One Song - Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart"

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

How did Deee-Lite turn a wild mix of samples into a timeless dance-floor anthem? Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY reshare a One Song favorite, unpacking the eclectic patchwork that makes “Groove Is in the Heart” so irresistible. Come for the groove, stay for the Bootsy Collins outtakes. Don't let financial opportunity slip through the cracks, use code ONESONG at Monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, One Song Nation. Today we're bringing back one of our all-time favorite episodes. This is a deep dive into a track that can still light up a dance floor. We're talking D.E. Lights. Groove is in the heart. That's right, Diallo. This song is a veritable musical, po-pery of genre-spanning samples that even includes a surprising snippet from a 60s TV-themed song. This conversation was a D-Light. You don't want to miss it. Let's get into it. Two. One, two, three, four. Yeah. Dig.

couldn't pawn with another No, I couldn't pawn with another Grooves in the heartbeat Groo is in the heartbeat Grooves in the heart That's what I'm talking about, baby Oh my gosh, that was amazing I mean we...

I don't think, I think that was perfect. I think it's indistinguishable from the actual recording. You know, Usher needed. like seven weeks to prepare for the super... Not us. Not us. We just came in and we made magic happen. We nailed it. We nailed it cold. All right, I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ

Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter luxury, aka the guy who talks about interpolation on the internet. And whispers about it too. And this is one song. Today we're talking about a postmodern transcendent genre bending smash hit. That's right. Diallo, it's a song

built on a bedrock of samples from disco records. Funk, jazz, exotica, a whole poopery of different sources. My parents didn't let me go in the Exotica section. I was behind a curtain, like a beaded curtain. Kids weren't allowed back there. It's not just the samples that are all over the map,

so was the band. They drew on their influences from Asia, Europe, and East Village. And don't forget Queens. The hip-hop in the song comes via Queens. This song features cameos from a hip-hop luminary and a funk icon. It was ranked by Pitchfork and VH1 as one of the best songs of the 90s.

It's often called out as one of the decades' best party tunes. Rolling Stone, they can't be wrong. They listed it as one of the 500 best songs of all time. And as a DJ who's done more weddings than I can count. It's still a feel-good classic that gets the over 40s to the dance to them. That's right. You're listening to one song, the Atlantic rated the 23rd best podcast in the world. I will stop milking that. No, no, no. We're number 23 like Jordan. Let's keep milking that.

I'm enjoying milking that. And the song we're talking about today is D. Lights. Groove is in the heart. Dig. Luxury. I know you have a lot of personal history with this song. Oh my God. This is absolutely. This is such a key song for me. I believe. I can't wait to talk about it. I can't wait to talk about it. It's released in the summer of 1990 and it's easily the song of the summer. This song went number one in several countries and ruled the Billboard Dance Chart. How did you first hear this song and what's going on in your life back then? I mean, this song came out when I was just starting my freshman year of college. I'm in Washington, D.C. I'm the music director at my school, or working at the radio station at least.

This is relative because... Music director at the school? I was, I think, going to soon be the music director, but I was at the radio station, the point of which is we get all these free records. So I got the World Click record. That's DeLight's debut album. I actually got it very early on in the school year. And while this was happening, we were also all me and my friends were going to tracks,

which is this legendary gay nightclub just outside of D.C. So my experience coming into college in this moment was like house music was starting to happen and was starting to be a thing that I was exposed to. And it was also starting to be on the pop charts with D-LyLy's groove is in the heart. Madonna's Vogue is also in the same year. So this is an interesting moment where there's a crossover happening basically. Absolutely. But I'm also kind of in the trenches a little bit where in retrospect it's kind of so cool that I was,

I got to be there because at the time like we'd see this guy named Kevin, Kevin Avionz and everyone would be like all-starstruck about him. And he sort of turned into a legendary like RuPaul like drag icon in the later years. And in fact, he put out a record, I will say the name of it. If we have to bleep it out, so be it. But he put out the record, Cunty, which Beyonce sampled in on Renaissance. Which song was that? The song is pure.

Pure honey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this person was just there at this club that we would go to. We would sort of worship him from afar. All of this to say that like this was a moment for me where electronic music was itself in the world beginning to happen

in dance music in this new way with house music being starting to filter out from its origins in Chicago and it hit my ears it hit the radio's ears and it's Madonna's ears so it's all kind of like crossing over everybody I feel like everybody was really into this into this song and look you know

like admittedly I'm in junior high I think when this song comes out and so my only interaction with it was really through MTV but I remember the second I saw it it just seemed like this really cool world The video is iconic. If you remember it at the time and you haven't thought about it in a while,

go back and look at that video, you will remember things that you have totally not thought about in 30 and 40. Very long time. But also rewatching it, I'd forgotten about how, like, in Zoolander, when they do the, like, Frankios Hollywood, like hypnotism dance, it's the same thing. It's the round thing behind them. It's the little heads popping up.

The little heads popping in. And I mean, like, I will say the same thing. I feel like, you know, for me, again, digesting this as a young teenager, D-Light, B-52s were doing Love Shack around this time. Like, there was so much like, sort of like Daisy, Daisy hippie,

like 60s iconography going on. It's that iconography, but there's also like this sort of retro and kitsch factor where there's just sort of 70s and 60s elements that are coming into the music. But with like an ironic wink, you know, this is an air like, there kind of wasn't, like irony didn't really exist until, of course, it existed, but, Like as a mass phenomenon, like, people were pretty like on the nose in the mainstream.

And then you kind of get this sort of maybe Dave Letterman starts to bring irony to the masses. I'm not really sure what it happened. Interesting. But by the time we get to the B-52's Love Shack and D. Light groove is in the heart. It's like you can kind of read. You're kind of able to read that there's a little bit of humor happening with the choice of this like funky baseline from disco music, which also sounds cool. So you can kind of have your cake in the two. Well, that's the thing.

It's like I said earlier. It's a postmodern song. It's got a disco sample. It's got the, you know, I won't jump the gun here, but it's got the jazz sample, let's say, from the soundtrack to the movie, blow up from the 60s. And again, as a kid, just digesting this video, like, I had never, I didn't know who Boosie Collins was. I was like, who's this weird old black guy with the glasses. By the way, he was probably like in his 30s did, but to me, he seemed like he was 100 years old. Right, right, right.

You know, I knew Q-Tip because I was like, you know, into hip-hop. I knew a tribe called Quest, but I was like, who's the lady in the outfit doing the seductive dance moves? And who are these quirky guys who look like they work at a record store in Atlanta's, you know, little five point. Shout out to wax and facts. I used to go there all the time and see people who like look like these. It was like an art school and exploded onto an MTV video. It was crazy. Well said.

I think, by the way, Austin Powers hasn't come out yet. So I feel like there was just a lot of like 60s retro. I was also a big Pee-E-Herman fan and a lot of the stuff in Peewee's playhouse that famous TV show. Yeah, it looked like it was out of a... That's another kitsch getting the mainstream example. Great example.

It looked like B-52s and D-Ly-Ly. Devo had sort of been doing it too. It'd been, not to, I already wasn't invented, but certainly there were lots of, there's an underground kind of cultural, counter-culture, alt-culture thing that was starting to bubble into the mainstream. Absolutely. Early 80s, maybe whip it, you can draw a straight line from WIP

it through the B-52s to D-Lite, and they're kind of all of a piece of sort of, subversive culture, kind of questioning, but also celebrating American pop trash. You know what I mean? All of these things that came before. And I think this goes towards why we chose this song. One thing we always do on the show is we try to bring to light why these songs we cover matter. What makes them part of this musical Smithsonian we're building.

