One Song - De La Soul's "Buddy"

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Back in the late 80s gangsta rap was booming. But three kids from Long Island emerged to spread a message of peace, love, and unity. Those three kids -- Posdnuos, Maseo, and Trugoy the Dove -- were De La Soul and together they broadened the perception of hip hop: They made it funny, weird, and psychedelic. This time on One Song, Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY break down “Buddy” from De La Soul’s seminal album Three Feet High and Rising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peace. Diallo riddles the name, and I'm here to break down the definition of Buddy. Buddy doesn't mean girl or sex, but maybe it does based on the lyrics of the song you're about to hear. So on that note, we begin our podcast. Let's move up. Wait a minute. Now just wait. We're going to talk about Buddy on this plate. But before we let the hurt out the gate, make sure all the levels are straight out the junk. Let's get into it. Luxury, or should I say Plug 32? What's up? Diallo, or should I say a plug, 184?

I'm pretty good. I got the lamest number, man. I got a much better number than you did. Maybe you got the magic number. Ooh. All right, so today's show, we're celebrating one of our favorite hip-hop groups. One of the best.

Music critics at the time said they put hippie into hip-hop, but it's a little more deep than that. In fact, I would say it's about three feet deeper than that. Oh, and rising. I really did that. It was late 80s. Gangster rap is taking off. on the West Coast. You've got public

enemy, X-Klan, so many groups that are sort of like a new wave of hip-hop on the East Coast. And yet, it was a bunch of kids from Long Island who emerged to spread a message of peace, love, and unity, and they ushered in hip-hop's Daisy Age.

That's right, Diallo. DeNissound y'all, Daisy Age. A lot of people credit this band with creating hip-hop's first psychedelic album. They also broke new ground when it came to the samples they selected, pulling from sources ranging from Zeppelin, Johnny Cash, Holland Oates, Sealy Dan,

and The Turtles, which we'll be talking about later, but also kids' TV shows and even French instructional records. But the innovations don't stop there. They are believed to be one of the originators of the hip-hop skit slash interlude. As a comedy writer myself, I have to say, these guys were actually

funny on wax. They used their skits to riff on who in the crew needed a haircut, who had bad breath, who had body odor, and who had dandruff. In short, all of the kids. the tropes that gangster rap groups like NWA were establishing in the 80s, those were balanced by a new type of day glow hip hop that was funny, weird, absolutely nerdy in a distinctively black way and totally unique. Well, Diallo, if anyone hasn't guessed yet, today on one song, it's De La

Sal. And it's their classic, iconic, and seminal album, Three Feet High and Rising. Luxury my good friend, today we're talking about Buddy. All right, I'm writer, actor, director, and plug 194, Diallo Roel. And I'm producer-d-j-songwriter luxury, aka Scrub 37, also known as the guy who talks about interpolation on TikTok. Okay, Dialla, before we get into Buddy, we got to address the elephant in the room about this band and about this album. Because the first song a lot of people associate with the Ella Soul, it's the first song a lot of people heard.

It is the first song I heard, for example. It's the song, Me, Myself, and I. Yeah, you're not alone in that. I mean, I think that that was probably the first song I heard from them as well. But the reason we are not doing me, myself, and I is because we are students of music. We know the stories behind the stories. And we know that not only does De La Sol not love that song, but we also know that a lot of De La Sol fans would hate us if we blew our De La Sol episode on Me, Myself and I. Just to take a step back for those who don't know.

De La Sol created this wonderful, beautiful album, Three Feet High and Rising. And when the album was finished, Tom Silverman, who was the head of Tommy Boy Records, came to them and it was like, hey, we need something for the radio. Now, to hear the group tell us, they were already just, they're 18 and 19 year olds from Long Island. They're kids, they're children. But they were like, look, we're not about that radio. We're not about, you know, trying to blow up with the establishment like that.

But we'll try something out. They take not just Knee Deep by Funkadelic. And the guy's rap over it. And they don't really want to rap over it. But of course, this song blows up massively. It's the one. It goes to number one on the rap charts. It actually knocks off, you know, Hammer.

I think, let's get it started by Hammer. It knocks off self-destruction, which was the Stop the Violence song that was really popular from hip-hop at the time. Like, this song blows up. And what's interesting is a lot of people like myself, we were like, oh, that's catchy, but it didn't make us want to rush out and buy the album. It was actually, like, a little bit later, when all of our. our friends started saying, yo, De La is cool. Like, De La is on some different stuff that we discovered De La.

By extension, we discover Jungle Brothers and Q-Tip along the way. So it is a very interesting song. I went to go see De La Sol. Oh, you saw them live? I saw them live around. It was sort of like the late 90s, but I'll never forget when they started, House of Blues out here in L.A. When they started me, myself and I, they did this chant, which they apparently did every time they performed the song, pretty much after the first year of being De LaSalle,

which was when the song started, they were like, we hate this song, we hate this song, we hate this song, we hate this song, like they were in the crowd chanting, we hate this song to what was arguably their biggest single. Absolutely their biggest single. Yeah, and sometimes on this show, that happens. You know, we have done, we did a radiohead episode you may have heard with Creep,

which is kind of similar in that band's catalog. Perhaps the fact that they've reconciled with that song over the years, you know, we kind of came back around to it for that reason. I don't know that. Yeah, I don't think, as anybody's favorite radiohead song. So, yeah, there's a parallel there. The difference, though, I would say, is that De La Sol, I think to this day, probably.

Yeah, and actively, like, if you go to De La Sol fan, they're like, oh, I like, me, myself, and I, they're like, oh, I like, me, myself. I'll be like, all right, man. I'll talk to you later. So now you know. If you didn't know before, it's not cool to say you like me and myself. Well, but here's the thing. Here's the thing. It did put De Laa on a lot of people's radar, and they did come out with this album, which is,

absolutely beautiful. And in looking into this album, we were like, well, what song off that album could we do? And we will talk a little bit about, I know, we will talk a little bit about potholes in my lawn, say no go. But we will also spend a good amount of time talking about this song, buddy, because this song is very important to the development of hip hop. It is a big hit for the group. It introduces us, once again to Q-Tip, Django Brothers. It's the first appearance of Fife and... Right, from Tribe. And there are, on the remix, actually.

And we're going to talk a little bit about the album version versus the remix. There's a lot to get into. So I remember first hearing me, myself and I, thought it was a cool song, but it was definitely like not something that made me want to get more into the group at first. Yeah.

It was when we found out more about them that I was like, oh, you got to check out this album. How did you first come across Dayla? So was it, me, myself, and I? I mean, I think I was aware of me, myself and I because it was everywhere. It was on MTV. But the song, I remember the moment.

And the video was cool. like when they did the thing with the eye. Remember kids were coming up and saying I and like psych and all this other stuff. But go ahead. Syke. Wow, that brings me back. Throwback. Memory unlocked.

