One Song - Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z's "Crazy In Love"

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

How did “Crazy in Love” announce Beyoncé’s arrival as a solo superstar? Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY dig into this career-defining moment, breaking down the iconic Chi-Lites horn sample, Beyoncé���s commanding vocal performance, and an early demo from producer Rich Harrison that reveals how the song’s infectious hook came together. Songs Discussed: “Crazy In Love” - Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z “Flat Beat” - Mr. Oizo “Survivor” - Destiny’s Child “Independent Women Part I” - Destiny’s Child “Jumpin’ Jumpin’” - Destiny’s Child “Bootylicious” - Destiny’s Child “Work It Out” - Beyoncé “‘03 Bonnie & Clyde” - Jay-Z feat. Beyoncé “Me and My Girlfriend” - 2Pac “I Used to Love H.E.R.” - Common “I Gave You Power” - Nas “Bonnie and Clyde” - Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainbourg “Dilemma” - Nelly feat. Kelly Rowland “Why Don’t We Fall In Love” - Amerie “Are You My Woman? (Tell Me So)” - The Chi-Lites “Oh Girl” - The Chi-Lites “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” - Beyoncé “Talkin’ About” - Amerie “1 Thing” - Amerie “Get Right” - Jennifer Lopez “Part Time Punks” - Television Personalities “Blessings” - p-rallel & Sam Deeley One Song Spotify Playlist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Crazy, baby. Come and looking so crazy right now. Hold on. Oh, that's the note. That's the note. That's the note. That's my favorite note in the whole song. Luxury, today, we're talking about the song

that marked a turning point for one of the most influential artists of all time. The moment she stepped into solo Superstarter. That's right, Diallo. This song was everywhere when it came out. It topped the charts for eight straight weeks, took home not one but two, grandmas. and just as importantly, remains a cultural touchstone, arguably laying the foundation for everything that followed in her career.

And several other people's careers, too. I'm so excited because we have the demo. That's right. We have the demo for this breakout song. We're talking one song, and that song is Crazy in Love by Beyonce, featuring Jay-Z. If you're a fan of one song, you already know you're into the deeper story, the culture and circumstances behind unforgettable music moments, especially when the history gets complicated. That's exactly what the new season of La Brega explores.

Season three of the critically acclaimed bilingual podcast dives into cultural battlegrounds, from courtrooms to boxing rings to the global stage. It's a story of Puerto Rican champions and what they can teach us about identity. Listen to La Brega wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, one song listeners, if you love our show, you should check out Trappital, the podcast where technology meets culture. Each episode, Trappital hosts and founder, Dan Runcie, digs into the strategy behind the media and technology that drives our attention.

You'll hear Trappital explore topics like YouTube's growing influence in music and entertainment, the never-ending saga about TikTok's future, and how AI is shaping the future. Media is one of the first industries to get disrupted by new tech. It's Trappital's job to keep you ahead of the latest trends. You can listen to Trappital wherever you get your podcast. That's Trappital, T-R-A-P-I-T-A-L. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Dialla Riddle. And I'm a lover, not a fighter, but I'm also producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury,

aka the guy who whispers, interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before, and you can watch one song on YouTube. While you're there, please like and subscribe. So today we're talking about my fellow Virgo, Queen Bee, Beyonce. I'm, she's just like me in so many ways.

I think that every time I look at your face. I'm like, wow, that's Beyonce. There's just some artists in the world that you feel a connection to and you can't put your finger on line. Beyonce, I understand her. I agree. What is the connection? I mean, we're literally just Virgo's in common.

But also, what does that mean to the unanimity? To me, the meticulous detail and the perfectionism and the vision boards and world domination plans, like, you see that in her every like utterance. And I don't have the world domination maybe to that degree. But like, I recognize, I recognize a vision boards. I recognize a version of. if it was me like times 1,000 times 10 million.

It's like those YouTube videos like a thousand luxuries against one of Beyonce. I might have a fighting chance, maybe. I think you might. I think you might. So Dialla, when was the first time you heard crazy in love? I don't know exactly the first time I heard it, but I do know that this song marked a major shift in my DJing.

Because before this song, I will say I was strictly and like proudly an underground DJ. Like if it was a Carl Craig remix, if it was the Extra P remix, of a hip-hop song than like nobody outside the hip-hop culture was into that was my lane but i remember i was doing this party and the people who hired me they really wanted to hear this song so i was like all right they're paying me i'll give them what they wanted and i'll never forget not only when

i put this song on did the dance floor go bananas it like went crazy from the first note probably right from the first note but like that the way that this song is mixed the way that those the the the bass pumps out at the very beginning of the song. I just remember seeing the speaker kind of rattle and shake. Like that, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. Like it just, it moved.

It all moved. And I was just like, oh, this is why people play popular songs. And I remember thinking, this is going to change what I, what I spin. And I remember looking at my DJ friend who was there.

He just shook his head like, ah, you sold out, riddle. Your DJ sets were pure till now. Quick question. So you'd probably heard the song before. But the context of doing it in a dance context, DJ context with big speakers, people responding to the music, that gave you a different impression of the same song that hadn't made as much of an impression on you separately?

Absolutely. There are a couple of songs, I think, that when you hear them played loud, they take on a totally different personality. Yes. You know, I'm thinking about Mr. Oizo's flat beat. I heard, I saw that ad on a commercial. And I was like, that's pretty cool. But then when I heard it, come out of actual club speakers, all of a sudden, that one, well, like, I was like, oh, this is strange and perfect.

Blu-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W. Yeah, so good. And it was kind of the same way with Crazy in Love. When I heard it loud in a club, not playing out of a distant car or even through some headphones, it just took on a different personality. Maybe we're laying the groundwork for a theory about why the song is so big and iconic. It's infectious. It's right out of the gate because it is a great radio song and it's a great dance floor song.