I love that. Yeah. I would love to visit the musical Smithssonian. We are the musical Smithsonian. We're the curators of the musical Smithsonian. That's great. Yeah, so just to sort of summarize a little what we've been talking about, we were talking about, We were talking about how the band delight, and we'll talk a little about the individuals,

how they bring their own experiences literally into the music. So their choice of records that they sample and the choice of sounds that they're making comes a lot from their backgrounds. But this is really interesting because it's in this moment where we've just been having big sampling records are happening. I talk about big sampling records all the time because there's this tiny moment where you've got sort of an 88, 80, 80, 91. It's when hip hop has reached kind of an apex as an art form, it's gotten to this point where part. Part of the art is the collage of samples. So you have Public Enemy, Nation of Millions. The bomb squad, yeah.

Some of those songs have like 200 samples in them. You got three feet high and rising by Della Soul. You get Paul's Boutique by Beastie Boys. And it's interesting as I was listening back to this record, I realized you sort of add this to that group because World Click by D. Light, in particular, this song, Groove is in the heart, has at least 11 samples that I was able to track. So that's not something you could really do anymore. This was a moment where the lawsuits basically had not started to hit.

I feel like even like delight theme. That song sounds like a hip-hop record of the period because of all the looping. There's a really interesting connection I think between hip-hop, which literalizes itself in this song, right? As we'll talk about later when we have our guest, our guest 16 bars, and we'll talk about Q-Tip in a minute. So I think it's really interesting to make that connection. It's also interesting because in this moment, you know, sometimes we talk about how daft punk's pyramid at Coachella in 2006, it was a breakthrough moment culturally because that generation, a certain generation, there had been kind of a gap between the disco demolition in 1980 and 2006, where dance music was a little underground.

But it actually popped its head up a couple times in between. Famously, the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy a few years later. Bad Boy Slim. But in 1990, dance music also popped its head up for a minute with this song. And it's easy to kind of forget that there is a post disco demolition, disco sucks, America music house and disco and everything underground. And they are. But every now and then they pop their head.

for a huge massive global smash like this song. Absolutely. I mean, I think about like Heavy D came out around this period with now that we found love, which is basically a house trap and him rabble. Hey, you, what we go to do? There's a lot of, there's a lot of hip-hop artists jumping onto tracks, and that made them edgy. I'm remembering US3 with cantaloupe and stuff like that.

We're not going to talk about US three. I'm not going to talk about US three. I know. Funky, funky. Everybody's got an opinion on that song. I think the Blue Note guys really liked it. It was like hip-hop that these old jazz musicians on Blue Note could really get down with. But we say all that just to say that like this is the sound of early 90s, New York and early 90s dance.

In fact, I was reading some of the contemporary reviews of this song. And they call it a house song, which I always considered it more of a disco song, even when it came out then. But because it has like a house BPM, it was considered, you know, by some of these, you know, journalists. And so much of that proto house is just a disco sample with an 808. This is not an 808 drum machine necessarily. I'm actually not sure what, no, I take it back. I know that there are no drum machines in the song. So it is technically not a house music track, maybe just because there's no 808 or 909 in the mix.

So it's interesting you say that. In the UK, it was a double A side single. And the other side was what is love, which sounds like an amazing house record. That is a monster. Sounds like 2024. It could be like contemporary. In fact, when we're done here, let's go back to your place and put some 909s and 808s under it. Honestly, the whole record, I mean, I have a feeling we might have to touch on the one-hit wonder nature of how this song and this band is perceived.

But frankly, World Click still stands the test of time as a great album. Whether they're a one-hit wonder a little later in the show. Okay, so one thing about this song is that I think everyone of a certain age knows it. But I guess most people know far less about the band. Talk us through it. Who are D. Light, spelled with three E's luxury, spelled with two X's. So D. Light are a band that form in New York. The nucleus is Lady Miss Keer, Kier Kirby, who's...

I'm glad you told me how to pronounce her name because I was scared to Kier. It's Kier. Yeah, Lady Miss Kier Kirby from Ohio. It's 1982 and she meets a DJ, DJ Dimitri Brill. He's from Ukraine, but who moved to the U.S. when he was a teenager. And I thought he was the DJ in the band. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting.

The two of them really form the songwriting nucleus of the band. And it kind of happens accidentally because Dimitri is a DJ. He's on the scene. He's like a resident at all the big hot clubs of the moment. In New York. In New York. This is all New York. Early 80s, New York City.

And so lady Miss Keir, she comes to be known later. She's a fashion designer and a textile designer. And she's not a musician at all. But they start dating. And one night they take LSD. And she starts singing. And the next day, Dmitri, He's like, you have a good voice.

We should write some music. And that's the beginning of the two of them starting to write songs together. Was this sort of accidental LSD experience of, you know, vocal discovery. Oh, so that's interesting. Like so many groups, this group sort of grew out of a couple. Grew out of a couple. Grow out of this accidental LSD experience. Which also explains the video.

I feel like watching that video again. It's a trip. It's so trippy. It's so trippy. It's very psychedelic. They're bringing all that 70s kind of cliche stuff back. Again, with a wink, you know, it's sort of like, oh my God, What do you call the lamp?

The lava lamp, like all that lava lamp graphics. Like in the 70s, if you ever watch the, like, Veld Underground, there's always like a lava lamp video thing going on behind them. They bring all that back. With a wink and a nod. Yeah, absolutely. Another kind of interesting accident that leads to their starting to be a band is, you know, Lady Miscere tells the story about it.

She says, in 1986, I found $500 in the back of a cab and bought my first sampler. And that allowed her as... Oh, that is the best. That's so great. And as a non-musician, and by the way, this is... in 1986, you had the wherewithal to think, I want to make music, but I'm not a musician. $500 in a cab in 1980s.

And spending it on a sampler. There was probably tons of residue on the 500. Let's slow the story down. Let's talk about the $5.00 in the cab. I don't know about this $500. What would you do if you find $500 in a cab in 196? I don't know, but I think someone got killed when they showed up and they didn't have that $500.

It's true. Can I just say real quick? Super short anecdote. One time, Bashir and I, my writing part of Bashir and I, went to a nightclub. and as I walked and we were like in our 20s and flat broke

and as I walked across the dance floor I saw some money and I just picked it up and I counted it and it was $260 all in 20s can use

I felt like a Rockefeller like I can't tell you how many jams that got me out it was just like a magic it was like Mario when he finds a coin like one of the

but one of the bricks with lots of coins wait when you find this money are you like looking around or are you like worried someone's going to stole it? I put that in my pocket so fast. I went to the bar where Bashir was. I was like, dude, we got to get out of here.

I was like, we got to go. He's like, what happened? I was like, I'll explain later. I was like, but we just came up. We were roommates at the time. So we ate like kings. Sizzler. We're going to the sizzling. Steak seafood and solid. Damn. What a combo. Surf and turf. I'm sorry. This is pointless. Let's get back to, she finds $500 in the back of a cab. So she finds this money in the back of a cab. She buys her. for a sampler. And again, the wherewithal to think, I'm not a musician, but I want to make music. In 1986, to know to buy a sampler and that you can piece together songs from that, because

it's kind of happening in the world for the first time. Like now we take for granted out. You can piece together some samples, some loops, etc. Are you going to tell me that she and he co-produced this? Because I thought he produced it. And so she was a co-producer. So it's cool because the name of, they formed an entity like a production entity called Sample-A-Delic Productions. If you look at the record, it's produced by DeLite Sample-O-Dog Productions. It's just the two of them.

That all tracks. And the third person they brought in was DJ Toete, who's... Who I love and have followed for years. We'll talk about that a little bit. His solo work is great, too. He's amazing. He comes into the picture, and what he brings to the table is his record collection

as a DJ and as a collector of these more esoteric records. He's a Japanese Korean-born DJ who moved to New York and moves to the United States. They all meet on the club scene in the late 80s and he becomes the third and you know

the missing piece for the band. He had just gotten to town. I love that story. He just got to town and immediately he's on like the hottest song in the world. And makes a massive contribution because so the story of

Groove is in the heart as a song. Lady Miss Kear says that she'd actually already had the lyrics written separately. And then DJ Dimitri Brill was one of his favorite songs to play when he was a DJ and not to jump the gun a little bit on the stems but because the stories are merged

the stems are mostly samples outside of the vocals here's the song that he would love to play as a DJ and his DJ sets this song is Herbie Hancock Bring Down the Birds from the blow-up soundtrack if you've seen the movie

Michelangelo Antonioni So 60s So Go-Go It's a hot tune on its own I mean you can understand But it's so cool that he's playing this, right? Think about the tempo and the sound. Like, that's unusual.

