Records and the case of the curious sample

I’m a pretty big nerd about hip hop. I’m mostly from an old school mentality but there are still a few hip hop artists that I follow today. VH-1’s Top 100 Hip-Hop Songs got me thinking (since when is Vh-1 then mecca for hip-hop, anyway? What happened to Rap City and Yo MTV raps??).

The funny thing about hip hop culture is that it’s based a lot on *ahem* ‘appropriating’ from other artists. This manifests in a couple of ways. The most obvious is sampling, using another person’s music and manipulating it so that you can rap over it, and also by using whole phrases and words in your songs. Back in the day, anything Rakim said pretty much was sampled in someone else’s track at some point. Sometimes it’s fantastic the results that this yields and sometimes it’s just terrible. I won’t even go into the legalities of ‘borrowing’ other artists music.

Also, hip hop cannibalizes itself, with MCs using phrases that other MCs have used before and changing certain words to fit their purpose. The other day I listened to GZA (from Wu-Tang) do an entire song (“Highway Robbery”) using the same frame work and flow of Big Daddy Kane’s “Ain’t no Half Steppin’”. It was so obvious that I’m guessing it was considered a tribute to BDK. Here’s an example. GZA says: “How come so much rap shit sound so similar, It’s so confusing for you to remember the Originator, paint sprayer, crafts innovators.” Big Daddy Kane said: “You have MCs coming out sounding so similar, It’s quite confusing for you to remember the Originator, and boy do I hate a Purplatrator.” Similar, no? And it’s like that throughout the song. Of course, in hip hop, “Ain’t no half steppin’” is pretty famous so I’m sure Gza knew when he wrote it that others would know it. This happens often with phrases but rarely have I seen whole versus go like that.

Sometimes MCs get ‘dissed’ because they do this without giving credit and this is called ‘biting’, which is kind of funny that artists that have built themselves on using other people’s beats and music and phrases would get mad when someone ‘bites’ their material. That is considered cheap and uninventive.

Anywho, I digress. Some hip hop groups chose really weird songs to pull from, which is often disorienting and awesome to hear someone rap over an unexpected beat or chorus. I’ve created a list of some of my favorite examples of unexpected samples.

1- "Blazing Arrow” by Blackalicious. This contains, of all things, a sample from Harry Nilsson’s “Me and my arrow”. I personally love Blackalicious and Nilsson so the marriage of the two is great to me and I flipped out the first time I heard it, but what a weird choice for sampling. The song is actually from a cartoon called “the Point” which Nilsson did the music for and wrote the story back in the 70s when everything made sense when you were high. Around the same time I heard Blackalicious’ version of the song I also heard Jurassic 5 sample Nilsson on J5’s song “Future Sound”, which samples the word “Two” from Nilsson’s song “One”.

2- “Diss You” by King Tee. King Tee is very underrated in my opinion. In the 80s and 90s, he sort of fronted the happy pimp/drug dealer attitude out of California. He’d talk about guns and things but he was also very funny and lighthearted at times, often attempting to have sex with a friend’s mom or something. In the early 90s, he came out with “Diss you” using the Rolling Stones’ “Miss you” as the music and rhythm. It had the same high pitched “doo-doo-doo”s but instead of Mick Jagger singing “I sure miss you”, King Tee said, “I should diss you”. Again, a lot of people probably found this blasphemus, but it was great and fun to me. I think it’s out of print now, possibly because he got sued or something.

3- “Say no go” by De La Soul. Speaking of lawsuits, De La Soul earned one by sampling Hall and Oates’ “I can’t go for that” and apparently they couldn’t go for that (no can do) and sued De La. Still, “Say no go” is a very dense song with multiple samplings going on all through it (thank you, Prince Paul) and something great that didn’t really happen much back in the day: a hip hop song with a story. I’ve always waited for someone to rap over Maneater, but so far that kiss hasn’t been on their list.

4- "Sometimes I rhyme slow” by Nice and Smooth. The backbone of this song was Tracey Chapman’s “You’ve got a fast car”. What?? Yep. And they made that track slam. Well Smooth B did. He tells the story about a girl he dated who was addicted to drugs and he tried to help. Greg Nice tells a story about…um, I don’t know. He kind of did free association rapping before it became popular. Favorite lines of the savant-like Nice in this is “I’m sweeter and thicker than a chico-stick, here’s an ice cream cone, honey, take a lick.” Yeah, didn’t make much sense then either, you know, beyond the sexual aspect. But yeah, Smooth B talking about the girl who was ‘riding the white horse’ really makes this song memorable.

5- “Take a look at my girlfriend” by Gym Class Heroes. Well, Supertramp. I love Supertramp. I’m learning to love Gym Class Heroes. I wonder how many folks had never heard that song before these guys dusted it off and made it their hook. What’s odd is that it sounds like someone else is singing it, not “The Tramp”. I respect in hip hop band that rhymes slow, because like say a distortion pedal in rock n’ roll, rhyming fast and muddling words covers mistakes. But rhyming slowly and clearly, you can hear bad lyrics and bad flow and you just can’t take shortcuts. Props to these guys for doing all that.


Now surprisingly, not every song ever written has been rapped over. So I offer a few missed songs that might be cool.

-Ben Folds' “Brick”. Sure Folds is using the brick analogy for the sinking feeling and feeling dragged down, but imagine how gangster it would be to talk about how you’re going to hit other MCs with a “Brick” and then you’ll be “Drowning slowly”. Whoever uses this sample can also say they abort MCs like fetuses. Hells yeah. Gangster shit. Sad, sad gangster shit.

-Jim Croce “Operator”. Sure, “Bad, bad Leroy Brown” is the obvious choice but no, “Operator” is the way to go. “Smooth ('Operator, can you help me place this call')”. Or maybe the song could be about a stripper who the guy wants to call or something. I don’t know. I don’t have any answers, but “Operator” sure is a great song and someone should crap it up.

-“Blood Roses” by Tori Amos. Am I a Tori fan? No. Is this song 'gangster'? Yes. I don’t think she needs someone to rap over it, she just needs a cameo on it. Maybe Busta Rhymes or Common. Who would Janet Jackson have? Maybe Q-Tip. I dunno. But this song is gang-ster. Maybe she could have Yo-Yo or some female rapper on it. Anyway, this song has it all. Sex, gay bashing, diamonds, and chicken heads. If you don't know what a chicken head is, you need to listen to some Project Pat. (Seriously, though, you don't need to listen to Project Pat.)