Yes. And it was an immediate, like, wedding favorite and Bar Mitzvah favorite. it's that kind of song that gets people to the dance floor. Absolutely. Within three milliseconds of hearing the first hornstab. It comes in. It takes you by the throat and it's yours for the next three and a half minutes. What about you, my man?

What was the first time you heard this song or it affected you? I remember seeing a copy of or buying a copy of this British magazine called The Face, which I would buy regularly. It was like in 2003 before there were blogs and kind of other touchstones and ways to get your like taste making cultural curation done. beyond the radio and the obvious things. Magazines. Like, I was a big magazine dude,

especially British import magazines. And the face was just one of my favorite. They had great interviews and just really deeply tasteful. Like, they found the cool kind of deeper stuff beyond the, you know, the top layer of pop culture. But also, this cover had Beyonce on the cover. Something about it was like, this is, I was in an indie rock moment where I was starting my band.

I was deeply enmeshed in indie rock and like getting my stuff together for my own. San Francisco scene, you know, putting posters at the whole nine rehearsing. I was deep in that space. So I wasn't really listening to the radio or paying attention to pop culture. But this, the Face magazine cover with Beyonce on it for this song was like, I want to find out what this is. Yeah. I'm curious. Wonderfully in this moment, there was Limewire, right? There were these early kind of file sharing methods pre-spotify, pre- YouTube. There's no YouTube yet. So this might have been one of my first like LimeWire downloads just to kind of like

the statute of limitations is on your side. I'm sure that Beyonce's not going to come and be like, give my 99. I'm not going to R I double A jail for this one. But I love that you brought up line wire. I have not thought about line wire and so love. It was so important. Dude, it was so important, especially as a DJ.

I was a vinyl guy, but this is around this period 2002, 2003, I think I was just starting to always keep like a little case logic of CDs by my side. Yeah. Just in case like, you know, if a record skipped or something, like that. Like you could just pop in a CD, keep the dance floor going while you figured out what was wrong with your needles or something like that. But yes, I was a limewar. Lineware allowed you to go down the rabbit hole. Right. In a time before MP3s were just getting easily downloaded.

One forgets that there was a moment when you couldn't just reach in your pocket and listen to every song ever made. Ever made. Yes. If you wanted to. Streaming, way before MP3 downloading, though. You know, like in the sense of like going to somebody's blog and like downloading it. There was a ton of that. No, like we were coming out of Napster. Yeah. And Napster had gotten famously shut down by, you know, the members of Batalica and others. Yeah.

But then LimeWire sort of slid in the back door. Can I tell you my origin? What is your first LimeWire down there? My first line. So I was really into this electronic artist, I think he's Scottish, named Milo. Yes. And he had a song called in My Arms. Impossible to understand an interview, level Scottish, yes.

I really liked the song in my arms. And I knew that it had a sample and I looked it up. And the internet was able to tell me the song. could not find this. I couldn't find it in Meeba Records. I couldn't find it anywhere. He had sampled a song called Waiting for a Star to Fall by Boy Meets Girl. Let's play a second of that.

One of the things that I love about music is sometimes you can take something completely cheesy and turn into something very, very cool. So this is the song The Sample, this is In My Arms by Milo. I love how he took those cheesy lyrics, put it, you know, on top of a bed of Kim Carnes, Betty Davis eyes and then suddenly made a song that was like powering all our fun sort of like electronic pool parties that song. Oh, it's great. And that was one of Milo's geniuses.

That was kind of his mission statement. It takes something that is just not cool or just something from that forgotten 80s moment. Forgotten 80s. Yeah, yeah. We should do another episode. Bring it back. Only about forgotten 80s. Maybe it'll come on our freestyle episode.

But like there's like a sound from like post-badonna Prince Michael Jackson, but pre-Nirvana that I feel like doesn't get discussed a whole lot. We'll do that on a future episode. So leading up to Crazy in Love, Beyonce had already had a massive career with Destiny's Child. They were one of the biggest girl groups going into the 2000s, and she even co-wrote some of their biggest hits. We've got Survivor. Independent Women, Part 1.

Jumping, Jumping. And Bootylicious. What's cool is that Stevie Nix actually shows up in the video. So on top of that iconic opening with like the sort of like push in zooms and each person getting their moment to shine, you've got Stevie Nix in the video. And Stevie Nix went out of her way to show her support of this burgeoning young star Beyonce. It wasn't just collecting a check. Because she would have been like 19, right? Beyonce was like 19 to 2001.

She was very young of this. Yeah. 19 or 20. Yeah. So after their album Survivor, Desti's Child announced that they were going on hiatus for a little bit to focus on their solo projects. In 2002, Beyonce released her very first solo single. And no, it was not crazy in love. This blew my mind, okay?

The first solo single by Beyonce is, in fact, the song, Work It Out from the Austin Powers movie Gold member. She, of course, played Fox and Cleopatra in this movie. The track, hold on, this is what kills me. The track was produced by the Neptunes. They had Sheila E on drums. And, guys, this song did not even crack the Billboard Hot 100. I cannot believe you have Beyonce. debut.

Neptunes. Shocking. Didn't even chart. Even a movie to boost it. And a movie to boot. Yeah. Let's play Work It Out. I've never heard this song in my life. You haven't?

I'm not a fan of that at all. Oh, I disagree. I like this song a lot. A lot of children's toys getting stepped on. Oh, man. I like this song a lot. And let me just say this. I think the reason this did not chart is because they were clearly going for a song

in a period piece movie. and I don't think Black Radio, much less pop radio. Beyonce wasn't at that point yet where she can come out with a song that is, in terms of genre, this much of a throwback. I definitely know. Like a 70s, like, exploitation shaft kind of vibe is what they were going for or something?