That's a cool party. If you can play this and the people don't throw eggs at you, as we know everybody goes to the club with eggs in their pocket, ready to throw. It's so fast. It's like a 60s go-go jail in 1960s. I love that. That tells me a lot about the parties that he was probably DJ. Yeah, yeah, very eclectic.

Also, we talk a lot on this show about Quincy Jones and the path that his career took. I don't think enough is said about Herbie Hancock. I mean, like, he goes from that era Herbie Hancock to like the Jazz Fusion. Herbie Hancock that gets sampled more often in hip-hop to rock it, which was the first time my ears ever heard scratching. Me too. Yeah. So I mean like, you know, at some point we got to give Herbie his flowers. Oh my God, Herbie is crucial. He's crucial to the song too, because not only, he's actually the only credited songwriter outside of

the band and Q-Tiff for his rap for his 16 bars later on. And he's also got two samples in this song because he's sampled as Herbie Hancock, but one of his other entities, the headhunters, also appears as one of the Sanctus. is used in the song. Oh, I can't wait to hear that. I can't wait to hear that. Rich with samples, we'll get into that in just a minute. To finish the story of how the band meets, so we've got the three of them, they come up with this name,

which clearly has some connection to, I haven't heard them tell the story about like that they took it from D-Lite records, which was cool in the gang's label. Oh, that's right. It's not a connection, like, you know, that's, if you ever get an old cool in the game records. It's with three E's two E's, but it's D-E-D-L-L-I-T-E.E. It's very similar. It's probably connection there, but there's also.

Also, the Cole Porter song. What somebody was like for that label was like, oh, we've got a lawsuit. Going to get some of that groove of the heart money. Yay. They also probably were connected to the Cole Porter song. It's DeLovely. You know, there's the song where there's another song on the record. That was the song that starts off.

Right. Oh, you're right. It's in the song. Yeah. How do you say DeLovely? How do you say DeLite? Yeah. All right.

Well, after the break, we're going to play some of the samples from Grooves in the Heart. And I guarantee you this song has some samples that are absolutely. absolute chef's kiss. You have not heard them before. We're going to play them. Stay tuned. Luxury, I don't know how the current economy is treating you, but I'll say for me and my family, we're really trying to spend our money in a way that's smart. And recently, we did some digging and discovered a whole investment account that we'd forgotten was there. We left money on the table just for not being aware. But now we're getting smart. Feel organized and confident in your finances with Monarch Money, an all-in-one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial

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I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. Welcome back to one song. So this song is almost entirely built on samples. I know that there's some original vocals that were applied,

but like this isn't a case where like the band got in the studio and even really supplied like a bass line or like a guitar there. Like, explain to us, like, how unusual this song is. Well, you know, we talked a little bit before about the era of samplingness happening on the hip-hop side. It's also been happening, to be fair. It's happening on the electronic side as well. Both the worlds of hip-hop and dance music have a big part of their lineage is using, you know, reusing recorded material and adding, you know, drum machines and vocals to that. They've done that in this song.

So they're definitely carrying on the tradition of dance music in the post-disco era. That's kind of what house music starts to do that's new and different, is add 909s in drum machines to loops and vocals. So they've done all that, but actually there isn't even the drum machine. That's what's so unusual. They just purely used the music. They literally made a collage of sound with pre-recorded material. And even when you've got the Bomb Squad or DJ Premiere, it's like they are generally adding something of like an anyway. Just like always, something in addition to the samples, not always, but frequently enough that it's still, there's enough in the sample.

I'm near always. I can't think of too much. many hip-ups. What's funny is every now and then like Ghost Face Killer will literally just wrap over the song. Like he'll leave the vocals in and everything. Yeah, that can be cool. But that's essentially what they did here. Like there's no, to be clear, there's no band session of delight in the studio recording music. There are no instruments that they're playing. Although on stage later on and Dimitri is a performer and you mentioned the song. He was in a band before. He was in many bands before. Actually, they all, part of the backstories that they were all failing and

Lady Miss Keir felt bad for him. And so like they were, The whole origin of the band was a little bit like, you know, trying to help him have his band fantasy come to life. And live he does sometimes early footage of the band, actually. They would be, he would be playing guitar, and sometimes he plays keyboards. But for this song, none of that's happening. They didn't add any keyboards, any live instrumentation,

except, and we'll get to this in a minute, there are some live horns, and they're not just any horn players. Oh, yes. There's a special horn player. There's a story there. We'll get to that. But you have some samples you want to play for us. So what do you want to play for us first?

All right, so let's start with that drumbeat. This is a sample from a song by Vernon Birch from 1979. It's called Get Up. That's what it sounds like. There's a little drum break, and they sample the drum break. It's in classic hip-hop slash dance music tradition. Yeah, it's all about the break. You find a bar where there's nothing else happening but be, and you grab that.

And you grab it. Do me a favor. Play this song from the beginning, though. Freaking sick jam, bro. That's what 1979 sounds like. You know, I just a joke. did a deep dive on this with the help of my friend on the inside, who I mentioned on a previous episode. And while you, we don't know on the master's side, in the era, they sometimes paid

a hundred bucks to the record label, like on Paul's Boutique, a lot of these big sampling records, when they didn't just try and get away with it, which history does, there's no record of which samples they did that on. They would often pay a pretty small sum because this was the early days of sampling. Yeah, nobody knew how much to charge for this stuff. You know what? It really depended. And sometimes they just try to do. tried to get away with it. On the publishing side, I can tell you definitively that the only sample that was cleared on the publishing side was the Herbie Hancock one, which forms the basis, that main baseline that runs through the entire song. I do have a question on the issue of sampling,

which is that, you know, when you go back and you listen to the version of Ready to Die by the notorious B.I.G on iTunes, they've removed a lot of the parliament samples. Right. All of it. But Paul's Boutique, which you could argue samples even probably more problematic stuff, seems to be generally intact. Is it not? If I go out and buy the CD of Paul's Boutique, will it sound different? I mean, no, Paul's Boutique won't sound different. Daylessol's three feet high and rising.

Oh, drastically different. It does sound very different. Yes. I just wonder what was in the Beastie Boys' camp. How were they able to clear all that stuff for perpetuity with so many other people? You know, I've been researching all this stuff now. So I'm in the middle of finding out answers. The bottom line from what I've seen so far is, look, the answer to all of it is power, leverage, negotiations.

It's like sometimes it's a matter of like who's your lawyer and who else do they represent. You know what I mean? Like it's one of those like, hey, give us a break on this and we'll give you a break on this. Sometimes it's stuff just kind of slides by because the artist is too difficult to track down or they don't hear it. Every story is a little bit different, but I can tell you because you mentioned it, the notorious B. situation. That was subject to a massive lawsuit. I don't have you heard of Bridgeport. You know this Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Bridgeport famously bought up and the Clinton, the George Clinton Parliament Funkadelic, who featured in this story later, by the way? Their catalog, I think George

recently bought it back. I think there's a happy ending. But for a long time, they were just basically what it called sample trolls, copyright trolls rather. They would just go out and litigate, like they bought the catalog in order to sue and make money from suing. They would like read the liner notes, be like, oh, there's money to be made here. If you had the bad luck, that you sampled from one of their artists, you could count on a knock on your door. Whereas in other situations, maybe the artist passed away and maybe the paperwork is missing.

You know, every situation is a little bit different. But you're right, Paul's boutique kind of got a pass, whereas three feet high and rising didn't is a perfect example. Those are pretty diametrically opposed to situations. Can we assume that the BC boys had a lawyer or somebody involved who was very, you know, spot on and made sure that this language? I've also heard, I think, Mario Caldada, who is a member of the camp, of the Beasties camp.

