One Song - Diana Ross' "Upside Down"

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

How did Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards flip disco on its head with Diana Ross’ chart-topping solo hit “Upside Down”? Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY explore the Chic production, groove-driven arrangement, and rare outtakes from the Queen of Motown herself. Get 50% off 1 month of Trade at drinktrade.com/ONESONG Songs Discussed: “Upside Down” - Diana Ross (00:32) “Cold Rock a Party (Bad Boy Remix)” - MC Lyte feat. Missy Elliot (02:13) “Le Freak” - CHIC (04:39) “Good Times” - CHIC (04:42) “I Want Your Love” - CHIC (04:49) “We Are Family” - Sister Sledge (05:44) “Love Hangover” - Diana Ross (06:38) “He’s The Greatest Dancer” - Sister Sledge (10:56) “I’m Coming Out” - Diana Ross (11:55) “My Old Piano” - Diana Ross (13:02) “Crazy Train” - Ozzy Osbourne (18:34) “Legs” - ZZ Top (19:03) “Everybody Dance” - CHIC (24:04) “Walk the Night” - Skatt Bros. (29:21) “Give Me the Night” - George Benson (36:06) “Muscles” - Diana Ross (54:09) “Notorious” - Duran Duran (55:39) “Polarlicht” - Xmal Deutschland (58:18) “Deeper Shade Of Soul” - Urban Dance Squad (59:23) “A Deeper Shade Of Soul” - Ray Barretto (01:02:27) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So luxury, today we're talking about one of my favorite, favorite disco songs. It not only features the vocals from the Queen of Motown herself, but the production prowess of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Sheek. That's right, Diyah. I cannot wait to unpack what Nile and Bernard did on this track. It's not just arrangement. It's also every single instrument, and it's the songwriting. And to be honest with you, it may not even be a disco song at the end of the day. Oh, hot take. Really?

Yeah, I've been ready for it. Well, respectfully, I may have to disagree with you there, my friend. You saw what I did. We're talking one song, and that's a song. song is Upside Down by Diana Ross. I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ Dea Lerl. And I'm producer, DJ songwriter, musicologist Luxury, aka A.K.A. The guy who whispers,

Interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we break down the Sims and stories behind iconic songs across genres, telling you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And you can watch one song on YouTube. While you're there, please like and subscribe. So luxury, today we're talking about upside down, a song that I was pleasantly surprised to hear. in the last season of Stranger Things. You know, like, I got to say that show does needle drops really well

and really expensively. They used two, not one, two print songs in the finale. And a few years ago, Kate Bush is running up that hill. Right. Got sort of a new lease on life. Don't forget about Master of Puppets, right? Metallica as well. Go back and listen to our Metallica episode.

Classic canon songs that we share taste, you know, we agree with, are worthy of being surfaced to the new generation. are being serviced to a new generation. I think whatever the Duffer brothers got going on, we just kind of follow their lead. We do episodes about it. But I will say that I can't help but think that there might be some Gen Z folks out there

who their first exposure to Diana Ross was through stranger things. That's probably true. Kind of blows my mind. So Diallo, when did you first hear upside down by Diana Ross? I'm sure I heard the song as a kid. I definitely remember when it got sampled by MC Light in the late 90s with Rock the Party.

That Rock's the Party. I really associate this song with being a DJ in my 20s because it was during that time, I really got into Sheik. Like I fell in love with Sheik. I grew to appreciate the musicality of Donald Rogers and Bernard Edwards. It was just so good. And I bought all their music, like all the albums. I just wanted to follow their entire, you know, legacy of music. Absolutely.

Why are we saying, why are we talking about Sheik's so early? Because this is basically a Sheik song with Diana Ross on top. I agree. At the end of the day, all of the players and all of the recording and all of the performances and all of the arrangement and songwriting is Niall Rogers and Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson from the band Sheik. Who I have so many questions about, but we're going to get into that. What about you luxury? When was the first time you heard the song? I just remember as a kid hearing it and just being struck by all the Lee rhymes and all kind of the big words.

Well, it's like instinctively. Oh, yeah. Respectfully. But even I say to thee, like, jumped out of the radio because like no one was like using lyrics like that. They still aren't. Like, that's like Shakespeare. The V was definitely like an unusual thing to hear on a pop song, right? So that harkens back to my youth, as does the disco-ish sounds, I will grant you.