Like, I'm sure that Clear Channel and some of the other big conglomerates had already started purchasing radio at that time. Yeah. So the big, you know, R&B and rap stations in all your major cities, they had a very like they had a much more limited range of what they were playing so you got to imagine this 2002 like I mean like what's what's being played right now like it's some Neptune songs but there wasn't like a whole lot of place on the radio for a song this far out and left field you know what I mean so I think it makes actually sense if you think about where radio was and radio was the primary way that most people were still getting their music in 2002 that this song was just too strange yeah too out there it was it was too too much of a throwback, and I've said on this show before, most of the time, there have been exceptions, but most of the time in black culture and black radio, we don't do

retro the same way. And this song felt very retro. It felt very, it almost reminds me of that Nika Kasa song, Like a Feather, which was Mark Ronson's, I believe, first, you know, major production. Can I ask you about that when you say not the same way? Are you saying it was too retro without an addition of something modern to kind of mix it? That often happens? Like sampling with the drum machine, et cetera, et cetera, that kind of thing. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

I'm saying that, like, if you think about some of the songs on voodoo, like DiAngelo and Questlove are going after a sound that is not a radio sound. Yeah. You know, so when you listen to Black Radio at that time, like, there's still very exciting stuff happening right on the edge of both street culture and, like, brand new music. So Missy was really big. When I think about the fact that to this day,

If you go to your city's blues venue, it ain't filled with like a whole bunch of black people. You know what I mean? Like it's usually like a bunch of like older white guys playing their favorite Robert Johnson or something like that. But I feel like for most of my lifetime, black music has ferociously charged forward in some direction. You can like it or dislike it. But it's not concerned with like the blues of the 1950s. It's not really overly concerned these days with James Brown. and, you know, there's like a little bit of love for Stevie Wonder because he can just blow his heart out, you know, he can sing.

But, yeah, just black culture doesn't do that the same way. It's just different. And I would argue that one of the reasons, one of the things that kept this song back is the fact that is so decidedly retro. So even though it's got this grade A pedigree of 2002, it's not going to get played on Hot 97. This doesn't sound like a song is going to get played on Power 106. Yeah, it made, I think you nailed it. I think it's just not modern enough. Yeah.

despite having, you know, this pedigree of artist that's insane. So around this time, early 2000, Beyonce and Jay-Z becomes something of an item. Now, obviously, they're years away from getting married. There was also talk about, like, maybe she likes Sean Paul. Maybe she likes this guy. There was a lot of speculation. I think it's very on brand for the couple that they became, that instead of addressing these rumors head on,

they actually released a song together. And that song, their first collabo, was 03 Bonnie and Clyde. It's off of Jay Z's album, Blueprint 2. Let's hear a little bit of this song. And that course, a clear interpolation of this two-pot song. Jesus Christ, man. Do I got to do everything around you? I'm sorry, I said the quiet part loud.

Here's what they were. Interpolating. It's Tupac's me and my girlfriend off of his Machia Belli album. Now, if you really want to go down a rabbit hole, I just think there was like this very distinct trend, maybe in the 10-year period between 93 and 2003, when Bonnie and Clyde comes out, where people were coming out with songs,

which were ostensibly about a relationship, but they were always about something. The girl in the song was always something else. So I would say that it starts with common, and I used to love her. I met this girl when I was 10 years old, and what I love most, she had so much soul. She was old school when I was old school,

That's why her is h.e. And he's really talking about, it's not a girl, it's talking about hip hop. But then Nas did a song where the girl is his gun. He talks about how the gun gets manufactured and it gets shipped to the States and it gets passed off to this kid on the street. And that was a song called, I gave you power from 96.

I was made to kill. That's why they keep me concealed. Under car seats, they sneak me in clubs, pin in the hands of man thugs. They feed me when they load me with man. And then in 97, Tupac, you know, posthumously, came out with a song called Me and My Girlfriend, where he, too, talks about his girlfriend, but his girlfriend is his gun. Yeah.

And then Jay-Z and Beyonce came out with Bonnie and Clyde, where, just from the very first note, the look for me, like Jay-Z says that, that's directly tied to the Tupac. That's how Tupac starts his song. Right. And the chorus is a direct interpulation. I love it. of the Tupac song, but this is the first time, ironically,

that the girlfriend in the song is actually a woman. It's actually Beyonce. So it has all these layers of meaning. So it kind of came full circle. Which are there if you know about them or look for them. But you can also just enjoy the song on its own. Us and the hip-hop community, we were talking about these things, you know what I mean?

And like, so it was just like, oh, snap. So now Jay-Z is keeping it, you know, he's got another song sort of in that vein. But now this time, the girl is a woman. And add to those layers of meaning, the fact that Bonnie and Clyde is a song is already the Serge Gansborg, Brigitte Bardot version. Which, of course, is based on the like real life story, maybe the movie.

So there's many, many layers of meaning. By the way, can I just say, I would love to do a surge episode. He was one of my favorite artists of all time at one point in my life. Histoire de Melody Nelson is one of my favorite albums of all time. Maybe we can squeeze that in at some point. So dangerously in love the record, this would have been Beyonce's debut, was going to come out in 2002, but then Kelly comes out with Dilemma. Oh, yes, the song with Nellie, absolutely.

Absolutely hit record. And once this song blew up, then Mr. Knowles, Matthew, Beyonce's father, decided to push the release of her debut a little further in the future to give a little space from the huge hit that was Dilemma. And during these delays, Beyonce continues working on her album. During this time, she meets an up-and-coming producer from Washington, D.C., named Rich Harrison, who I think is one of our un-hmm. Unsung hero.

I agree. He is officially now the unsung hero of this episode. Listen, it's not that he's not famous, but like, you know, the 20,000 gave us, you know, the Neptunes and Kanye West and all these names. But I feel like Rich Harrison absolutely needs to be in that conversation. In the conversation is the way it should be. I agree. So many good songs for Mary J. Blige, Kelly Rowland.

And I feel like he is the reason why we know A. Marie because he has produced so many of my favorite songs by here. Here's one of my all-time favorites for the entire decade. of music that was in 2000s. This is, why don't we fall in love by Amory? Woo! That song goes so hard. I love that song.