He gets shoutouts on some of their records. I think I saw an interview where he mentions that clearance, this was a situation where there actually were a lot of clearances that were done on the cheap. So in other words, instead of having to give away the IP, the copyright itself on the publishing, they paid a few hundred bucks one time only and one and done forever. So that might just have been a great lawyer

or a very well-contacted individual who reached out and said, hey, you know, just let us with a path, 500 bucks, and let us put it on the record. I'm sure every single sample has its own story behind it. I love it. And we should probably do a whole episode just on sampling law. All this stuff is like what I'm working on for this book. And by the end of the year, I'll be like even more steeped in all of it.

And in two years you can buy the book. There you go. All right. Well, that's super fascinating. What's the next sample you have for us? Well, let's keep it moving. There's a lot of percussion breaks. I'll just really quickly run through them because all of these play the part.

And actually this kind of a cool expression the artist themselves used because they had these kind of building blocks of the song that made drumbeat, that main Herbie Hancock thing. But then they would have a lot of these little momentary what they called fill-ins. So it's a really, like just for a moment, something happens just to have more oral interest. Stuff happening.

By the way, when I say oral interest, I mean A-U-R-A-L. Because there's more than one kind of all of this. Nobody thought that until you just clarified. As it came out of my mouth, I realized that it could have been, okay. As it came out of your mouth. Oh, okay. You know what? Give the guy a break.

Oral interest can mean many things. The one song, the one song nation knows A-U-R-A-L. That's a good presumption. If I'm saying oral, I probably mean- They're a very smart listener. They're very smart. They download every week and they're with us. That phone is reserved for audio.

Let's hear some of these oral fixations that you have coming up for. That's not what they are. Here's one of many fill-ins or oral fixations. This is one of the percussion break. from Ray Barretta's right on, 1972. Right? Do you recognize this? I'll play it for you. Yeah, that's a really noticeable. Yeah, that's right before the second verse. Watch out. Right, exactly. I'll play it in the mix now.

By the way, I knew exactly where Bootsie chimed in with a watch out. So props to me too. Well done. Well done. Start it for a couple of it. This is fun. I like to isolate the scratches sometimes. And you can hear how imprecise they were, because this is a human, presumably DJ Toa Tau-Tay, on, like literally on the decks, scratching this in for oral interest. Yeah. He does it later.

Here's another scratch. The old helicopter scratch. What is that? What is that? I don't know. It's hard to say. By the way, that could be, I'm sure somebody in the comments will let us know.

Oh, man, come on. But that's what the comments sound like to me. But sometimes as a DJ, you get those, you used to get records and now it's like an MP3 file of just like sound effects and just like so yeah i got it that's right like acapella's anonymous yeah yeah and you could just scratch on those DJ tool records yeah exactly DJ tools i'm gonna say some of my favorite fill-ins for when we get to the vocal section no problem there's two in particular that i'm are so funny to me

and exciting to present there you go um but let's finish up with some of these instruments we talked about the herbie hancock loop so i won't play that again but i will mention by the way the Bring Down the Birds, which is the core of the song. It does bear mentioning that this is Ron Carter on bass, who any tribe fan will know because he appears on low-end theory. And he is, I just learned, according to the Guinness Book World Record, he is the most recorded jazz bassist in history. Oh.

Yeah. So that's him playing that Herbie Hancock baseline. That's fun. Yeah. And by the way, it bears repeating that, like, with copyright law, that discussion we just had, Herbie Hancock gets a writing credit, but you're not hearing Herbie Hancock. You're hearing Ron Carter, right?

Well, he was the band leader. Well, I mean, you know, this gets into sort of like power dynamics with, with law. Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean, far be it for me to defend band leader status, but I think it's legitimate. You do? In the sense that like when you have a band full of guys and this guy is saying, okay, I want you to play this, I want you to play this, sure. You to play this.

Especially in a pre-computer. Nowadays, because this computer, you can basically program everything. You know, it's the nature of it. It's work for hire. I'm pretty sure Ron. Carter showed up that day knowing he would only be paid for his time in the studio, the $50,00, whatever it was. But it also makes you really think.

Like, what you're hearing in this song is Ron Carter. Ron Carter is the heartbeat of this song, literally. The entire song, he's playing that bass line. But without researching, bring down the birds, we don't, I mean, like, if, you know, if Ruby Hancock came up with that and asked him to play it. Maybe they should split it. Huh? No, I agree with you.

You're right. I'm all for equality. So I understand that. But I also know that it's like Prince. Like Prince didn't play every instrument in his band. Yeah. You know. But, you know, it is different if Ron came in and said, hey, man, I got this idea for a baseline.

I gave it to Herbie Hancock as opposed to Herbie saying, play this. I think those are two very different things. We don't know. We don't know which. We don't know which. It reminds me of our sister Nancy episode where we talk about that baseline for Bomb Bomba, the iconic bassline. It's a very similar situation. And unless you were in the room that day, making eye contact, did what I play?

Was it my idea that you took over and improved upon? Like that entire conversation is its own. Nothing leads to great music like an eye towards the future lawsuits surrounding the always keep that in mind. If you're a musician, always be thinking. That's glad to all the great music in my collection. What's interesting about the song, we've talked about Bootsie a few times. Now we get to just pause and talk about Bootsie's importance to not just the song,

but to the genre of funk in general. Now Bootsie Collins, we've been alluding to him. He is the voice on this record, which is funny because he's actually actually one of the kind of his base players. Yeah, he's got that like... Baby Bubba. I don't even know how you describe that voice. It's kind of a cartoon. He's kind of a living cartoon.

He's a cartoon character in the most respectful, cool way that I can say he's a cartoon. I mean, like, you know, you look at him in the early days with Parliament and Funkadelic. Like, he's bootsy. And, you know, thank God, you know, we still have this institution. Oh, and thank God he met George Clinton, right? So he starts out with his brother. He's playing for James Brown's band for not very long.

Like, that's where he gets his start. I think he's 18 or 19. He's only in the band. He's only in James Brown's band for 11 months. But in those 11 months, it's him on Sex Machine, super bad, soul power, like some of the classic tracks of that era, which is the best James Brown era. But, you know, when he's in that band, he meets some other band members. He meets members when he's with James Brown. He meets Fred Wesley on trombone. He meets Macy O'Harker. And when one day, Lady Miss Kear, before they're signed, she sends just a fan letter to Bootsie Collins. saying, we love you. I think she sends a demo version. That makes so much sense.

She sends their demo to him and he says, he writes back and says, look, if you're ever in the studio, give me a call. And she's elated. She does a dance. And one day that call comes because they get signed to Elektra. They groove is in the heart. They're recording it. They're like, let's call Bootsie.

Bootsie's like, yeah, I'm down. And he comes in. He puts on that vocal track, which will play some isolated in a minute. He does not play bass, interestingly. Makes sense. Yeah, nobody's playing bass on this. There's no bass needed because we got Ron Carter already. Already got the sample.

But he does bring Fred and Macyo from the horny horns. That's fantastic. So the only music added to samples and vocals that are original are the horny horns. And here they are. Here's the horn line. It's funny because to my ear, we talked about this on another episode. Like in the mix, which I'll play for you now, it's blending with another line. So the melody that I had heard in my head was different.

Because when you hear it together, it sounds like that. I thought it was dun dun dun dun da da da da dun dun dun but it's just a fraction of that and you know why I'm just seeing it now because that horn line is interplaying with this sample it's just that and then the horn plays and then this happens so I'll just play them together that's so cool you can tell that macy when Fred were listening to the track and being like you know let's play where there isn't something already and give it like a dialogue. So I'll now play those two things together.

It's almost like they're responding to another band member, but it's Ron Carter, you know, recorded 15 years earlier. By the way, that was my favorite part of the horns is that. That's so great, that little line. That really makes it. It's a lot of fun. I'm embarrassed to say that,

but you know, it was a function of my age. The first time I ever saw Bootsie was probably in this video. Oh, definitely me too. And the first time I ever... Because where had you been for 10 years? The first time I ever heard the phrase horny horns was in a Paula Abdul's song, I'm in a funky way.