So another memory unlocked is I remember of Vendalavita. Shout out to my good friend Vendala who picked me up one day in her big white VW bus. Yes, this is the Bay Area. And she was playing the cassette. She was playing the album. And I guess she had just, as she was driving to my house, she must have finished the skit that begins it because it went right into the magic number, which is the first real song on the first.

record and I heard the track open with this. And I'm like, wait a second, that's Led Zeppelin. Is it really? It is. Yeah, that's the crunch from Houses of the Holy. Here's that beat. Which as a drummer, by the way. What time signature is that? Right. One, two, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, five, six, seven, eight. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. It's like a bar of five and a bar of four. My brain broke just now. I guess it's nine over eight. I think that's, I'm going to go with nine over eight.

I'm not a music theorician. I'll tell you what. But it's eighth notes. There's nine eighth notes. The comments will come for us and they will definitely let us know. But that is a crazy time. It's a crazy ass beat. And they chopped it.

They made it work. They made it for four. Insane. And that's the Led Zeppelin song where he goes, does anybody seen the bridge? Where's that confounded bridge? Which is a James Brown reference with a British accent, which is very funny.

Yeah, yeah. because James Brown's always talking about taking it to the bridge. But what's ironic is this is one of the first groups that's like not sampling James Brown every two seconds. They're sampling Led Zeppelin doing a parody of a James Brown song, which is so cool. That's so twisted. It's so funny. And I heard it. And as a in that moment, white kid in the 80s listening to Led Zeppelin, like learning to play the drums.

I'm like hearing this. This is probably for me the moment where sampling became important and interesting to me. I started becoming the lifelong sample hunter that I've been to this. day because the other piece of the equation, that's a Led Zeppelin drumbeat, but layered on top is this song from Schoolhouse Rock called Three is the Magic Number, and I'll play that for you now. I don't remember this. A man and a woman had a little baby.

Yes, they did. They had three in the family. That's a magic number. I just loved, because who did? doesn't love that. This combination of a rock drumbeat with this schoolhouse rock kind of story about having babies.

It actually comes from the multiplication rock album. So it's a song about map. A couple of quick things. One is that, and we're going to get into this in great detail later in the episode, but one thing that they were doing, that Prince Paul and De La are doing, and also

what the bomb squad and public cinema are doing, a lot of people right now, we're in the wild days of sampling. You'd literally just take just the smallest snippet of one thing and throw it in the mix without ever thinking, oh, we're going to have to pay a lot of money out. Absolutely. It wasn't about like clearing samples in that sense. And it wasn't really even, I don't think of them about, you know, sticking it to these,

you know, performance who were not getting paid for their samples. It wasn't about screwing them. It was really about this will, this is like a small creative piece that will make the creative thing I'm working on that much better. When you talk to the artists of the time especially and, and, We're going to get into this a little bit later because the philosophy at the time was simply artistically driven. It was let's take things that are unused collage. It's Andy Warhol. It's coming from a tradition. It's Bosca. It's like how Bosca's stuff has like, you know, multi.

It has visual art. It's like an audio version. It's like an audio version of things that we have visually been in the culture forever. Storytelling using other pieces or other words. So this in that moment, and as you mentioned, it's the Wild West. This is the moment before there were lawsuits. And one of the first lawsuits happens on this album. And we're going to get into that in the moment. But before there were lawsuits, there wasn't this idea that there was a major financial damaging consequence to be had. Clearances when they were made were in the few hundreds of dollars range.

Yeah. Maybe a few thousand. It wasn't big house money. It'd be $500 all in for a James Brown sample. I've read. $3,000 is what I've read is what they paid Lonnie Winston-Smith when Prince Paul who in his band Stetsosonic sampled this song.

I fucking love that beat. That's actually an interpolation of this Lonnie Liston Smith's song, expansions. So when they clear that, it's an interpolation, by the way, not a sample. But when they cleared that, apparently it only costs $3,000. The point being that it was still a new art form.

It was the Wild West in terms of how it was treated, who paid how much, who, like, didn't seem like it was worth bothering because it's an old record from the early 70s. Who's going to know is a little bit of the viability. as well. And as you were just mentioning, there is this artistic history to it. There's this precedent in the visual arts where it's just an audio version of what we've already been doing for 100 years. I can't agree more. And it was so artistic to have this little bit from here, this little bit from there.

You know, it wasn't all just one thing. And I kind of feel like Buddy is a version of that as well, because it wasn't even just one hip-hop group that put this song out. There are three hip-hop groups. So they take a little bit of from tribe, a little bit from jungle. Right. Yeah. And multiple versions of the song itself with the remix. In a weird way, they are audio versions of the samples themselves because you got a little cue tip, you got a little Africa, you got a little pause, and everybody's throwing in.

And so in a weird way, they are themselves a collage. Yes. Now, for those who don't know, luxury, who is De LaSoul? So De LaSoul are three gentlemen from Amityville, Long Island, who met in high school. It's Kelvin Pastinous Mercer. so Pasta Nus stands for Sop Sound. Which I didn't know until this week. That's incredible. It's backwards. Pasta Nues is Sop sound backwards.

What that means is not clear to me. Oh, well, I think I read where, you know, Sop was at one point stood for Sire of the Phones. Sire of the Phones. Yeah, and I think that's Sire of the Microphones. There's a lot of inside jokes with these guys. So, like, even the Truigoy, the Dove, like I know that means yogurt backwards and he likes yogurt.

Look, this is an honest space. We are never going to be the people who, oh, I already knew that. No, it was actually, unfortunately, when Truigoy died that a lot of us learned, and I'm one of them, learned that that was yogurt backwards. Wait, what? I don't think everybody, I don't think everybody, you might have known that. Yeah. I did not know that.

I think there might have been, there might have been one introductory interview on MTV in the day that I saw where they all go through the names and explanations, because I've had that in my brain all this time. Look, good for you. So it's Kelvin Pasta Nuse. I think he's plug one. right? And Truigoi is plug two. And the third member of the band is Macyo, which is Vincent Macyo Mason. He's also the DJ. You don't hear him rapping. The other two guys are the rappers. But the three of them are plugs one, two, and three. They have these awesome nicknames.

And then you got Prince Paul. And then you got Prince Paul, who's another long guy, a little older than them, but also from Long Island. And he had already been in Stetsasonic. So he to them is kind of like, you know, the maestro who's helping orchestrate their vision. And I think it's so interesting that they're from Long Island because where you're from, and we've said this on the show many times, geography has such a huge impact on your music and your perspective. I read an early Washington Post article where Paz talks about the fact that the fact that they're from Long Island meant that their music was going to sound different. You know, like, if you live in a building in Harlem where, like, you know, they're like 50 rappers in your building, you guys are going to be using a lot of the same

slang. You're going to be talking about some of the same people going in and out of your building. Like there's a shared perspective there just from geopolitical. and he was saying that when you're in Long Island, you live in a house, which is in your own weird way, like your own little compartment. And a lot of what influences you comes across the radio or weird old records or TV. And so he always felt like that was one reason why they never intended on doing the music that everybody else was doing. They wanted to be independent, which is why they went with Tommy Boy, which was independent

at the time. And they wanted to do music that represented them. So, you know, he talks about the fact that, like, yeah, they loved Hall of Notes You know And so they were like These are all records

From their parents Record libraries That was their influence And like weird records That you just don't I mean like I sort of miss myself Going into the record store

Looking in the dollar bin And finding like Weird sounds for space parties You know I can always find like These weird vinyl And there would be

Absolute classic gold on there You have to wonder too It's because there's this funny kind of middle part We kind of think of Early sampling as being like The James Brown And like the really big stuff

And then there's this moment A little bit later And there's, of course, there's the funkadelic, and there's the P-Funk stuff and the West Coast and everything. But there's also this sort of like Q-Tip and Tribe-influenced and Premier. There's the jazz and the funk. There's sort of these zones of digging, big, right? The main categories would maybe be big samples. You know, we've also got Puff Daddy over there.