Have you heard that song before? I didn't know that one. That was a smooth. Great, great song. It's smooth, but it actually hits. It hits hard. Like, I love how he gets the drawings. Yeah.

Yeah. We're going to talk more about Rich Harrison's sparkling production in the second half of the show. We're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're not only going to hear Beyonce Noles's isolated vocals. We're going to hear the, demo. Yes, the demo for Crazy Love, it's not on YouTube. It's not out there until we are putting it out

there, ironically on YouTube. When we get back, when we get back. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move

is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence. And accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. Welcome back to One Song. Now we're about to dive into the stems of crazy and love, co-written and co-produced by Rich Harrison. From what I understand, Rich already had the beat and was just waiting for the right artist to use it. Luxury, help us break down this beat and what makes it so iconic. All right, let's do

it. So we're going to start with the iconic sample, the source of the sample. There are two samples, but they're both from the same song. Okay. So let's listen to both of them. The source is the song by the shylights called Are You My Woman, Parentheses, Tell Me So from 1970 Brunswick Records. And the record label is relevant.

We'll get to that in a little bit. First of all, here's the song. I'll play it from the beginning and you'll hear both of the samples. Here comes, loop one. These two bars right here. And that's Loop 2 right here, those two bars.

And that's the song. That is so cool. I love this. This is the part of sampling that I love, hey, don't tell me it's not an art. That song has been around for decades before Rich comes across it and loops it and turns into one of the biggest singles of all time. But also, I love all the live instrumentation, all the drums, all that's happening

musically there. So I'm going to quote, quote, quote, recreate the sample, but I'll basically show you how Rich Harrison flipped it. So he started with that first loop, those first two bars I pointed out. The original song is at 113BPM and it's in C major. But he pitches it down a whole step to, half steps, and he drops down the tempo about 14 BPM. Let's see how that happened.

So here's that first loop. So he took that, pitched it down to. So that now sounds like this. And I can be guilty of like, okay, all pitches are even. Like all the keys are a little bit, but they're not. And like deep musicians will even go to the mat for like, you know, well, spinal tap. D minor is the saddest key.

There's something to that because there's a difference in how those songs sound. I really agree with this idea. Just at different key in different keys. You know, and I'm not a person as listeners of the show know who can talk in terms of like, gee, you know, an A major and all that. Like, I can't. Look, it's a sore, I'm sad about it. I'm D minor about where I am when it comes to these keys.

But what I will say is, but I will say it's a, I think you're sharp. Thank you, sir. I think that like whenever I do go look and see like a bunch of songs that I like, Certain keys pop up way more than other. And I'm not even talking about songs that make me happy. I'm talking about songs I think sound good. It's not just the tonality, although that is a part of it. Now, let's shift the tempo in addition to the pitch.

We're going to go from 113 v.m to roughly 99 BPM. I really want to emphasize, I only did two things, but the transformation was dramatic. Here's the original again. The energy is so much more vibrant. It's a parade. And there's a little bit of, it's a little darker, slowed down. and pitch down and it hits harder.

And I haven't even added what Rich added. We'll do that in just a way in real quick and say, like, as a DJ, when this song came out, one of the things that made us stand out is, you know, we were still pretty close to the 90s. Most of your favorite hip-hop songs from the 90s range from anywhere as absolutely slow as like 82, 84, and then the fastest songs, I'd say, were usually like 94-95. The fact that this song came in at 99, it was actually faster. It was pretty fast.

It actually kind of started to break a certain barrier, a BPM barrier, if you will, in hip hop that said, oh, you can still come in at 99. Jay-Z, who was actually known for a faster style of rapping at the very beginning of his career, is rapping faster here than he is on something like, let's say, dead presidents or something like that. Like, it's kind of breaking some barriers just in a pure technical what's acceptable in hip-hop sense. So it's important to, like, point out a couple things about what we just heard. So the Shy Lights are a four-piece vocal group. of Chicago.

With hits. I mean, like, Shil-Ly's have hits. Let's play probably their biggest hit is from 1972. This is O'Girl. I love the Shail Lights. I did not realize this. They were essentially the singers of the group. And we know very little about the musicians who actually play on this track.

That's important. We're going to go back to, we have many episodes where we talk about how what you're hearing in the song is often disconnected to who's in the credits, who's credited, and frankly, who gets paid. So that's why it's relevant. To bring back our old friends of the show, sample phantoms and credit ghosts. two expressions that I have coined to label this phenomenon and will be in my forthcoming book on Oxford University Press being released this summer, How to Steal Music.

Pre-order your copy, not yet. The question of who performed the music we just heard is one of my biggest failings on this show. And I'm going to ask the One Song Nation for help on this. I'm going to tell you what I found. We're going to talk about it. And if you know anything more about the horn players you just heard, the bass player you just heard, and the drummer you heard, We'd love to hear about it. It's almost like the record label has suppressed this information. I mean, like, we should say Brunswick has sort of a shady pass. Like they got wrapped up in like the Paola case in 1975.

Let's talk about that. So Brunswick Records is sort of a pre-Motown Motown in that they had sessions. Well, they were around in the 1920s. They've been around forever. Forever. Right. They have a long story history. Go check out their website.

For their own accounting of the label's history includes this. But not their accounting. They don't publish it. That's also there. But their own website says, quote, working at Brunswick's New York office in the 70s was surreal. Promotion meetings would talk about determining how much cash, TVs, and stereos were needed to break a record.

