Brow Beat

Let Today’s Google Doodle Honor Hip-Hop History and Suck Your Time Away

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Google has made some brilliant high-concept interactive doodles over the years honoring everything and everyone from Pac-Man to Robert Moog to Freddie Mercury, but today’s doodle very well might be Google’s best yet.

In honor of the 44th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop, today’s interactive doodle is basically a super stripped-down version of FruityLoops that teaches users how to mix samples from tracks that were instrumental to hip-hop’s early days, like George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog” or The Lafayette Afro Rock Band’s “Darkest Light.” The doodle also features a short video tutorial narrated by hip-hop icon Fab 5 Freddy and the logo graphic was created by Cey Adams, the legendary graffiti artist.

The doodle really is inventive—aside from the turntable interface, you have the ability to pull records from an actual interactive record crate and you can also unlock achievements the more you play around with it.

According to an accompanying blog post, Google tapped Lyor Cohen, Youtube’s head of music and former head of Def Jam Records, to act as the project’s executive consultant.

“Hip Hop was also rebellion against several norms of the time, including the overwhelming popularity of disco, which many in the community felt had unjustly overshadowed the recent groundbreaking works of James Brown and other soul impresarios from the 60’s,” Cohen shares in the Google blog post. “Hip Hop was disruptive. Ultimately, to me, it shows that people in any situation have the ability to create something powerful and meaningful.”

Google’s tribute has caught a lot of peoples’ eye, most notably Questlove, who took to Instagram to share his thoughts on the doodle.

You can check out today’s Google doodle here. Be warned: It’s fun to play around with, somewhat addictive, and a glorious time suck—be sure to not let your co-workers catch you ignoring your responsibilities while you’re spending time on this thing trying to be the next Dilla.