic elements with atmospheric synths, harps, and strings for background texture.

HEADLAND FLOW was created in collaboration with Divided Souls.

ABOUT DIVIDED SOULS
Divided Souls is known for finding unique, soulful sounds to feed their samplers to create grooves that thump. By stressing quality over quantity, they have worked with Southern artists, including Scarface, 2 Chainz, and Killer Mike.

For the HEADLAND FLOW expansion pack, they wanted a more organic, sample-based approach giving each kit a looser, natural vibe. As they rolled the tape, the musicians were asked to play specific riffs and grooves with creative flexibility encouraged. After the session, they went through the takes like a sample hounds listening to records, meticulously listening for the spot-on lick that fit the vision of this kit.

Check out this Spotify playlist, specially curated by Divided Souls, for 10 tracks that defined the Southern hip hop sound.

AT A GLANCE: HEADLAND FLOW
Kits 51
Projects 7
Instruments 21
MASSIVE presets 24
Drum Synth patches 31
MONARK patches 7
REAKTOR PRISM patches 12
Total number of patterns 209
Sample breakdowns 129 instruments / 421 drums / 293 one shots / 24 loops
Library Size 248 MB

Home page: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/maschine/maschine-expansions/headland-flow/

DOWNLOAD: