jade tree

I’m jade tree, (Cara Best) a Canadian producer and multi-instrumentalist making boom bap hip hop beats and samples. I started playing drums at fourteen in my high school band, and after meeting some like-minded musicians, I got my start in the music scene. I played guitar and sang in a band, wrote and performed as a singer-songwriter, and spent years recording vocals for EDM producers. I moved to San Francisco in 2018, and drums were always the thing I came back to.

These days I record my own drums and my Rhodes 88, then run everything through tape-style saturation. I like it warm, a bit dirty, and loose enough that it still sounds played. Sometimes I play a break live and record it. Other times I build the beat by playing one-shots from my own live drum recordings on pads. Often I layer the two, mixing live and digital recordings so each sample ends up sounding like mine.

Everything I upload here is meant to be chopped, flipped, layered, and reworked, so use it however you like. My sample packs come out through my label, jade tree Sounds.

I also host jade tree Live, a monthly radio-podcast show where I play my favorite instrumental beats, new and old. It’s how I keep digging, and it’s where I share what’s inspiring me.
I keep the same love going year-round with my Golden Hour playlist, a growing collection of my favourite instrumental beats that I put together to support the community and the producers making them.

If you’re looking for live drums and warm keys to build on, I hope you find something here.