Horny horns. And I was like, what is you talking about? But by the way, that was also like an early house song that I feel like could have easily been played in some of these. Not the most underground, but like sort of like pop underground New York House music parties at that period. I don't know the song. Play it. Yeah, it's called Vibology. Here's a little sample of it. That's so funny.

I've never heard this song. It's so funny hearing it is that like it's so contextually a house track that could not exist without delight and vogue coming before it to sort of steer the ship on what the houseiness is. This sounds like the Paula Abdul that was probably going to the glam slam and like trying to like get prints to write your next album. And I love that. And dun dun dun dun dun dun dun da. Like, that's like, that's like the fun piano-driven, early 90s house music that, you know, was just kind of on our radar. We didn't know there was a whole culture that went with it.

But, like, I hear it on Madonna's deeper and deeper. Totally. You know, great track. Somebody should bring that sound back because it's very catchy. It's that very specific pop house overlap where it's not being spun in the deep house clubs at three in the morning necessarily. Maybe for fun it is, actually. But it's not like one of those early masters at work, like, you know, seminal tracks. It's not Louis Vega.

But it was the house that made it to, you know, a relatively, not a suburban house, but like a house in Zone 4 in Atlanta in the early 90s, where I was listening. Not everything in this song is a sample. That's very true. Somebody did actually go into the studio. Lady Miss Keir. What do you have from her?

Half of the vocals, all of the, like, melodic vocals, I should say, come from Lady Miss Kear. And then there's these wonderful, there are two different raps happening. and I've got some outtakes from that, from Bootsie's rap that wasn't fully used. And, of course, Q-Tip, we're going to hear from him. But then the other half of the song's vocals are from these wonderful samples, and some of them are amazing. And these are the little interspersed fill-ins that I was mentioning before.

Awesome. All together, they comprise the vocals. Let's start with Lady Miss Kear. And her iconic, every episode, I've got to say the word iconic. Not going to stop. And her iconic first verse. The chills that you spill up my back, keep me filled with satisfaction when we're done.

satisfaction of what's to come I couldn't ask for another Man those vocals are actually I don't want to say that they're better I always knew she could sing But like they actually sound more robust And sexy It's really rich right

Yeah that's really rich And she's it's really fun sounding too Like that's so many sounds in the song I guess you can actually forget That at the heart of it is actually a really good vocal The song would not work if it was just all these incredible samples it's Lady Miss Kear is the heartbeat of all of it.

And, of course, the lyrics and the message. You know, she's always, the album is called World Click. And so much about who she is as a person, as an individual, is there's so much virtue and beauty and, like, love that comes from her. She talks about on the record, you know, that the world is a global village. There's songs on later records about, like, global warming. She's very much kind of bringing a message, which actually, now I think about it, is a very kind of hippie message, right?

It brings that into the music. Let's hear a little more of Lady Miss Kear. Groove is in the heart. Groove is in the heart. Groove is in the heart. Is that everybody's favorite part, that little swoop. No, Groove! That little swoop in the fourth repeat.

The whole thing works. Yeah, the whole thing works. What a freaking good voice. Yeah, yeah. I think that's maybe the part I did not anticipate about actually hearing this. You know, it's funny. I've been thinking about this band a little bit because you can go back on YouTube. There's all this great, like, live footage of them.

So their earliest performances are all these sort of East Village, like, clubs. You know what I mean? Like this is a band that forms out of dance music, which reminds me a little bit of the massive attack story. Yeah, there's a lot of overlap. This is a DJ-centric artist entity where they're writing songs that are sort of poppy, but it's coming from a DJ perspective of piecing together with the skills that they have and the instruments and the same period. Sampleers they have. I mean, same rough period of the 90s. But also the performance is taking place not in a rock band setting, but in a dancing setting. It's open air, I suppose, in Jamaica

and in the Massive Attack Bristol example. But here, this is an East Village nightclub, and it's the classic live PA situation where you've got a backing track, you've got lots of dancers. It's really about the show, and the song, it's not to say it's secondary, but it's a little bit secondary.

You're in this gay nightclub in the late 80s, and it's a big show, and there's 20 people on stage having a blast. And I was just struck by how that kind of reminds me. You mentioned the B-50, twos. They have a party background to later on. Cisor Sisters in Athens, Georgia. Cisor sisters have a

similar beginning. East Village. It wouldn't shock me. Yeah. In fact, I'd love to do a sister sister's episode because that first album was mind-blowing. It's so great. It's so great. And very similar beginnings where it's East Village. It's backing track with like performance more than

it is like we're a band and we're rocking you. Yeah. So it's interesting the connection between all of those bands. Absolutely. And then maybe this is everyone's favorite part. The Horton Here's a Who? the depth of who the groove moves the two the nth hoop we're going through to wharton hears of hoo-woo. You want to hear that with a harmony? Let's layer that a little bit. The depth of hula groove moves us to the nth hoop.

We're going through to horton hears a hoo-woo. Now, I will say, I don't know what I thought she was seeing there. I definitely didn't hear anything about the inth hoop. and I definitely didn't catch Horton Here's a Who. So, you know, who didn't have the internet, guys? It was so easy to just sing whatever you thought the person was singing back then. I actually, when I bought the Digable Planet's Rebirth of Slick album, in the back of the liner notes that said, hey, if you want a copy of the lyrics,

send a self-addressed envelope to this peel box. did. And they never sent me the lyrics, but that's how big a fan. But you have that on vinyl? That is so hard to get. I've been looking for that. That's, like 300 bucks. I think it was the cassette. Even the cassettes back then, obviously, had the liner notes. And you could send, you could, you could use snail mail to get the lyrics sent to you. Speaking of Diggable Planets, like, there are, I do have World Click on vinyl. And it's funny because I forgot that it has like a original. Yeah, the original copy. And I forgot that it does have, like, on the inner sleeve, it's got like a cartoon story.

which is very similar to De La Sol's Three Feet High and Rising, if you remember, also has kind of a cartoon story. But in this cartoon story, Lady Miss Keir says something about how her nickname is Doodlebug? Oh, no. More lawsuits. All right, so the thing I want to play next is Q-Tips verse. But before we get into that, Diallo, I know you're a fan. We're both fans of Tribe Call Quest, but you're an especially deep fan. So please talk to me about Q-Tip.

Well, look, I mean, this is not going to be our Tribe Call Quest episode. We're both big fans. We will definitely. We're going to do one. One's in the work. But to me, this is a part of what Q-Tip has done for so long, which is he jumps from genre to genre. And he shows up in just some amazing songs.

You know, this was one of the first times, obviously, that we got to see his versatility. This song came out before a low-in theory, which is kind of blows my mind. But, you know, I think about the song, bang, bang, bang that he did with Mark Ronson. A Little Party, Never Killed Nobody. off of the Great Gatsby soundtrack. I think it was like a Fergie song, but of course, Q-Tip came on for the lyrics. I just, I find him to be a music fan like us.

And so it doesn't surprise me that he's an early adopter of the idea that a rapper can show up on anything, an R&B song. He can produce, he produced, you know, like he was, I believe the producer, on the first two hip-hop songs that he ever popped up on the Jungle Brothers. I think he produced two songs for them,

and had his own verse on those even before people's instinctive travels. So, you know, QTip was just... I actually came up with the name for the band, right, in that verse? Yeah, that's where he renames the group of Tribe Call Quest. So I think that, you know, and he produces so many of the... When you discover that Q-Tip is actually the force behind some of the most artistically sampling hip-hop tracks that Tribe Call Quest has released,

the fact that he remixed Nas and he remixed Nas and he remixed. mixed so many people in the 90s and the 2000s, you know, before you ever gets to even vibrant thing, which is enjoying a second life right now as the sample basis of a dance track called Dust right now in 2024. He's just, he's got that versatility and he knows how to come in and do hip hop on a song that may not technically be hip hop, but make it feel like it's hip-hop. and I'm just always been a supporter. I'm going to give a shout out real quick to his solo album, which was called Kamal the Abstract.