And then digging and obscure. They're more on the digging and obscure thing, but it's less because of digging. And I think more because of just the stuff in their record collection from their childhood and their parents. It was just around them. It was less about trying to find, going to the bowels of a record store like, you know, I'm picturing, you know, Dilla or somebody

spending hours in some, like, you know, record store in the middle of nowhere just to find something no one else has ever sampled. Well, I think, you know, not to get ahead of ourselves, but I think that there's a reason why so many jazz records from specifically the 1970s find their way into the hip-hop sampling lexicon,

for the lack of a better term. And that's because those are the jazz records. Those were the cool records that people's parents were listening to. But apparently in Amity, They didn't have the cool, the jazz. They had some, but there was also Zeppelin, Holland, Oates, and Steely Day.

But I also like, he's like, you know, someone asks, you seem like you guys are the hip-hop version of Frank Zapp, and he's like, I don't really know who that is. So it's not that they were getting everything out in Long Island, but they were getting enough. All right, so let's get into the track, Buddy. Now, it sounds like I'm calling you Buddy, but I'm saying the name of the song, which is Buddy.

Do y'allel? Talk us through the backstory of the making of the song, which is called Buddy. Well, look, the short answer is just, that, you know, you've got three groups that are out in New York, and they're trying to make it in what was essentially a burgeoning alternative hip-hop scene. You've got Jungle Brothers, you've got De La, you've got Tribe. And ironically, these are guys who don't know each other well. As a fan of native tongues, I always thought that these were, like, groups that, like, took vacations together. And, like, Airbnbs together.

Yeah. Or, like, you know, Paz could be like, yo, you know, Africa, come babysit my kids. I thought that they were like close on a level that. But no, like, apparently they met at a show. And then, like, within like a week of meeting each other, like it wasn't very long. They're in the studio essentially recording this song. Right.

And this song is kind of the bulk of their collective output, of their shared output. Yeah. It's really kind of just this song. And by the way, they are, like, Jungle Brothers are interpolating, you know, songs off of their, off of their 1988 album, straight out the jungle.

You know, like everybody, this is almost, in some weird way like a mega mix for some groups that, you know, a lot of people just didn't even know yet. It's very playful, right, and they're all just having fun together. They're having fun, you know, I only am researching this episode that I find out that the remix is the first appearance of Fife, you know, because the people's instinctive travels album hadn't even come out yet. That's Tribe Call Quest's first debut album. Yeah. So this is like a group of people who somehow found a way to gel.

And in some ways, invent the posse cut in a new way. Because listen, before you guys get in the comments and come at us, as you love to do, we know that the bridge in its own way is a posse cut. You know, the symphony is a posse cut. There are posse cuts before this. But the thing I always liked about this particular posse cut is that by the time this song comes out, a lot of us are watching more. music videos.

You know, we're watching YoMTV raps. And to see all these guys on camera together was just really, really cool. It looked like a party you want to do it. It looked like a party. Nowadays, you'll see like, you know, this song by so-and-so featuring so-and-so and so-and-so,

and you'll be like, yo, but like, they're sending MP3s to one another. They may never actually be in the studio. In some cases, they've never even met, or the label sets it up. Like, in this case, this was literally like just some guys from New York, getting together and recording a song together. And you can feel it.

can feel that camaraderie in that. I mean, it's crazy to me to think that this is a 1989 song because to me, De La and Tribe and Juggle, I do associate them more with the early 90s, but yeah, this song is amazing. All right, my plugs.

Coming up, after the break, we're going to get to the bottom of Buddy. We'll tell you the story of how the song was remix. We'll play the stems, the samples, the vocals, and we're going to break down its wider impact on hip-hop. Yeah, and I'm going to talk a little bit about why the song wasn't available on any of the digital or streaming platforms until just last year.

Oh man, it's crazy. Coming up after the break. Welcome back to one song. All right, so let's start here. Really interesting phenomenon happened when we were putting together this episode. We both learned that we each Diallo and I know a different version of the song as kind of the canonical version. Yeah.

And it was very interesting for the other to learn. Like, I had never heard the remix. You'd never heard the remix. It reminded me of that Mariah Carey ODB episode. It just, I was listening to the album. You knew the album version and I knew the remix. You were hearing it, I think, in different contexts, like the club, for example, because it's not on the record. I was a kid.

So I wasn't in the club, but I think that... What would you have heard the remix? I'm so curious. I heard the remix. Not on the record. No, you know what I think it is? And stop me if you think this is wrong. I think I was surrounded by, in general, hip-hop fans and by extension, like a lot of De LaSole fans.

Yeah. And so there was like a community. Like a mixed-tade trading thing? Like, yo, the remix is, you know, the better version. But how are you hearing it literally? Like, is it someone made a time? I mean, I think UMTV Raps probably play the remix far more than the... I don't think there is a video for the album version, you know?

Okay. So maybe it's MTV Raps. There's also, again, like, I think at some point communities decide that's the good version. For example, a lot of people don't realize that California Love with Tupac and Dre, the version that everybody knows, like, California, that is the remix. That is not the version that you technically find on the album, yeah. And I think sometimes the remix just will surpass in terms of like, you know, you know, penetration at parties or just like people listen.

Like I think the remix of Buddy is the version when we said that. We're like, oh, we should do Buddy. Like it was, it was in my brain, it was no question which version of the song. And I promise you, I did not know that there was an alternative to the record. That's what I like our show. Yeah. If I may, like, and feel free to talk about it, I feel like you were probably listening to this album, maybe more in isolation.

100%. Yeah. I was listening with Vendalavita in the VW bug. Like we were listening, but it was the album. It was the record. It was the full beginning to end all 24 songs, three feet high and rising. And of course, on MTV, the singles would pop up. But I wasn't hearing it in obviously the same context. So it's so interesting. I love that. I never heard the remix. Before we go any further, let's get people a sampling of both versions. Let's hear a little bit of the album slash original version of Buddy. Meena, meaner, meaner, meana, mean, meena, mean, meena, mean. Say what?

Meena, meena, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, and say, what? Meena, me, me, ma. By the way, I can't wait till we get into the samples, because there's one sample in there that I'm dying to know what it is. But before we do that, let's play the version that I thought we would spend the whole episode talking about, which is technically, I've been calling it the remix. I believe it is called the native tongue decision version,

which is probably the first time any of us ever even heard the term native tongue. Let's hear a little bit of that. I mean, okay, I am in middle school. But I remember like people dancing, you know, to this song in the hallways, like, you know, which is weird because we didn't have, I mean, maybe they were on our Walkman. I was going to follow that memory down to like, what's the detail? Are they holding? You know, there was a lot, okay, so I'm from Atlanta.

