Black Skinhead · Kanye West

100 bars of 4/4 at 125 BPM, about 3:12 of playing, on crash, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

Hip Hop / ReggaeElectronic120 to 149 BPMShuffle / triplet
TEMPO
125 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
100
LENGTH
3:12
DIFFICULTY
41/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 46% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7-9, 11-13 and 15-17, and 10 more places -- 46.3% of every bar the kit plays. Learn that one and most of the song is already under your hands.

LOOP · 125 BPM
BLACK SKINHEAD · BAR 7
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

100 bars across 17 sections: 73 keep time and 18 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 8-20.

CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART B
CHORUS 3
PART A
PART B
CHORUS 4
CHORUS 5
BREAK 4
OUTRO
9 groovesDBAIS16+4Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Black Skinhead?

125 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. The room plays it at any tempo from a quarter of that up to the written one, against the record where the record can follow.

Is Black Skinhead hard to play on drums?

41 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with how much of it falls off the beat the part that decides it. The beat itself is 32 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

100 bars, about 3:12 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 15 exercises over 5 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, snare, mid tom, floor tom and kick. Nothing in the part asks for anything else.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 100 BARS ANALYSED
MORE BY THIS BAND

Other Kanye West drum parts

EVERY KANYE WEST CHART →
AT THIS LEVEL

Play something else today

EVERY SONG A-Z →