To be clear to your younger viewers, they're not literally breaking a record. Breaking a record was to promote and to sell a record. Using payola, in this case. Using cash. Visitors would include baseball players, actors, mobsters, young Reverend Al Sharpton. And you might walk into the office of the president

to find him smoking a joint with soupy sales or Louis Armstrong. Well, the Paola thing is relevant because they were the target of a Nixon Justice Department investigation. Federal agents raided the office. This is the history of this record label. And besides being like an amusing story of like, you know, near do wells of, you know, music business, nearer do wells. It's relevant because we simply don't know the names of who those musicians are. They're not listed on the album. They're not listed on the website. My deepest of deep dives all across discogs and everything led to not a single name. So I'll play the horn loop again without the beats that Rich Harrison added,

and then I'll throw them in so you can hear what that does to the loop. With the beats, that snare makes it more driving. Such a difference. And, you know, all this time that I've been living with this song, I thought that he had maybe added, like, you know, an actual bass guitar or something in there, because just by editing that 808, I hear more bass there than in just the sample itself.

I believe there's some bass added as well. Okay. I don't know if he played. It might be an actual base. Do you think there are any live instruments that Rich has added here? Or is it just sample and maybe like... It's very possible because I know he has the skills. I know that he is a player of instruments.

Maybe even keyboard bass might be happening there. There's also just in the original sample, though, that eighth note, dun, dun, don't, that throbbing bass line is in there. Here's the sample by itself again, just as a reminder. But I think he, to your point before, of combining the old and the new. Yeah. I think the addition of both what we heard, which is, an 808 kick, another kick from an unknown sample source, and what sounds like it could be

an 808 snare? I'm not really sure. But those drum machine and sampled beats on top of the original loop make it sound really modern, at least to my ear. I'll just play that beat again, and then I'll add the sample. So that's a super modern MPC sounding beat. And that little glistando at the end is so key. But?

Yeah, absolutely. Got to know who these guys are. They glissondoed, they staffed. They did all this valuable work in the horn section to give us that hook, that hooky hook. Okay, now let's play that second loop. It sounded like this originally. I love that. We don't have enough of that anymore.

We should bring that back. Bring back the Bowser, kind of like. This guy with a really deep voice. Yeah. So that percussion loop was pitched down two half steps, a whole step like this. Doesn't sound that much different. But then when you shift the BPM, drop the tempo about 14. BPM, we get this.

And by the way, let's not forget that stab at the very beginning. Super crucial. Those horn players did a lot of work on this tune, right? So those are the two sample chops from the same song, and we heard that they are in sequence. And that forms the bedrock of the tune. Now, this part

is really interesting because in the original, the timekeeping is a little, it's really funky and is really syncopated. Listen to that kick to Enando. One, E, and a two E, and a one E and a two E and a. It's a syncopated 16th note, two E and a. But it doesn't have that...

It's very dancer-friendly. I can see like, one-e-e-e-e-one-a-oh. It's very kind of Latin. It's got a little bit of a like salsa groove or something like that. I also see like belly dancers. Like, you know, I feel like I'm being seduced by the rhythm. There's a wiggle. It's got a wiggle to it. Yeah, absolutely.

So what he added to that, I'll just play for you the beats that Rich Harrison added. By the way, that whistle is really buried, but you hear it kind of pop up a little bit. Is that from him? It's in his tracks, and I think it actually might be a simpty code. It might be simpty. I'm not actually sure what the origin of that whistle is. Rich Harrison famously hard to find. He's not on Instagram.

There's not a lot of interviews with him. He seems like that kind of guy. A little elusive on the explanation. I get so I see it. And I love the drums on this song. I think I hear a little bit of a go-go influence, a little bit of a, DC influence, not in terms of even how the music is played, but just how it ultimately comes across. When you go to DC, some of the foundation of Go-Go was people going to DC and there'd be kids

beating on those empty paint buckets. And so that idea of like a lot of percussion, like this is almost like the opposite of what the Neptunes are doing right now, because their stuff is so stripped down a minimalist in its perfectly perfected way. But like what Ridge is doing feels more like it could be like a little bit of 808, but a whole bunch of those kids being on those paint buckets, you know what I mean? Like that was my first thought when I heard this and so many of his other really big songs,

they always have like really active percussion all over the place. Yes. To drive the point home about what Rich's production did, as much as what we're hearing is super simple here, right? Remember that this percussion loop originally had this like, where's the one kind of feeling? It's not driving you, it's not giving you a downbeat

and a backbeat in a very explicit way, I would say. So by adding that, it adds up to this. Boom, that's him. Now we're going, one, two. Can I pitch a theory? I think he thinks that that stab that you mentioned earlier is doing the word. That stab is on the one. So that's what's going to carry you through not just four, but eight bars.

I think that's right. I think you're right. That's like the one, the James Brown one. That's very James Brown, the one, because once you have that locked in, you can get kind of loose and maybe float around a bit. But then if you get a little bit lost at the end of the two-bar loop, we're going to get you right back home with that stab. So this is a story that I love.

So apparently, like, Rich had been holding on to this beat for just the right artist. And when Beyonce was like, hey, let's have a meeting. Like, he was like, yes, okay, this is it. This is the artist that I want. And, you know, sometimes it happens with this creatives. You get so happy that, like, you know, this dream collaboration is coming. You celebrate too soon. He went out and he went freaking hard.

He decides he's going to go out. he's going to have a great time. He went a little too far, and he shows up the next day late and hung over. So he's not really pleasing the queen in his presence. Rich plays the beat that we just heard, and she's not totally sold yet. She wasn't completely sold.

So she tells him she's going to step out real quick and basically grab a birthday gift for Kelly, Kelly Rowling. And when she comes back, she says she wants to hear what else he has. Exactly. And importantly, before she steps out, interestingly, and importantly, she happens to look in the mirror and says to herself and Rich in the room,

man, I am looking real crazy right now. So then she leaves the room. Rich sits down, he's got two hours with his beat, and he's got to come up with something for her to love in two hours. And this is the demo he puts together. That's Rich. That's Rich? That's Rich Harrison with the hook.

And here's verse one. I'm going to stay so deep in your eyes. I touch to you more and more at a time. When you leave, I'm begging you not to call. Call your name two, three, top. And I'm going to cut to the chorus. Wow. He came up with all that.