So there was a lot of dancing in parking lots. So that, I understand. Like, I remember, like, people had, like, great sound systems in their car. So you'd open up all the doors. And you'd blast it and people'd be dancing at the parking lot. But this is a 12-inch remix on a vinyl record. No, but it was... There was a cassette available.

It was commercially available. Okay, so somebody bought the cassette. For all you 40-year-olds out there. And they're playing in the halls of your school. And that's where you're... Yeah, I mean, like, it wasn't playing in the halls of the school. Like I said, I don't remember people walking through a boombox. but I'm sure people had like, you know, maybe a walkman on or something like that.

There was a lot of passing a headphones. I remember in that time of my life. Like people were like, yo, check this out. And I remember there was this guy named Grasshopper, which I wish I could remember Grasshopper's real name. I knew it at the time, obviously. But like, that's the effect that De La Sol had on, you know, my little city, you know, my little public school in Atlanta, which is that at that time, you know, we talk a little bit on the show about, like, how kids form clicks. And, like, I always hear, like, in a lot of white schools, like, the Goths were, like, over here and the Hesher's were over here and all that kind of stuff. I will say, you know, during that time in hip-hop, you had to make a choice.

So there were people who were, you know, fully invested and already invested in, like, N.W.A. And that look. So they were wear the Raiders hat and, like, you know, the khaki pants. And then there were other people, because we're Atlanta. We don't have our own identity yet. You know, there were people who were embracing. Right. It was before outcast. Oh, yeah. You know, there were people who were embracing more of the East Coast. But that could mean, like, public enemy.

That could mean KRS1. That could mean EPMD. And then there was, like, this sliver of kids who did dress like hippies. And they had, like, you know, backpacks that were, like, yarn sewn together. I don't even know what that material is. Is that coming from the De La Sewell, like, videos? I feel like I didn't notice it. I didn't really see it until De La Sele Sele came out.

And it was definitely a weird mixture. of like hippie hip hop, so to speak, a little bit of house music, a little bit. Like, in fact, I remember there was like a crew at my school called the house crew. And it was, they would form a circle, but instead of doing like the hip hop dance of the day, they would dance to house music,

which was crazy because we didn't even know where house music was even coming here. Were they housing you? Is that what they were doing? By the way, that Jungle Brothers song got a lot of play as they were more so housing their school schedule. They should have been in class and they were out in the hallway

This is what they would play. I'll play a little bit of a great Jungle Brothers song off of their first time straight out of the jungle. This is I'll house you. Girl out house you. Girl out house you. You and my hut now. Mama. Girl out how she.

Girl out house you. Girl out house you. You in my hut now. So they're dancing to house music and jungle brothers. And then into the posse comes this group of guys. bringing in the Daisy age, and like, I feel like it formed, you know, Grasshopper found his identity, you know. It brought him out. It was already there innately, but it brought it out.

Totally. If there were kids who were copying Robert Smith at other schools across town, he was definitely plug four or five. You think that there's a connection between Goth and like this whatever, pre-backpack hip-hop, whatever you call it? I think that the same way goth music was sort of like outsider music for certain people. This was outsider music for kids who knew that we weren't going to be in NW. way. We weren't slanging drugs and

and disrespecting women. We weren't also like fully committed to the KRS1 EPMD style East Coast. Like this was specifically, this felt suburban in a weird way. Like when you grow up in certain parts of Atlanta like it is a very

suburb like the mall is still the hub of most activity. You know, it's about trying to get a date to go with you to the movies and stuff. And these guys from Long Island tapped into that various you know kind of suburban but still nerdy and black not nerdy like in a

Steve Urkel kind of way like they're very contrarian you know they're very anti establishment and that came across too very smart it's smart music made by smart guys and they get in the studio with some other smart guys so admittedly it was that remix that just like became an anthem once I became a DJ and started doing parties

and clubs that remix Like to this day for certain people, you can put that on. Everybody's like, ah, but let's take a step back because our show talks in stems and samples and vocals. Let's talk about the stems and samples and vocals from the original version, the album version. So let's get into it. This song is Buddy by De LaSoul, and it's comprised exclusively, exclusively of samples and vocals. There's no guitarist, there's no drummer live in the studio, yeah.

A drum machine. All the beats are coming from the sound. sample sources. So let's start with one of the primary sample sources. There's actually two or three different cuts that come from this record. This is Bo Diddley's hit or miss from 1974. Oh, man. So what you just heard is the first 15 seconds and there's four, possibly five, if I haven't miscounted, different chunks of that that are used throughout the song Buddy. The opening drum fill shows up in the song Buddy as the opening drum fill. Hello. That drum bead that we just heard isolated is in there.

It's a perfect break. It's maybe two full bars of just drums, which are begging to be sampled. So they were. And then the bass line comes in. That is another sample. And then the la la la la la la la la also makes it into the song buddy. So we're getting four samples alone just from Bo Didley's hit or miss. And by the way, this song is a cover of the original hit or miss.

which is by Odetta and then it also has those la-las so this if you don't know who Odetta is this is Odetta Gordon and Martin Luther King called her the Queen of American Folk Music

this is originally her composition she is credited and Bo Diddley's version is a cover so Bo Didley is not credited none of the musicians whose instruments you hear playing the drums or playing the bass line were credited or paid but the original songwriter Odetta is credited on Buddy, which is interesting when you think about

what components are actually being used in the song. Oh, wow. Oh, and by the way, remember that La La La thing? Yeah. Here's how Prince Paul transformed that with his Akai 900 sampler, by the way, which longtime listeners to the show will remember is the same sampler that Lady Miss Keir from DeLite used.

The other song which is sampled throughout the original version of Buddy is the Commodore's song, Girl, I think the world about you. This is from 1976, and it too has more than one section that gets used. Here's the first little chunk. Yeah. So sweet. Wait, let that play a little bit longer. Oh yeah, you want to hear a little more? Yeah, a little more. A little bit longer. A little bit longer. Can't you see? That's that, let me tell you, there is something about that 70s soul. that line out Ritchie It's so clean

It's so good I mean Sweet little woman That little chunk that you wanted to hear Is another piece of the song It's sampled Coming into this episode I'm realizing now

I love that song And when it pops up in the De La Sol song I've just never connected the two But that's why I knew it And that's why it's so excited Oh that's so fulfilling Thanks bro Here is that little

Sweet little woman Scratched into the track Here's what it sounds like isolated the scratchy part. That little chunk, and then again. I'm like the Andy Kaufman of that little bit of sample. I'm like walking through my day and then it plays. A little cut coming up.

There's the real cut right there. You can hear the vinyl on the turtale. You know, a lot of you DJs diss what they call the helicopter scratch. but them helicopter scratches do sound nice sometimes. So don't overthink it. There's a lot of fun scratches on the song, by the way, scratches and cuts. There's an entire, I mean, going throughout the song,

it's like a drum fill, basically. And here is one of the many scratches isolated, just so you can hear it. Then I'll play it in the mix afterwards. That's how the song starts. That's some expert scratching right there too, right? Love it. Here's another one.