And there was a song on there called Even If It Is So, which I just, every time I hear it, it gives me chills. It's just one of those great hip-hop songs. He has so much work that I haven't even, like, delved into, which is true of so many my favorite artists. I haven't heard every David Bowie song. But like, I'm going to check that out because I've heard that. He's just firmly this New York guy, you know, this rapper who, you know,

If he had been alive at the time, he would have done the rap verse on Blondie's The Rapture. You know what? He's just that guy. You know what? It's interesting you said that because the backstory about how he got connected to this song, the story that Lady Miss Keir herself tells is she said, this is before Tribe blew up. He was hanging with the Jungle Brothers and we opened for them one time at a club called Hotel Amazon. We played that song live and he asked if he could do 16 bars on it.

I also heard, I mean, maybe it's the same story, but I also heard that Tau-Tay knew. Africa Baby Bomb, who's a member of the Jungle Brothers. Maybe that's the connection. Maybe that may be how they were on that show together. That would make sense. Well, the other story, which we're about to hear the bars themselves, Dimitri explains how when he came into the studio,

Alia was a notepad. He just started writing, this is a quote from DJ Dimitri, from Delight. As we were laying down boots, he's party started writing. He just listened to the song and said, give me 15 minutes. And then he goes in and he lays down the rap

and the backup vocal, two takes, and he was in and he was out. There you go. There you go. Let's hear a little bit of that. Get witty, witty, witty, stomp on a stoop when I hear a funk loop playing pop piper, follow hood's chute, baby, just sing about the groove.

Man, you know, people think they can rap until you try and do rap in like karaoke night. And then you realize, oh, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. It takes so much breath control. And, you know, with nothing else around it, you realize just how difficult it would be to both write that and to perform. I'm not hearing any punching in and out. That is the one take that we were told just took place.

That's amazing. By the way, I think growing up, the only part I knew was maybe just sing about the groove. Yeah, just how it ends. I think I remember electric torso. I remember thinking that was kind of like a cool thing. Well, and just for fun, here is some of the, here is his second take where he does the back, where he's responding to his first take. Something lurks in this torso.

Yeah. Got a deal you won't know. Delightful. Trulah delightful. making it doing it especially at a show show. And by the way, another cool thing that I hope people notice there is like he's not even doing like, you know,

A, A, B, B, C, C, rhyme scheme. Like, there are times when, like, he goes half a bar and then rhymes it. Like, that's something that I equate more with, like, Naz, you know, about three years after this song. Right, yeah, right. Who would, like, cut the bar in half and then just make it rhyme with that first half of that one bar

and, like, maybe a little Rakim is doing it right here. Yeah. Well, the thing about Rakim is that I think that, you know, he's more like what I feel like people thought rap was and KRS won like it was like hard and Q-Tip is really one of those first obviously they're slick Rick there are a lot of people who are rapping smooth

but like but the abstract poet aka Q-Tip aka Kamal he was really rhyming smooth early on and I and it's easy to forget that he's one of the first people to do that. Incredible yeah such a great verse. I also really appreciate the fact that it's part of this Daisy age and hip hop where like

you know everybody was kind of dressing alternative There were a couple of guys in my high school. I wasn't cool enough to pull it off. But they were sort of dressing as sort of like neo-hipies at the time. And the one place where I did meet them was I wore like a peace medallion. You know, like that was like, that was my contribution to the culture. You had the peace medallion. Was it Africa with like the colors and the flag?

I didn't have the African medallion. But it's like my best friend wore the Africa delion. I wore the peace medallion. We thought we were cool. And we were, damn it. Yeah, you were cool. I can still see the white shirt that I used to wear. it was an all white shirt so it would accentuate the fact that I had this black rope with a with a peace medallion at the bottom.

You're absolutely right. But it all goes towards the idea of a world click. Yes. And it should be noted that like delight. Their philosophies are fully overlapping with the D.L.S.O. Tribe. Jungle Brothers. It's called Grooves in the heart. It meshes all these different genres.

In 70s. They're pulling in Bootsie from the 70s. Samples literally. Q-tip from like, you know, hip-hop and New York culture. It really makes me wonder like what is going on. right now that could be as cross-germinating in terms of genre and as welcoming. I mean, there's something really welcoming about this song, not just in its lyrics and its music and it's people, but it's just, it kind of just welcomes you all in to say, hey, we're going to

play some music, we're going to dance, and we're going to have a good time. Right. And I feel like, you know, I would love for somebody to make a song like that today. Because I do feel like nowadays, people take their genre. pretty damn seriously, and everything has to be so personal that only one person can even sing it. You know, like, I think that it would be great to have that sort of welcoming vibe in one song. Perfectly put. And speaking of welcoming vibe, what a perfect segue into the third but not least important voice on this record, which is Bootsie himself, who interjects all these really crucial.

We're talking about the fill-ins with the samples. He does the same kind of thing with his little silly interjection. So let's play a few of those. which also, by the way, you were just talking about the overlap just culturally and philosophically with the Daisy Age and the delight aesthetic of retro 70s samples.

Well, P. Funk, you could argue with their bringing funk and rock and psychedelia together and like kind of crazy cartoonishness with their live performances and personas, they were doing something very similar like a previous generation. So what a perfect meeting of the minds.

When you think about collabs these days, they don't necessarily always feel authentic because maybe there isn't the same kind of meeting of the minds. But what a perfect combination that we've got, Tribe Called Quest with D-Light and P-Funk James Brown in the form of Bootsie on this track. Well, let's hear him.

Let me give you a plug, sweet lips, while I'm on the air. Now, bend over my body and rub your fingers through my hair. Your mouth run like water. A very beautiful sight. Now put on my favorite group, they call themselves a delight. Now, I have never heard that in my life. Is that in the final?

That's not in the song? But that is on some of the remixes used some of his... I was like, that shit must be way buried in the mix. No, no, no. It's not in the final version, but it is... That was used in one of the, like, remixes, I believe. Yeah, no, Bootsie's got a whole rap, actually. He's got several different sections of the song

that he just kind of writes his own little poetry like that. They ended up just using his little, like, moments, like... That's the truth. Oh, yeah! Yeah. Dig. That's literally dig. That's so crucial, though, just this one one.

Dig. I remember it. I remember watch out. Is that the next one at sea? No, that's right. I remember that one, too. Astronomical. What does he say there?

That's astronomical. Oh, I thought he said something about a monocle. Astronomical. There's the gold right there. Astronomical. But for the very, it sounds like he says astromomical. Listen to it again. Astronomical.

There's a distinct M sound in there. But there is no word. No, I know. I'm saying I think it's a flood. But it's hilarious. It's awesome. Astronomical. He's so funny.

He's such a character. I'm going to write a TV show called Astromomical. It's going to be a woman who balances her mother, you know, being a mom and working at NASA. Groove is in their heart. I think they use that. Suckertage.

I never thought a suck attach is being filthy, but now I'm going to think twice about ordering. And then, of course, the song ends with. Come on, y'all, dude. Y'all are crazy, man. Was that cool? Can I hear that last verse thing, the whole last verse thing? Lots of really.

He sounded like he was ready to get out of there and get to the club. He was like, was that cool? Are we done yet? Because I've given you my best. Now, we can't conclude the samples without, as promised, getting to some of those little fill-ins that are from these random exotica and 60s records that are part of the vocal but are actually samples. They're not musical samples.