And then he came up with this. And this. That's all he did. Nothing much. Genius. What a freaking monster. Yeah. That is insane.

He's a beatmaker. He's a songwriter. He's a singer. He does it all. As a friend of mine would say, just stop. That's dumb. Yeah, that is hell of dumb, bro. That's so good. Yeah. It's all there minus the bridge, which is majorly important. And we will be talking about and giving Shine Tune a minute. There's no Jay Zverse. But the song, crazy in love, was ready for Beyonce when she came back. So much respect. You can come up with that much of the song, especially under pressure.

Like, you know, people don't understand that stupid. Video time costs money. The artist sometimes doesn't have a whole lot of, sometimes they don't have a lot of time. The fact that under pressure, he was able to come up with that much. And then for Beyonce to use her genius to then translate it, you know,

and to put it into it into the money. Yes. Layers and sections that didn't exist from that. So dope. Drum roll, please. And now we are giving you Miss Beyonce Knowles' isolated vocals.

I look at stairs so deep in your eyes. I touch on you more and more every time. When you leave, I'm begging you not to go. Call your name two, three times in the row. I really like something I didn't really notice before, which is that, Adirschi says something like, I look and stare so deep in your eyes. And then, like, second layer is like, eyes.

You know what I mean? And then like, time. But, like, it's not like a typical, like, time, time. Like, it's like, it comes well into the next line of the lyrics. That's pretty fun. Yeah. Rich Harrison, I would have never thought that he would have supplied the uh-ohs, you know, maybe everything else in the song.

of it, not the uh-ohs. That might have been my biggest surprise, too. Yeah, I think that Rich Harrison, not just the lyrics, not just the melody, not just the verse and course, but also the hook, the uh-oh hook, that was pretty major. Reveillance to hear that in the demo there. Let's hear those uh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-no-no. Oh, no, no. Uh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh. I love that this chorus came about in the organic matter that everything from rehab by A. me Winehouse. So many of these songs, they just start with a conversation.

Totally. Control Janet Jackson. Let's hear the iconic chorus of Grazy and Love. For crazy right now. To touch. Got me hoping you page me right now. Your kids got me hoping you save me right now. Looking so crazy your loves.

Got me looking, got me looking so crazy your love. And that three part harmony wasn't in the original. I mean, that's, no. Is that all, we can assume that's all Beyonce, right?

That sounds like three Beyonce's, maybe, maybe, you know, 12 Beyonce is stacked up. It's beautiful harmony, like chilling. I think my favorite new line in the entire song is got me hoping you'll page me right now, which I don't think the kids,

they're like, what does that mean? Look it up, Skytale. So, Beyonce is not the only vocalist on this song. Jay-Z, also on the song, I love the story about how he got added to the song at the 11th hour. Like, you know, they wanted him on the song. He comes, he records this whole thing in like 10 minutes and leaves. Yeah.

But I think it's, one of the most memorable and one of the most memorized JZ versus of all time. Let's hear Jay-Z on Crazy in Love. Star like wringo, war like a green prorette. That's right. You crazy bring your whole set. Jay-Z in the range. Crazy in the range.

They can't figure them out. They like dancing insane. I'm just going to pause there because there's some wonderful, I'd never notice until I heard it in the stems. Yeah. But in that little section, we actually hear Beyonce singing along with the horns that come in in that moment. Oh, I didn't hear that. I never noticed that.

But now you'll never unhear it again. Here it is. So, Destiny's Child. So chills. Wow. I didn't hear that part before. I never noticed it,

but now you'll never unhear it when you listen to the regular song. It's in there. I'll tell you what I'll never be able to unhear is just the degree to which Jay-Z's flow. This is why it's impossible. People think they can get up a karaoke

nice to do Empire State of mine. But you can't because he's so on and off the flow so much like the Tony's soprano, the rock, Hanno, like Van Exel, like, that stuff is not like a typical sort of like on the bar rhyme scheme. Like, it's, it's very on and off the rhythm in a way that I feel like only Jay-Z can do. He said in the past, he wanted to do with rap, with Sinatra done with singing, which was not really focused on like singing in the traditional way, but sort of finding it, swinging it, swinging it the whole way through. I also like how he says Barrett to make it rhyme

would bring your whole set. And by the way, I have so much respect for Jay. Jay Z's verse, when you actually hear it isolated and you realize all the intricate sort of like synchipation he's doing lyrically through this verse. It did not have to be this good. He clearly cared about delivering like an amazing feature. All right, it's time to get to the bridge. And I think, you know, Beyonce's got some killer bridges. This is one of the most insane bridges in a good way of all time. Yeah, let's talk about Beyonce and her bridges because this is where she, in a lot of songs, tends to just sort of take it to a really new place and do some of her most incredible work, both vocally,

but also like strange things happen with arrangements. We get extra bars, we get dropouts in the harmony. It just goes to a new place. It's almost like another song is in there briefly in the middle of this other incredible song. I can't agree more. This song is not only no exception. It's neck in neck.

Fight me for which song is the best Beyonce bridge. It's either this one or single ladies. Let's listen and fight in the room. afterwards, as I don't know what the right answer is. I'm foolish, I don't do this, I've been playing myself, baby, I've got your love's got the best on me. And I left out the part where we then transition into this like crazy over-the-top ad lip. Crazy, baby. Come and look at so crazy right now.

Oh, that's the note. That's the note. That's one note that where I pointed to you, that's my favorite note. favorite known the whole song. Yeah, because she's like, you know, so crazy. Like she goes, she starts going minor while her, you know, Beyonce backup singers. There's no doubting that Rich Harrison wrote a lot of what this song is as a song and maybe, in arguably the bulk of all of these hooks, the melodies, the lyrics, and Beyonce, it's a yes and situation. And Beyonce comes in. And Beyonce comes a killer performance, murders it based on what's on paper, so to speak, and then adds to it.