And that just sounds like it's the snare drum going, and then letting the whole fill. Scratching on the fill. Scratching on the fill. Classic. I guess that's happening each time now that I hear it. But they're all slightly different

variations of that snare. There's not really any repeating, which is awesome, right? That's pretty clever. I mean... Ooh, that was pretty sick. You'll hear stories about before people really got into looping,

like some of these DJs doing like live scratching for the whole three minutes. And you're just like, this is nuts. Prince Paul did not have to do that. He does a combination of loops. and scratches and cuts. The Prince Paul killed it. I mean, like, we're going to talk about,

we're going to talk about buddy on this plate and podcast. But just the fact that, you know, if you listen to this album, three feet high and rising, to this day, on a loud system, it still sounds great. There are other albums from this period

that have not aged well from a mastering point of view, but like his drums still like knocks super clean. Yeah, there's something about the power of this. Because he's, like I said, he's using, he's got three in his arsenal samplers

There's the Akai S-900. There's an emu, which the SP12 is the same one All the French Touch guys use. And there's apparently Casio SK-8-5, which is more of like children's toy kind of version of sampler. Like the dogs that do the Christmas song, roof, rof, ro-ro, ro, ro-pro, ro-pro, ro-pro. But those are all in the arsenal.

And this is early sampling technology. You don't get more than a handful of seconds. You know, maybe I think eight tops maybe at the time. Don't need a whole lot. Don't need a whole lot. All you need is one bar, you know, and looping it through the whole thing. All right, I love that version of the song.

It's ironic. I heard it on a local radio station here, like one of the public radio stations. And I think I texted you. I was like, dude, they're playing the original version on the radio. You don't hear it that much. And I hate to use the word played out because it's no song's fault that it gets played too much,

you know? It just means that it was probably really good to a lot of people. But I will say that song, that version is fun because I haven't heard it that much. The remix, the version that a lot of us know, it is interesting because, you know, we've heard this song so much, but I want you to really appreciate some of the wonders that went into the sampling here.

As you know, the backbone of Buddy, the Native Tung's remix, is formed by Tana Garner's Heartbeat. I love this song. It's an amazing song. I had the pleasure of meeting Mel Sharon from West End Records one time in Miami at Winter Music Conference, and he told me this incredible story

about how basically he thought he had a hit record, but nobody was making it a hit. And he gave it to Larry. He was like, I want you to make this the song. This is Larry Levan. This is Larry Levant. Yeah, Larry Levin. He was like, Larry, I need you.

He used to call Larry La Diva Levant. And he would say, I need you to make this a hit at the Paradise Garage in New York. He had that power. And so he gives Larry the stems, and he works on him for a very, very long time. And every time he checks in with them, I know this as a scriptwriter,

I know this feeling. You know it from, I'm sure, making your own music. At some point, you're creating something, and you know that you're overthinking it. But you can't find your way out of these creative woods.

You're like, what was that version that I had like two months ago that I liked more? So Larry's like toying with it and toying with it. It's getting longer and longer and longer. Longer and longer. Longer and longer. He's going to have to send guys to Larry's house with guns

and get this record back from Larry. Because, yes, by the way, this is, again, 9 minutes 54 seconds. This is 1981. There's no, to say that there is no internet is an understatement. There's less than an internet. You've got to go and physically get something from somebody to get it back from them.

And eventually, as the story goes, he forced Larry's hand by just releasing the last version that Larry's hand. And Larry was never convinced this. He was never convinced this was the best version. But Larry starts playing the acetate. in the club, it clears the dance floor. Yeah. His,

his, his final version, this is actually the version we all know, his final version of heartbeat clears the dance floor, it's way too slow. Somebody called it

dance music hostile tempo, which I think is really funny. It's not just the tempo, like as a DJ, I have always wanted to play it, but the beat is so wonky and it's impossible to mix in. It is impossible to mix into another song.

We talk about how Timberlin and how Dilla, like intentionally put their drums behind the beat a little bit. Just a little bit behind the beat. I mean, to say that that happens on heartbeat is, again, an understanding. It's like the bass players playing a different song from the drummer. It's like, it's crazy. It's crazy.

Wonderful song. Impossible to DJ. Larry did not give up. He kept playing his song over and over and over, his club mix of Tana Gardner's heartbeat. And eventually, it was the dance floor classic that we have all come to love today. and anybody who knows Buddy will instantly recognize that it is the full backbone of the remix.

Let's just play a little snippet of Buddy and show you where it comes from. Watch this. Take me to the Mardi Gras in there. Take me to the Mardi Gras by Bob James used in so many ways. Let's just revisit that sample real quick. That little moment is so cute. De LaSoul did not exist in a vacuum, by the way.

way. I love their usage of Take Me to the Marty Graw by Bob James right there, but right before, and they probably owe a little bit of that to Peter Piper by Run DMC, obviously. But another group that sort of looked like they should be friends with De Laos, although I don't think the groups

were friends, was PM Dawn. And they sampled that part right before it for their big hit set adrift on memory bliss, which we can talk about on a future episode. You know, when groups come along, that you feel like they should know each other, or maybe even be friends, but like...

I hear what you're hearing. I see what you're seeing in my mind. There was maybe like a little bit of tension between those groups, if anything. Maybe, maybe no about us. You think they had a beef? I don't know if they had beef. I do know that, um, famously PM Dawn was, uh,

was performing, um, I think it's Ed Lover's birthday. Uh, New York and Karris won, threw him from the stage and went into the bridges over as a way, like literally threw him off the stage. He threw him. A big dude from the stage. And, uh, performed the bridges over as sort of a way of saying, set adrift, um, memory bliss is not. not hip hop.

Oh. The bridge is over is hip hop. And what was interesting about that is that I do feel like for decades, there was like this strong, you can't do emo hip hop. You know, like, you know, it extends into the Drake period. And there was always somebody there to throw you off the stage, but... Don't get into your feelings. Don't have feelings, guys.

This is something I've always wanted to know what the sample was. Check this out. Listen to this disc jockey's introduction to Mavani's Lazy Gondi's Lazy Gondi. All right. Now, what the heck was that? Well, it comes from an album called All Time Great Bloopers, Volume 1. And here it is. Bloopers. It's an album of bloopers. Check this out.

It's a mistake? Listen to this disc jockey's introduction to Montevanni's Lazy Gondolier. Designs and music continues now as we hear Montevani's most recent recording from London, Lousy Gondulia. So there's an album of just... Side-splittingly funny. I will say, I kind of want to hear this whole album now. It's just announcers messing up.

He slap her there. Should we release the one song bloopers? They'd be finer than that. It might find us way into a class of hip-hop song. We did talk about the jerky boys in another episode. I do like all these like kind of old things that were funny before that aren't funny anymore. I think the idea that like announcers could be wrong was just insane to a country that... It's true.

