Yup, according to my approximation, which is actually really skewed considering I hardly listen to enough current music to give a thoroughly informed opinion on this matter of who are the best hip hop producers these days. But regardless of my apathy towards checking out all the new hip hop that comes out, I still have a decent enough idea of the landscape to know that if there aren't two white dudes in your top 5 current hip hop producers, you probably got something wrong. The first white (er, Jew) dude you should have in your top 5 is The Alchemist, who has been the producing game for a while and managed to maintain a certain high level of quality in his work through more than a decade, despite that he still chooses to work with a more or less washed-up Prodigy (of Mobb Deep) way too extensively. Why not work more with some younger rappers, Al? Maybe Prodigy has an arrangement where he forces Alchemist to make beats for him, who knows? Thankfully, Alchemist still puts out more than enough work outside of his collaborations with P, making him quite the prolific producer, in age where some rappers are known to releases dozens of shitty mixtapes/albums in the span of a year, Alchemist never lets quantity overtake quality.
The second is El-P, who's perhaps mainly known for being apart of great Run the Jewels nowadays, but more avid hip hop fans will know as the founder of now defunct indie label Def Jux, a label which had been producing some of the best underground hip hop for upwards of a decade up until a few years ago. Generally known for his dense, futuristic, boom bap-flavored beats, El-P is producing some of the most refreshing, yet true to golden era hip hop, rap music out there.
After that things get more arguable. Outside of the twos guys I just mentioned, we have dudes like Exile, Kno, Statik Seletah, Ant, Clams Casino, Edan, RDJ2, ect. Maybe DJ Shadow, but admittedly, I haven't heard much from him in a while. I also think that one homeless guy with the affinity for BBW, Cole James Cash, might be white, though it's hard to say exactly because he wears a mask all the time, but throw in there anyway for his popularity's sake. Then there's also the guy behind Kanye's production, Mike Dean, who's white.
Now, this is not to say that white producers in hip hop haven't been around for a while in hip hop. No, not at all, considering many of the people I listed have been around for a minute. Maybe it's just now that I'm realizing this. But I guess maybe the point here is that for all the terrible rap music that white people make, there's also a good deal of really talented white dudes making some of the best current hip hop to even it out a little.
The second is El-P, who's perhaps mainly known for being apart of great Run the Jewels nowadays, but more avid hip hop fans will know as the founder of now defunct indie label Def Jux, a label which had been producing some of the best underground hip hop for upwards of a decade up until a few years ago. Generally known for his dense, futuristic, boom bap-flavored beats, El-P is producing some of the most refreshing, yet true to golden era hip hop, rap music out there.
After that things get more arguable. Outside of the twos guys I just mentioned, we have dudes like Exile, Kno, Statik Seletah, Ant, Clams Casino, Edan, RDJ2, ect. Maybe DJ Shadow, but admittedly, I haven't heard much from him in a while. I also think that one homeless guy with the affinity for BBW, Cole James Cash, might be white, though it's hard to say exactly because he wears a mask all the time, but throw in there anyway for his popularity's sake. Then there's also the guy behind Kanye's production, Mike Dean, who's white.
Now, this is not to say that white producers in hip hop haven't been around for a while in hip hop. No, not at all, considering many of the people I listed have been around for a minute. Maybe it's just now that I'm realizing this. But I guess maybe the point here is that for all the terrible rap music that white people make, there's also a good deal of really talented white dudes making some of the best current hip hop to even it out a little.