What's so interesting about the bridge there is like, as she doesn't, with so many songs. Like in single ladies, it's not your typical eight bar, middle eight bridge. It's like 12 bars. This song, it's 10 bars long. And that's really part of what makes the magic happen, because the added two bars, your brain, you've heard so many songs with bridges that are eight bars that it's like, where is she going? You get wonderfully lost. I think she takes it in these directions that are unexpected melodically. And the tension that's built by extending it and added two bars is part of the magic. It all comes together

in this really special way that makes this neck and neck for my favorite bridge with single ladies. He left out a deja vu is another Beyonce song with an outstanding bridge.

So is that our fight-in-me I'm going single ladies you're going to deja-voo? You know what? I'm actually going to say I'm going to go the Rich Harrison round and say I think that the bridge

that everybody in the world is sleeping on is actually one of the bridges that he did for Emery. Let's play the bridge from talking about. Let'sry, what can you tell us about the splits on this song? All right, so Rich Harrison is 37.5% of the 100% publishing pie.

Ms. Knowles is herself 7.5%. Mr. Carter, JZ, gets 5%. And half of the publishing on Crazy and Love goes to Eugene Record from the Shilites. Wow. 50% of the publishing. Can I just say a part of me is really happy about that because usually I feel like, you know, these old black musicians and singers don't get a big piece of the pie.

So I'm actually happy that happened here. We love it when black musicians get paid, but none of the musicians we heard. All of the sample phantoms are not getting paid. And this is not only a sample phantom situation. It's also what I call credit ghosts, because Eugene Rucker is in the credits, but he's not in the song.

He's the sole songwriter of the original Shylight song. Therefore, he's the only one in the credits in the Beyonce song, you're crazy in love. But you'll notice you're not hearing any vocal samples. Yeah, you're not hearing any singing. So there's a big disconnect between, what you're hearing, who's credited, who's being paid. It's one of these things that's a real

problem. We haven't quite fixed with copyright and publishing. To his credit, and we know that he's a singer, not necessarily the musician, but I would think that he probably wrote the song and then worked with him. I mean, this is one of the things that we don't know. This is where we have disagreement. I mean, across a lot of episodes, like, he probably wrote the song, but like there's, the way copyright works and publishing works, it doesn't strike me, it doesn't, I think, strike the average listeners being, like, logical that as the song, writer, all the money that comes from this song's sampling would go to a record label and an individual, neither of whom are what you're hearing. Well, I think it's probably safe to say,

we don't know if he wrote the song and gave it to these musicians or if they, you know, sort of came up with a song themselves. The fact is we don't know. The strong likelihood is that he wrote a lot of it and that the musicians tend to come up with parts that are based on loosely on something that was quote unquote written. Is there anything that says this song was produced by or arranged by? So the only credits beyond Eugene record on the song, and they're not part of the publishing. They didn't get paid beyond the session fee. Would have been Willie Henderson maybe, who's credited as director.

And I'm glad you asked because there's this mysterious second credit, which is arranged by Eugene record and, quote, the people's paraphernalia, which is a credit that I found, the least I've ever found on a Google search in my whole life. Yeah. Was the people's paraphernalia. What does that refer to? Is that a group of people? Is that a joke that they had that day?

Who knows? Knowing just about as little as you do, I would argue that it sounds like Eugene, because I was wondering like who got the arranged by credit. It sounds like he was at least, at the very least, leading these session musicians in a certain musical direction. So I don't think it's bad that Eugene is getting this credit. No, it's just bad that others would be great to know who those musicians were

and what their contributions were. I think it's really important to speak up for session musicians who are generally speaking, they work from gig to gig, they get a flat session fee. It's usually not a lot of money. There's a lot of pride in the work being like, first call, they call me. But the contributions of session musicians frequently cross the line into what would be by any objective of measure songwriting contributions. But we consider songwriting in copyright law in America especially to be just the lyrics and just the melody. So by that definition, Eugene Record is the songwriter.

But you are hearing none of the lyrics. There are no lyrics in the sample. That's where you're losing me, though, because you're saying he's the songwriter. That's more than just lyrics, though. But in my experience, session musicians make contributions that are unpaid and uncredited. And that to me is unfair. Oh, no, no, no. I totally get it.

Like, I think we might be discussing two slightly different things. I'm saying that I think there are times when there's one guy, you know, on a song with, you know, eight instruments. And he told each instrument, hey, you play this. and you play this and you play this and it's very like almost like to a Wes Anderson degree he's telling them what to do and how to do it in which case you know I I don't love the

flat fee for the day but it does kind of make sense versus sometimes I think they come in and there's like you said a very fluid line between what you're asked to play and what you're actually contributing which may definitely cross into a situation where they deserve some splits but I also think what you're saying which I 100% agree with is that the copyright laws haven't kept up with that.

Yeah. And so when you sample a guitar off of a song where the songwriter didn't even come up with that guitar lick, it doesn't keep up with that kind of sampling. And on that, we're 100% aligned. Yeah. So these guys basically are all sample phantoms, like to the nth degree, because sometimes are sample phantoms, the performers who are in the sound that is used in the sample, but not in the publishing.

Sometimes those guys, we know their names. We don't even know their names. They're sample phantom phantoms. I want to reiterate to the One Song Nation, if you know who played with the people's paraphernalia or just with the Shylights around this period, we'd love to know. I'm sure someone out there knows. Maybe Rich Harrison. And I'll give you a starting point, by the way, for those sleuths.