...titted to trust our heroes, the announcers. I do want to play one word thing off of the remix, which I think is really, really cool. Now, that horn part, it sounds so cool to me. Diggible Planet sampled it for one of their songs, so we did, you know, we found it, and we want to play for you now. That is Eddie Hill.

Harris, get on up and dance. Off of Bad Luck is All I Have, an album from 1975. And I think that that is just one of my favorite flips on the remix. So Buddy is known for featuring the talents of the native tongues posse. And I think it fits into this rich heritage of hip-hop posse cuts. Possie cuts. You know, like... Yeah, we love them. For those who don't know, that's basically a song that features a bunch of rappers on the verse,

who are not already in the same group. Like when we were talking about this, I was like, Wu-Tang-Klan cuts sometimes get listed as posse cuts, but, like, they were sort of like the posse cut crew. Like, when you have nine members, they're always going to be a lot of, especially with Wu,

there are going to be a lot of famous people on one cut. But I'm talking about people who aren't always recording songs with one another. Like a super group. Yeah, by the way, I'm so glad you bring up the term supergroup because to me, in hip-hop, we call them posse cuts. But in rock, you call them like supergroup.

So, like, the traveling woo, are responsible for some good posse cuts. That's all I'm saying. You know what? I'd never thought about that. Some of my favorite posse cuts are when Roy Orbison and got together with George Harrison and And Jeff Lynn.

It's like when you go to Yankee Stadium and white people want, you know, a hot dog, but some of the black people want a glizzy. It's the same thing, you know? Now we're turning into like 80s, rolled up sleeve, like, HBO comedians. Like, you ever notice when black people are. people say, Why people drive like this, but why people drive like this. But it is a posse cut and it is the same as a supergroup.

It's the same thing. It's a hip-hop supergroup. Luxury, I got to ask, what is your favorite hip-hop posse cut? I mean, look, I'm sorry that it's going to be scenario for a multitude of reasons. No, scenarios. It's almost my call. Tribe cult class, leaders of the new school, a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it is a memory of being in college and everyone going apes shit on the couches of my

buddies' house. We would jump around the room and throw shit at each other. Because when Buster Rhymes comes in, there's 15 moments that are exciting. And you're like, oh, no, this one's coming. Here we go, yo. Here we go. It was crazy. And the drumbeat is like, we were just talking before about rock samples.

The drumbeat is from my favorite Jimmy Hendricks song, Little Miss Lover. So like, I won't play that for you. Here's scenario. Right? Everyone's getting hyped. Everyone's getting hyped. We're on the couch. We're about to jump off the couch.

Ready? Here we go, yo. Here we go. It's immediate energy, immediate energy. Oh, it's so great. And here's that little Miss Lover, the Jimmy Hendrix drumbeat riff, Mitch Mitchell. One of my favorite beats of all time. That is a great beat.

One of my favorite breaks of all time. One of my favorite beats of all time. And then, of course, you have one of the most important moments in hip-hop history, if I may be so bold. When Buster Rhymes comes in, and in particular one line, which I'm going to cut to. Here we go. As I come back, as I did the girl, I had to make. You're pardon When I travel

To the turn I roll With the squads and Rows like a dungeon dragon That is the most satisfying moment In life In my head Every time I hear that line Like his voice goes up in volume

Yeah me too actually And like just now He's like he's kind of like He's kind of stays right here He's kind of in the same energy zone When you're When you're jumping up and down With Chris

On the couch In college Everybody screams row Row like a dungeon dragon It is insane Insanity And it's insanity at one song It's insanity in the room

I don't think that's the sound Dungeon Dragons make. They go row? It's factually inaccurate. And it's taking a long time for anyone to notice. Again, don't overthink it, folks. If in your brain,

dragons go rah-rah-rah. It's a little bit... It's a little bit like underwhelming. We got more to talk about with scenario, but we're going to save it for its own episode. We'll save that. That was an amazing posse cut.

I don't know that anything I name is going to elicit quite the real-time emotion that that one did. Because truthfully, there are, there's a compelling argument to be made that I'm sort of going to try and make here that the posse cut is almost like the industry, the hip-hop world, the culture checking in with itself. Because certain posse-cuts have forever changed the culture in hip-hop. Like, I think about Flavia In Your Ear remix, okay? Okay. This could have just been another successful bad boy remix from the Diddy Camp.

but when you think about it, by the way, it's also Craig Mack's song, but it's the song that Biggie Coat comes on the track first and literally, like, lays out so much stuff that's going to come into play in the East Coast, West Coast beef. You've got Craig Mack, who I think is one of the unsung heroes of 90s hip-hop. You've got L.L. Cool J. You know, who comes in.

Like, this song was amazing. But that's actually not my choice. You can also make the case that, Who Shot You, which is also a posse cut off of LL's album, has some amazing rappers on it. Keys to the drop. Boom, dingling, baby. I got crazy Dominican to pay me.

Delay low, I play slow roll with the front. Mafiosa crime. Kingpin. A real real. I shot you. I almost... But those are the runners up. These are the runners up.

We're building up to the real one. My answer. Without further ado. What is your number one? I know. Well, it's just because it's been on my... my mind lately, because I don't think you'll ever get all these people on the same song.

It's the ASAP Rocky song F-in Problems, featuring two chains, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar. And yeah, like the fuck I got a fucking problem. If you find somebody real, that's your fucking problem. Bring your girls to the crib, maybe we week it's out. Uh, yeah, ho, this the finale.

My pep talk, turn it to a pep talk turn it to a pepatic. This is one of those great songs that has both Drake and Kendrick on it. They're both, like, you know, really on, you know, their way up in the industry and within the culture. And it's probably the last time they'll ever be on the same song, at least for the foreseeable future. I mean, like, about the time we recorded this episode, Kendrick had just loaned a verse to a new posse cut featuring Future and Metro Boomin, in which case he went after Drake and Jay Cole.

And I think that this level of, like, you know, people, you know, spitting bars at one another. on the one hand, I like to see everybody get along because I'm all about peace. But on the other hand, as long as it doesn't ever go past the music, it kind of keeps everybody on their toes, everybody making great music. And so, yeah, I think the posse cuts have actually in a large way shaped the history of hip hop. They let you know who's down with who, who's making music with who, and ways to go forward. And Buddy is a part of that legacy. Now, I want to say a little bit about Buddy's lyrics. as a kid, essentially, when this song came out,

it became very clear to all of us that Buddy was a song about sex, that Buddy was their euphemism for the female genitalia. Yeah, but they're pretending that they claim that it's not in every interview. Yeah, and by the way, Jim Browski, Jim Browski slash Jimmy, you know, like this was... Jimbrowski, don't wear a cap. These are such like embedded in amber for the time period. phrases.

I mean, remember all those songs? I think Ice Cube had a song called Jimmy Hat, and everything was about Jimmy and Buddy, and by extension, Jenny, which was also kind of like Buddy. Like, we all knew what they were talking about. If you read the lyrics, Vinly Dale.

Yeah, yeah. As often said, a rapper's true instrument is his voice. So we want to hear some of the vocals off of this track. Do you think you can hit us with maybe, Truigoy is the first one to actually start rapping on the song, even though him and Q-tip do the Meenie, Meenie, Meenie, why don't you start us off with a little bit of Trucoy the Dove?

