At BC Studios, Beinhorn used a new Oberheim DMX drum machine to lay down a basic beat, and Laswell brought in Daniel Ponce to augment this with Afro-Cuban batá drums. Ponce played the three drums one at a time during three recording passes, to make it sound like three drummers invoking a Santería spirit. Grand Mixer D.ST came to the studio with two deejay friends from his group Infinity Rappers to scratch for the track, bringing his own vinyl which included "Change the Beat" by Fab Five Freddy, (which had been recorded in the same studio). D.ST found an interesting portion of the 12-inch vinyl near the end– the voice of manager Roger Trilling saying "Ahhh! This stuff is really fresh" through the studio's vocoder– and he scratched through that section. Trilling had been playing with the vocoder in the studio, mocking Elektra Records executive Bruce Lundvall who was in the habit of sitting back in his chair and declaring a song "fresh" if he liked it, without knowing that the word "fresh" was current in hip-hop subculture. This moment was captured on tape, and Laswell worked it into the conclusion of "Change the Beat".