They're little thingy samples. I've got two in particular that are two of my favorite. Okay. So one of my favorite samples is, of course, we all know that I couldn't dance with another. Yeah, what is that? This is a really fun sample because it actually comes from, this. This is the Green Acres theme from 1966. And that little moment is Eva Gabor right here. And in the mix, they've taken that and they've done a kind of classic early sampling thing where

you just go, I, I, I love it. I love this stuff like that. It's a sampler. Yeah, that's awesome. A Kai, the $500 that she found in the back of the cab. It's made so many hits. went to sampling Ava Gabor from Green Acres and doing and then more importantly which is so like two of hearts I need you which had already come out which by the way I I I need you Wow

I love it I mean there's something about a good sampler used as a percussive instrument that will never get old because Stacey Right that I I I I trope came from 1986 is Stacey Q hit two of hearts.

So that's coming from Green Acres, the TV show. And this other sample, if you've got children, cover their ears just for the next little moment. Because what I have been in my notes, I call the motorboat sounds. I'll play it for you in the mix. Has a pretty funny origin, but it is a little bit not safe for work.

So that little moment, I call it the motorboat sounds. I heard that as like a person like, ooh, like, you know, shaking. That's what I thought until I found the source. Okay. And the source is going to blow your mind. Uh-oh. And offend your children.

Guys, turn it off. Dance has turned it off. This is a track called Hateful Head, Helen, by Sweet Pussy Pauline. And the song is called Work This Pussy. What genre of the music is this? The song is called Work This Pussy. They want to put their face in our asses and go blu-l-l-l-l-b. But they don't know how to ask.

I never get tired The context That's the best sample context I feel like this whole song I've ever heard Name a better sample context I can't even Mind you thought Green Acres was great

Oh Green Acres I think Green Acres is still my preferred But I will say this This to me this whole song Seems like a collage Of like albums and songs that Dimitri and maybe Tauete as well We're playing in their sense

And they were like, let's take our favorite moments from like all these, this word, this beat, you're absolutely right. This hand clap, this tambourine. Physically, their ability to do that existed with the record they already owned and were playing and the sampler. Suddenly it's like we can make music now with these tools. But by the way, that means that this song, which I'm not going to ask you to repeat the title, this song must have had an acapella on like the B side of the 12 inch because where else do you get the

Acapella at that time in 1989. By the way, they say to this song... 100% of the time, you'll be getting them on the 12-inch. On the 12-inch. By the way, we haven't even mentioned it. They were playing and performing the song as early as 1989. Yeah. So, like, this is a song they probably crafted in 1988,

which is nuts. That's right. Which is nuts. They were crafting it. And then the final icing on the cake was... Well, if I may... Work this pussy, Acapella. There you go.

I think you're just, like, looking at me in my eye and saying this. Now for the sample I'm most excited about. The one part of this song that even my young brain knew had to be a sample, but back in the pre-internet days, we had no way of looking up what a sample, you know, but I could tell it came from another song. Right. And it's the very beginning of this song.

Would you like to dance? And like, it's so a part of this song, but you're about to play. And you're absolutely right to point out that it, because it is the beginning of the song, it instantly gives you the vibe for the song. And you can tell it like... That it's old, it's kind of weird. I hadn't DJed before.

I could tell this sounded like a record skipping. You know, it sounded like a very clear loop. Yeah. I am so thrilled to share this with you guys because I can guarantee a lot of you have not looked this song up before. I know I have it. Luxury, will you please play us the song they sample

for the first sample in the song? This is from the album, The Art of Belly Dancing, 1969. Love it. Bel Shazar, Tommy Gennapopoulos, and the Grecian Knights. We're going to dance and exercise and have some fun so that you will fully enjoy yourself. How about getting into some loose clothing? I mean, I'm going to say right now, listen to this on YouTube.

It is such a cool, cool song. A shout out to all the belly dancers out there. I wish I had known this one of the song. I would have mixed this in to some of my DJ sets early on because the song is incredible. It is really cool. It's just the nature of music law. We can't play that much of the song here on the show,

but when the show's over, please go off and listen to it. It's a really cool song. Right. Well, now's as a good as chance as any to plug our one song playlist, which does exist on Spotify. We forget to mention it almost every episode,

but we do have every song we play on the episode in one easy-to-find playlist format. So just go to Spotify and search one song. I added the word interpolation there to the title to make it easily found. And yeah, you can just relive both the episode and then listen to all the songs afterwards. I need a catchphrase. I do the catchphrase. Every, you know what?

We're not catchphrase balanced right now. I think your catchphrase is shout out. Like last time we talked about it. That is not my. But then you went on in the episodes who you shout out many times in that same episode. Not my tag is not. Well, the burden of effort is on you to come up with the better. I think it's on the listeners.

Listeners, DM me on Instagram. At Diallo, Dioa, L-L-O. And tell me what my catchphrase should be. I need a catchphrase. Maybe that they should demand, maybe there should be some sort of like, I don't know, prize for the best. We'll come up with a prize.

The person with the winning catchphrase. Their name mentioned. We're going to not only mention your name, but we're going to get you something nice. Probably from the closet of Kevin Hart. Or a pristine copy of Hateful Head Helens, work that pussy. No, no, we're not. The kids have their ears uncovered again.

They've already heard it was. Why did it twice or three times matter? Did you? What do you mean I slipped it in? You're the one who said slipped it in? Heart B.H.R. is going to find it. Disgusting. Disgusting. All right. So Diallo, D-Light are sometimes categorized as a one-hit wonder, which rubs me the wrong way a little bit, but I understand where they would get that impression. This is a monster hit, and there wasn't really anything after this that was quite as monstrous.

So neither of us think that's fair. We'll talk about that minute, but let me ask you this. Yeah. What other acts are unfairly categorized as one hit wonders? Let's set the record straight. Oh, well, you know, I actually have a little bit of an issue with the phrase, one hit wonder. I obviously there are some bands

and artists for which this is true. It usually comes... Right said Fred, we're looking at you. But, you know, I did some research on this matter, right? And Rolling Stone did a list of, like, the top ten one-hit wonders, where they listed delight alongside like Chumbabwamba. and Harvey Danger.

No, no, no. I'm like, you know, by the way, the same list had the verve. It had House of Pain. I'm not even the biggest House of Pain fan, but like that first album was actually really good. And the second album had some, had some, basically some other groups.

And I was just like, what? I feel like one hit wonder usually comes from a place of ignorance. I think, I've seen Blur on these lists, by the way. I've seen Blur's song too on these list. It's insane to me. It's very, to me, like, were they big enough in the United States?

because usually it's an artist who had a very full and happy career, not on these shores. So I don't know if I believe in one-hit wonders as applied here, but I will turn to the question. I don't think of DeLight as a one-hand wonder. Maybe a one-album wonder. Is that a fair thing? But I'm asking you.

I agree. So I'm going to build on what you say. I think the phenomenon of calling it a one-hit wonder speaks to the speaker of that sentence, not necessarily being a musician or even an artist themselves. Because it implies that it's just the numerical value of units shipped or chart positions that determines the validity. Because to call somebody a one-hit wonder is to demean them. It's essentially to say, you only did one thing that was important.

Everything after that doesn't matter, which I find kind of offensive as an artist. So, you know, the thing specifically with Delight I can address is, again, the album itself, first of all, power of love is arguably as good if not a better. That's the song I'm more likely to DJ, for example, than Groove is in the Heart. So the whole record, though, World Click has lots of bangers on it. And I bought the two follow-ups. And the second one was a bit, I will admit, I wasn't so crazy about the second record when it came out. It was a bit disappointing.

But the third record is incredible. And I'm going to play something from that record a little bit later on the episode. But, you know, D-Light, I think certainly peaked with this song in terms of their global appeal and their ability to get, you know, booked for shows, et cetera. It's definitely the case that when I've tracked their post-band experiences, it seems like Toa-Tay has had a pretty good career. Absolutely. I mean, like, that's my other problem in calling them one at wonders,

because, you know, the individual pieces of this band have gone on to do such great stuff. You know, one song that I wanted to play is Tau-A-Tay's Technova. Oh, perfect. Because, you know, it's a very catchy tune. Some of the people listening will probably know it. Bebel Gettel Gett. Yeah, and by the way, you know, let's hear a little bit of that. So good.