Hello, it's the soul. Trooping in with the jungle patrol. And this one's about the chaos, the knockouts out there who's holding my buddy. Hold up. Wait a minute. I love that. Let me hear a little bit of that pause. Let it roll, brother. My buddy. Hold up. Wait a minute. Now just wait. We're going to talk about buddy on this plate. But before we We let the hurt out the gate,

make sure all the levels are straight out the jungle. The jungle, the brothers, the brothers. Great. Impossible to stop, right? We have to go there the whole thing. It's so hard to hit stop sometimes, you guys. It's just really hard. It's a fun song made by a couple of teenagers,

early adults, and it reflects all that. It's fun. Also, like, I only notice just now as we're doing it. Like, you know, we're used to, like, getting eight bars or 16 mostly, right? These are all, they only have four bars they go on in the next one because they're fitting in so much into the track. It's a real.

Posseka. Yeah, it's a real POSCAD. Four bars and then onward. Even though we know now that these weren't like the best of friends now recording a song together, like it does come across that they were in the studio together. Yeah.

And I think that that's something that unfortunately gets lost. Reacting to each other in real time. It gets lost a lot nowadays because people literally do just send the songs to each other and then they send a verse here and they all get in different countries. Different times a day. Exactly.

Nobody's on the same time zone. Yeah, yeah. There's something wonderful about a real down-and-dirty, posse cut. So we won't be able to talk about as many songs off of three feet high and rising as we wanted. We are in fact one song, the show that breaks down one song. But we tease it at the top and I think now is the best time to talk about it. These songs are complex from a sampling point of view. Very complex. Yes, to say the last. And I'll tell you what else is complex. Those

recording contracts handed out by Tom Silverman at Tommy Boy Records. There are many factors that go into why De La's music has been basically inaccessible to people for decades. And we want to open up this Pandora's box. Can you tell us or explain to us why these songs were not available in digital form for so long? Well, so we've been talking about one of the greatest, most sampling records of all time. It came out a year worth three incredible, the apex of the art of sampling to many, including myself. We've got Paul. Bustie Boys. We've got this record, De La Sol 3Feed High Rising, and we've got public enemies, nation and millions that had just come out the year before. In this moment, sampling,

it's the Wild West. It's possible to make a record, which, as we've been discussing, is a collage where any given song might have six or even 12 samples. I've heard estimates that there are as many as 200 samples across this record. Now, in this moment, sampling is not technically illegal insofar as there hasn't been a legal case to try the edges to show where people's ability to be sued and potentially lose a lot of money might come into play. There's an awareness that it needs to be cleared. And as we discussed earlier, these clearances are happening sometimes,

but not always. But not always. I think it was Macyo who was like, he thinks that Tom Silverman was getting a lot of these samples cleared with just like a handshake. If that. It seems like maybe it wasn't done correctly because unlike Paul's boutique and unlike public

enemy, this record is not available up until last year because there were no digital rights built into the contract. for all the clearances, unlike Paul's boutique and unlike the Public Enemy record. I mean, again, to hear the band tell it, De LaSoul feels like, Tommy Boy didn't know that the album would be as huge and as classic as it was. So there was never any, like, real drive to get this stuff done. So, I mean, look, there's a lot of reasons why you might not do the right thing the right way, but, I mean, that's very generous of you to offer that. I mean, the fact is,

is that it was known that you needed to do something and not nothing. And at the end of the day, this record was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2010, meaning the recording was good enough, quote-unquote, to be in. I literally was just at the Library of Congress last week. It's an incredible, massive, it's not a building. It's three buildings, and this record is in it in 2010, but it's not available anywhere else, which is what's crazy. I think there just must have been some malfecese there, because at the end of the day,

even if he thinks that the album's not going to do well, the fact that, at least according to the band, Tommy Boy is making 90 cents and they're making a dime all of every dollar. Like, you know, that ain't right. Well, apparently. But the bottom line is that Tommy Boy simply didn't have the right to release this record digitally. In other words, if you look at any contract, there's like future technologies. In 1989, they didn't know there'd be iTunes. They didn't know there'd be streaming platforms like Spotify, Pandora.

So there wasn't anything in their contracts and their dealings that gave them this sort of future-proof way of keeping the music in the world. And that ultimately is what did this record dirty. It did all six records, by the way. The first six day-all records dirty. And I mentioned a moment ago that there weren't any court cases at the time this record came out. Well, one of the first lawsuits, it didn't actually make it to court, it was settled. But one of the first lawsuits about sampling happens because of a song on this record. And it's this one. This is transmitting live from Mars. And it's just a one minute. There's no rapping on it. It's just kind of a little skid, a little, a little, it's just a little interstitial or an interlude, exactly. So that little snippet comes from, it's actually a 12-second

sample from this song. This is You Showed Me by the Turtles from 1968. Showed me how to do. So in 1991, former members of the Turtles, Howard, Kailan and Mark Volman, also known as Flo Nettie, sued for $2.5 million. Quote, and I'm saying this quote, because it says so much and it makes me so angry. But according to Volman, quote, sampling is just a longer term for theft. And anyone who can honestly say sampling is some sort of creativity has never done anything creative. That makes me so freaking living. I was going to say, even before you read that, I was like, apparently just don't sample the freaking boomers, you guys.

Like the boomers are freaking ready to sue at the drop of a dime. And also don't sample the French. Because I feel like this is actually maybe the second time on the show that somebody got sued for a French sample. So the French sample was fine, though. They're jumping out like jacques and like just stay away from the French. Yeah. And then the lawyer who I won't name, I won't give him the airtime here, said, they're, Flo and Eddie are genuinely upset with the way Dale Asole chopped up and mutilated their song.

So all of this is so boomer. You're right. We don't like how they chopped and screwed our classic. So gross. So they settled out of court for an alleged $1.7 million in damages. And this begins a new era in hip-hop where sampling is potentially ruinously expensive. And there's a second court case a little bit later, which involves Bismarkey. But this one, that actually goes to court and becomes a precedent. But this one sort of tease that situation up. and this idea of sampling is theft

and you're taking something away from another artist starts to become part of this culture of anti-sampling. One which to this day we're still living in an era that we're... It's post this moment of sampling being considered theft, which I'm strongly, we're both strongly opposed to. Very strongly opposed to. Like we said, we see it as collage. And quite honestly, some of these groups,

I may not even know the turtles, quite honestly. Yeah, for the sampling. Yeah, exactly. It exposes it to new generation. Look, sampling is just another way of referencing or homage or interpolation or covers, frankly. There's lots of ways that a song can have a connection to another song. It doesn't take away the existence of the first song, and to your point, it might draw more attention to it. So there's a lot of back and forth after this.