In the YouTube clip of Oh Girl, there is a band behind them. If anyone wants to slow that down and try to identify because there's horn players, conga players, those are probably the guys. no idea who they are. Would love your ideas. So after this song, Rich Harrison blew the fuck up. He went on to write

and produce Amory's One Thing. And Jennifer Lopez's Get Right. So originally, Get Right was actually a song called Ride and it was actually written and recorded with Usher. But it didn't make the cut for Usher's album. Harrison reworded it for J-Lo,

but let's hear a little bit of this. I know this is my first time hearing it. Let's hear a little bit of Usher's ride. That's rich. That's the same. That's rich. He has a sort of motique, arithmetic cadence that he likes to use a lot of times,

yeah? Sounds familiar, sounds a little bit like crazy and love to be explicit. No, I totally agree. But can I say something also on the behalf of Rich Harrison? Like, I'm sure at the time some of us are like,

oh, Rich Harrison, he kind of does like the same kind of beat every time. But sometimes that's what we want. That's what we want to hear. It reminds me. The first time we liked it the second time. It reminds me. of the dance producer Todd Edwards.

All of Todd Edwards' remixes sound very similar in their composition. But it sounds great. It always works. So it's like, I want to hear more Todd Edwards and I want to hear more Rich Harrison. Rich, if you're listening, hit us up, man. DM us. We'd love to do one of your other songs. So Diallo, what do you think the legacy of Crazy and Love is?

I mean, the legacy of this song and the music video it's so pronounced. I do feel like it ushered in a brand new era of R&B. Beatstar for which she still reigns on top, you know, despite, despite a couple of years where I think maybe Rihanna, like, pushed ahead. Like, to this day, like, Beyonce is just, it's an event. Whenever she comes out and performs, it's an event.

And it all started with that strut. I'll never forget that classic moment in the video where she comes walking out. I just saw this new Charlie X, X, X, X, X, uh, song. I think she's actually just in the video. The song is by an artist named A.G. Cook. But the song is called Residue. At the very beginning, she's in downtown L.A. And she walks out doing the strut.

And I feel like she just taught a whole generation of, this is how you do R&B, singer, pop diva. And it's the way that only I can do it. But this is how I do it. And this is going to be sort of for that generation, what Michael Jackson's Motown 25 performance was. If we have time, I'd love to show the audience just a clip of that famous music video. Luxury, what do you think the legacy of Crazy and Love is?

I completely agree. Crazy and Love is the beginning of Beyonce next level, where she goes from being already a superstar with Destiny's Child and in the group format to a solo mega, mega, global, like forever superstar, universe, the entire Milky Way, the galaxy, yeah, the brand, all of that. And I don't know, I was just, I was rewatching Homecoming the other day, which is one of the greatest music movies of all time. Her Coachella performance in 2018, you know, it's not for nothing. that she starts the show with Crazy in Love.

It's her signature tune. Yeah. Probably always will be. It'll be on her tombstone. Hopefully that'll be in 70, 80 years. But what an incredible song. Let's listen to a little bit of that Coachella performance. There's one deep in your eyes.

When you leave, I'm begging you not to go. There's one more part of the Crazy and Love legacy that I don't think you quite realize. What? What is that? Is Beyonce here? What? Ladies and gentlemen, no. But when I first started watching your videos on TikTok,

this was probably the first time I saw one of your TikTok videos. Looking so crazy your love. Got me looking, got me looking, got me. Looking so crazy your love. And yeah, this was a couple of years back. And I remember thinking, ah, this guy's really good. I hope that I get to work with him one day. No, that's so sweet.

And lo and behold, here we are years later. Here we are. And it ends after this episode. I'm just kidding. No, it doesn't end out of this episode. Stay tuned. Okay, Laxrae. It's time for one more song.

This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gym with you, the one song nation and with each other. Luxury, you go for it. All right, well, I'm going to break one eye rules, which is that the t-shirts I wear, which are different every week, have no correlation to anything we ever do on the show. Today, I'm actually going to play a song from the band, television personalities, whose shirt I am currently wearing. And by the way, yes, it does say, it does mention the Beatles with a picture of Brian Jones

from the Rolling Stones. This is a great kind of lesser-known post-punk band. The song is called Part-Time Punks. I walk around together and try and look train day like it's shy like shabby it is

sweetly naively lofi long time L.A. denizens will recognize part-time punks that's a party

that's been at the Echo for many years and I do believe this is where it gets its title. What about you

D'all what about your one more song for the week? I am a big fan of a lot of the sort of Neo-UK garage

that's coming out these days because I just love the general sound. And here's one by P. Rillel. I think, I can call him parallel, but it spelled like P dash Rallel. And Sam Daly, this is a song called Blessings. Speaking of Todd Edwards, this is very Todd Edwards. He, what is that? What is that? 132 BPM? Dude, you nailed it. It is 132. I like that we're like picking up the, the pace, so to speak again. That felt like 132. I love Garage because it's, it just, it sounds cool. And, you know, For some of us who remember, you know, Craig David and Artful Dodger, like the fact that people are doing new versions of that over there, I say, let's bring it over here. Let's make L.A. Garage.

Listen, we've been talking about Todd Edwards. The second Todd Edwards mentioned on the show, I heard a lot of Todd Edwards in that, one of the godfathers of UK garage, but he lives in L.A. He's from New Jersey. He's from New Jersey. I really like Todd Edwards. We love that. We got to find a night where we can spend some Todd Edwards. Todd, we're coming for you.

As always, if you have an idea for one song, you can find us on Instagram. and TikTok, you can find me on Instagram at Diallo, D-I-A-A-L-O, and on TikTok at Diallo-A-L-L-O-O-R-L-O. You can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-Y and on TikTok at LuxuryX. You can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok at One Song Podcast for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube. Just search for One Song podcast. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. And be sure to check out the One-Song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discussed in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description.

And if you've made it this fall, Well, damn it, you're part of the One Song Nation. Show us some love. Give us five stars. Leave a review. Keep them two-star reviews to yourself. And send this episode to a fellow music fan. It really helps keep the show going.

All right, luxury, help me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, musicologist, and every Friday night from 10 p.m. till midnight, KCRW DJ, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddell. This is one song. We will see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duenas. Our video editor is Casey Simonson, mixing by a...

Michael Harmon and engineering by Eric Hicks. This show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Eddings, Eric Wyle, and Leslie Guam.