So the sound of 1994 or whatever. Mid-90s. Like, it's such a great song. And by the way, just to close the loop on that, so Q-Tip comes on, Groove is in the Heart, Tau-Tay releases that song, Technova, and then Q-Tip finds a way. Interpolation.

He finds a way. Well, here, check this out. He finds a way to sample it for the song, find a way and it's part of a special genre of hip hop where I love that they sample something and the thing that they're saying is not what is technically being said. I'll explain it on the other side. Check this out. Now you caught my heart for the evening. Kiss my cheek moved in you confused things. Should I just sit out or come harder? Help me find my way. So I'm sure you can hear the sample in there. She's

singing in Portuguese. You know, she's a Brazilian singer. I love that Fife is singing English words that sound kind of like what she's singing, but it's not at all what she's singing. It's a sample and an interpolation happening at the same time. Yeah, and I also like this.

One of my other favorite examples of this of all time is the remix to It Ain't Hard to Tell by Nas, because it sounds like Biz Marquis saying, Nas is the king of disco and Nas, Nas, Nas, is the king of disco, and when in fact what Ms. Marquis had actually said was

I'm highly recognized as the king of disc going and they just, you know, they chop off the first part of recognized and they just say. So technically he's saying naz, niz, niz, it's the king of it. But it sounds like naz and we thought he was saying naws. So I love it when people sample something, but they don't say what the person's actually singing. It reminds me a little bit of like the white lines to liquid liquid

comparison, right? Oh, yeah. Liquid liquid in Kaver in the original song. So he's saying something like slip in and out of banana. I mean, it's like maybe a little bit. But that's like it's actually a creative technique to mishear something and turn it into what it sounded like to you. I did it in a script just two days ago. It's a normal way to like write.

I made up a word and I was like, that's a funny word. And then we slip put it in the script. And then it's yours. You own it because you kind of worked from it. The problem is they also took the baseline while they were doing that. So if you don't also take the baseline, you can kind of get away with using it as a creative tool. That's totally cool because I didn't realize, I'm a fan of Liquid Liquid and obviously White Lines. I didn't realize that

Liquid wasn't saying that until you pointed it out just now. That's really cool. My favorite story about White Lines is that apparently the original version it was you know, it was like white lines. It was basically a pro cocaine song and then when they found out that like that wasn't cool, they added in the

but don't do it! I know. It feels like an after fact because get higher baby sounds like everyone Higher baby. Everyone in the Instaward, student 54 is like, yeah, get higher, baby. Don't ever come down. That's down good to me, too. But then they throw in the, but don't do it. It's almost like singing a song and they'd be like, opposite day. It's barely plausibly credible that they mean it when they say that.

So, Tau, I mean, sorry, Toa Tate, we sort of, we've followed his career. By the way, he's come out with some really good albums in just the last three years. He comes out with an album almost every year recently. I would say go check him out One of those albums is called LP It's a really good album We're checking out Where are the other

Glasses line too He's got those iconic glasses I think he puts out his own glasses I believe it And he lives in like a really remote part Of Japan now he lives the life He just puts out albums And he lives in this mountainous region

I think it's a Nagano It's like It's the only part It's like the furthest Part of Japan from the ocean In any direction So he's as far from the ocean

He just listened to his records all day It makes design sunglasses Really cool records Check out LPs I think it's 2021s What about Super DJ Dimitri? So I mean I looked into what happened to Lady Miss Keir and Demetri

They don't really have much of an internet presence After a certain point But I know that Lady Miss Kear has been DJing for many years That's sort of her primary thing I know she's like got a very like activist streak Very big activist streak Absolutely absolutely right

So she's continuing the sort of same philosophy That she's always been doing She's just making art in the world sort of touring, doing DJ stuff. And it's kind of funny because as I was looking at what happened to DJ Dimitri, he moved to Berlin and ended up marrying, I won't say a friend of mine, but someone who I know from the San Francisco scene who randomly ended up there, this woman, Jesse Evans, who's a musician that I remember from San Francisco back in the day,

wound up in Berlin and wound up marrying Dimitri Brill. And they have a band together called Noddy Siren. And so he's still in band. He's still making music. That's amazing. Good for him. Yeah, doing it in Berlin. I love that.

So all of them, you know, doing well. And, you know, if they ever reach out to the show, maybe we'll have them on. Before we go, we're going to do one more song. This is the part of the show where we share a new song with you, the One Song Nation. And with each other a lot of times because obviously I don't know what you're going to share. You don't know what I'm going to share. Lecture, you go first. What do you got for me?

Well, as I promised, you know, DeLight's third record in particular, it's called Do Drops in the Garden. That was so slept on. And, like, I actually returned to that record a lot. Like over the years, just like it dawns on me, like I want to hear, especially this song in particular, which is called Apple Juice Kissin. It's just a really fun song, and it reminds, it's a very New York in the summer kind of song, has that vibe going for it. I just one thing that's fun about that song is, you know, this song, groove is in the heart. It was one of the first songs where we've talked about how we had in our, you know, we were younger then. We didn't necessarily know how music was made, but we recognized that there were samples in it.

That was the beginning of that mode where I was starting to be like, well, what was the? sample. Where did it come from? And of course, kids today don't know. There was no who sampled back then. There was their YouTube. There was no Shazam. So sometimes in life, you would just go for months or years, and then you'd be in a cafe and you'd hear the break in the full song that it came from. And you would just add, well, this is me. I would say you. One would, I would add that to my universal rolodex. Yeah, I would add that to my mental rolodex. So I'd just bring that up because this song has a couple of really fun connections. I'll quickly take you to. One is that introduction. comes from this song by The Clash.

This is Armagedean time. Which is a cover of this song by Willie Williams, which, last but not least, relies on the rhythm from this famous song, which is called Real Rock Sound Dimension. This is a classic, Studio One classic. So this is the fourth and final layer of that song. And I actually lied. There's a fifth layer, but I'm not going to get into it. But just part of what I love about, the phenomenon of sampling is the storytelling,

and the layers. And over the years, you start to be like, oh, wait, and you hear a new thing that connects it to the previous thing. So I didn't know some of these layers until many years later, but delight, I have to thank for being one of the first bands that unlocked the beauty of sampling for me outside of hip-hop. That's really cool. Diallo, what about you? Do you have a one more song for me? Yeah, I mean, we were talking about Q-Tip earlier, and I revisited his, one of his later album's solo albums. And I might have even mentioned it earlier in the show, but the name of the song is even if it is so and it's one of those songs that I think is just

it builds, it builds and it's just wonderful and this is a Q-tip aka Kamal and the song is even if it is so she in the back room whizen up Friday night is eating up young cats tricking up dances so they give it up the best girl walk a nerve ain't you know for what is worth working towards towards a better life regardless is she working nights

so that snippet won't really do it justice you have to sort of listen to the whole, I think it's about a six-minute track, but it's really a great song. It gives me such joy when I'm reminded that artists that I love have more work that I haven't been exposed to that I haven't heard yet. So, like, I'm so excited to go and dig deep

into Kamal's career. Yeah. And I assure you that at some point, we will do a Tribe Call Quest episode. I worked with Q-Tip on the Maya Rudolph show, briefly, middle of last decade. So if we can get them on the show, we will do that.

That would be a dream. Absolutely. Come on the show. C-T-Tip. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, reach out to us. The best way to reach me is on Instagram. I am at D-I-A-L-O. And on TikTok, I am at Dialla-R-R-L-R-R-Y on Instagram or at Luxury-X-X-X on TikTok.

As always, we love it. If you like the show, please tell your friends, share it with them. give it five stars and a nice review it really helps really helps you're gonna give us one star just don't every episode we're gonna complain about the one star it was this one dude one time

and it's so annoying because we're like 4.9 on all the platforms oh that guy and he was wrong he was wrong about the Beatles he was wrong all right help me in this thing luxury well I am producer DJ musicologist luxury and I'm actor writer director

and sometimes DJ the all or riddle and this is one song we will see you next time I don't know.