I'm going to cut to the chase, which is that after 30 years of back and forth about wanting to release, there's back and forth with the label Tommy Boy. Warner, who buys Tommy Boy, is worried about releasing the record for all of the the reasons we alluded to. The paperwork wasn't quite in place. There is some sense still that we aren't certain what will happen. It's the, it's really about risk. Paul's Boutique and Public Enemy, the Beastie Boy record and the Public Enemy record, their record labels had more confidence that what they did was considered fair use and that it would be okay or that they did the right clearances. Simply a matter of the owners of De La Sol's masters and publishing were worried.

So it's not online for all these years until fast forward. at 2021 when Reservoir Media not only buys the catalog, but they gave it back to De La Sol, which to me is such a wonderful... Give it up a reservoir. Give it up a reservoir. That's the thing. They gave their masters back to their original owners. It was a really beautiful gesture.

That's cool. And then it took a year to clear all the samples and everything was cleared. There were some replays. If you listen to three feet high and rising as longtime fans like Diallini, you will notice the occasional difference. Oh, yeah. I mean, I miss my Eddie Murphy sample. I miss my

Anybody in the audience said we could get you by a call? There's a before and after for a few of the moments where they couldn't clear the sample or it was too complicated or too expensive. So they either replayed it or interpellation. Or they just left it out altogether. There's one or two circumstances where there's one, I'll play for you. The Cool Breeze on the Rocks, where it's the 20 fragments in less than a minute. It's got public enemy, Jefferson Starship.

They all say the word rock. Yeah. And it sounds like this. Cool bridge. Rock that shit, homie. Blighted. So, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Coup, preaches.

Et cetera, et cetera, for 50 seconds. That sounds expensive. It's so expensive that literally on the album, it's just, it's just, um... So that's it. On the album, they just replaced it with that. That is the same, man. It's kind of psychedelic tape-melting sound or something. It's cool, but it's like, oh, man, come on.

It just wasn't worth it. The number of signatures. 20-second, 20 different samples in 50 seconds wasn't worth the billions of dollars it would have cost to pay. No, it's, it just it's, it just it's it's. It's a little bit of a DJ dilemma because I think about like when I want to play certain songs off of even just ready to die

which is much later in the game some of those samples like you go and listen to iTunes version It ain't the same so like yeah you'll go online You'll buy the CD and then you play the real version now And real heads are like ah now that sounds like the way I remember it Hey do me a favor play me the original version with Eddie Murphy and the version without okay so here's the magic number as it came out in 1989 No more no less

Maybe by an audience that we can get by a car. So that's Eddie Murphy from, what is it, his debut album. Yeah, yeah, hit by a car. But if you were to listen to that song, if you were to listen to the magic number today on Spotify or streaming platform, this is what you'll hear in that same moment. So just the scratching. It'd be great if they'd such a like a Carlos Menzia.

Doing the same line. It's the same thing, fellas. Doing the same line. No, I'm not going to do a Carlos. Or any routine. Any routine. Or Joe Rogan. It could be anybody.

So it really kind of begs the question. Like, think about like, when you go on Spotify right now, Dayla's Soul, given their, like, massive importance. And an impact. The culture, not just hip-hop culture, the culture, but the culture. And sampling as an art form and the Library of Congress. But when you go to Spotify, like, their numbers, because they're so new to the platform,

it's just sort of, it makes you think, like, how much are they lost out on not being in the culture for these last 20-plus years? 35 years is a lot of. is a very, very long time. And I think the good news is that people who know hip hop, for the most part, no de la soul, know what it meant. You know, their B-sides were amazing. You know what I mean?

And so, like, I feel like anybody who knows their stuff knows how important they are. But it is a loss. But a younger generation just hasn't been exposed to them. When I hear some of the younger rappers talk about even tribe, which I think has managed to stay a part of the conversation, in ways. That's a perfect kind of A, B, because they're coming up the same time.

But sometimes they don't know tribe either. So I think that- But people know tribe far more than daylight because of this phenomenal. In general, yeah, if you talk to like a Jin Z, you know, 14-year-old as I do every day, they do tend to know a tribe called Quest more than Day-Lah. And we can help fix that. I think that the fact that these songs are now available again is in its own way, the streaming version of Boomer's just saying, hey, I'm glad you're sampling my music

because it's going to keep me relevant. I think the fact that Reservoir media did what it did. And also, like, you know, we would be wrong to not mention, you know, the passing of Trugoy again, you know, RIP, such a wonderful human being. I think that when they were going around and announcing like, hey, it's been 35 years and, you know, this is De La Sol, I think all of that helps to bring this group back into the spotlight. Absolutely, yeah. Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song, and we're both going to choose a day.

De La Song for this episode. It might be a deeper cut, might be something our listeners might not know about. You go first. All right. Well, this one just puts a smile on my face every time it gets started. So here it is. This is De La Sol from the album. De La Sol is dead. It's a roller skating jam named Saturday.

My God. The sample Fiesta does not end in 1980. Feel the vibrations in your mind. You've got the chic and roller skates. From Sheik in the background, you've got the beat. There's eight at least samples. I will not go through all of them. And they're all popping in.

But I will give you a handful just to satisfy the itch. Here is, I got my mind made up by Instant Funk, 1978. That's the little intro. That's all they use. That's all they use, just the intro. And then Tower Power gives us the beat from the track Ebony Jam, 1975. Break beats are just endlessly satisfying. I could just listen to break beats for a four.

I could listen to a four-minute loop of that beat. I remember there was a friend of my who did a breakbeat night and it was basically that. So it sounded as fine. You hit me off with, it sounds weird to ask for evil vibrations. But can you give me evil vibrations? Would you like some evil vibrations? This is Mighty Writers' 1978, evil vibrations. Diyala, what's your one more song?

I chose Break of Dawn, at least on Spotify. It's their number two streaming song of all time. It goes a little something like this. So it's a wonderful song. One of my favorites. Personally, my favorite De LaSoul albums are Balloon Mind State and Stakes is high. I do want to take a second, not to play you the Michael Jackson sample, which anybody who's ever heard thriller can identify. Now, I am going to play you just three quick samples.

This is from Barcai's sang and dance. You'll recognize it right off the bat. So that's been sampled a lot of times, but famously in Break of Dawn. Here is a sample off of Break of Dawn. It's from the artist's name is Blue Mitchell. The song is Daydream. I really love this one. If you know Break of Dawn, you'll recognize it right off the bat.

All they did was Loop That. That was freaking incredible. Shout out to the group. And then one more sample from Break of Dawn. This is, and I didn't know this until this week, it contains a Smoky Robinson sample. A famous song called A Quiet Storm Here it is, your chorus from Break A Dawn. A quiet stone

Quiet as one flower. I mean, come on. When you take something that small and you weave it and make it the chorus of one of the greatest Dayla Soul songs of all time, it's just special. So my song was Break a Dawn. As always, if you have an idea for one more song,

you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. And if you made it this far, that means you like the show. So please do not forget to give the podcast five stars, leave a review, and share it with someone you think you would like it. It really helps keep it going. Luxury, help me in this thing. Well, I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and plug 132 Diallo Riddle.

And this is one song. We will see you next time. This episode was produced by Plug 72 Matthew Nelson with engineering from Marcus Haunt. Additional production and support from Casey Simonson. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein. Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wiles, and Leslie Guam.