We're going to get into the disco or not discowness of it. But the smooth, sophisticated sound was amazing sounding to my young ears. And this was also like maybe the first time that we were really hearing her outside of like the songs of the Supremes. Right. I think I probably heard her first, Diana Ross, not through the Supremes, but through this song being a huge. And then I was later like, oh my gosh, she was also in the Supremes, which sort of reminds me of the old joke about, wait, Paul McCartney used to be in a band before wings. And I think you're a big chic fan, too.

Massive chic fan. Yeah. Absolutely massive. I think the cool thing about this song, it's almost like a super group. It's like Justice working with Tamin Pallet. It's a perfect analogy. Kevin Parker on top of a justice song. Yeah.

Diana Ross on top of a chic song of its era. Totally. We're definitely going to do another chic, you know, hopefully with Nile Rogers episode of one song in the future. And we've already done a Supremes episode. So this is very much a supergroup kind of collab episode, the two of them coming together. For those of you who don't know who were raving about, Sheik was a disco band formed in New York in the early 70s by bassist Bernard Edwards and guitar player Nile Rogers. If you don't know them by name, I guarantee you've heard a couple of their songs. They had huge hits in the late 70s. I'm talking about Lafriek. Good times.

And our personal favorite, I Want Your Love. I really adore this song. Every song that Nile and Bernard write, every Sheik song always has, there's always like one special, like, harmonically rich moment that sort of comes from their jazz heritage. Yeah. There's always, like, one core that just, like, punches you right in the emotional gut.

And on I Want Your Love, it's that, I want your love, I need your love. That moment is so just, it gets me. It's so emotional. It's really beautiful. It's so good. So in 1978, 79, Sheik are at the top. the charts, they're kings of the world.

The disco demolition moment hadn't quite happened yet. When it does happen, it devastates the band. It kind of ends their career, but fortunately, they've started this side project of producing and working with other artists. And it really begins with Diana Ross. And in fact, they've been asked to work with the Rolling Stones in Bent Midler,

but they turned them down before. They had already done work with Sister Sledge. We are family. So many good songs. Huge hit, a big 1979 song. But Diana Ross is the first time that they're working with Super stars. And that was as a result of there being an executive at Motown

named Suzanne DePas, who's a big fan. Big fan of the band and wanted to basically get them in a room and sort of launched this other aspect of their career, which would later lead to them working famously with David Bowie on Let's Dance, Madonna, unlike a Virgin, and so many others. So many others.

That's interesting to say that because on the other hand, Diana hadn't had a hit in quite some time. She was in something of a slump in this moment. Absolutely. I think her last hit was Love Hangover in 1976. Great song. There's that classic thing with the slow intro

and then we go into the like sick, sick disco part. I love that song. Honestly, when we talk disco songs, I always say that in my head if you say disco and the song that always pops into my head is the fast part of Love Hangover.

Yeah. In fact, I have a theory that Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens. His theme song is supposed to sound like Love Hangover, but it's changed just enough. Oh, really? I hadn't noticed that. if you agree with my theory, here's the theme song to Andy Cohen's, watch what happens.

All right. Let's listen. Oh, you're absolutely right. Well, it's simultaneously super generic, but I also, now that you pointed it out. It sounds just like one of hangover. They wrote sideways from that. It's a new song. And that's fair.

It's not an interpolation or interpolation. It's not one of those. It's not one of those. So when Nile and Bernard started working with Diana, they decided they wanted to interview her before they started writing the songs. And I love this story. What they learned for these interviews was that she was ready as an artist for change.

She was ready to turn her career upside down. I'm not kidding. According to Nile, she literally used that phrase, which is basically how they got the song. I love stories like that. It's like Mark Ronson and Amy. Totally.

Amy Winehouse, like just having a real conversation. And then... He told me to go to rehab. I said, no. Natural conversation. Just like the idea pops out and it takes the other person to be able to hear,

like, oh, that's good. You've got a song title there. And Jimmy Jam, we had them on the show a couple years ago now. He tells a pretty similar story about working with Jana Jackson. They sat down together and just talked about... They wanted to do an interview first. Yeah, they just started with like, just tell us about your life, where are you at?

And from that came so many of the songs from control. Control, yeah. Go back and listen to that. That's one of my favorite episodes we've had. And the other big single from this record, by the way, I'm coming out. Nile tells a great story about how he was inspired. He tells the story. He says he ducked into a bar when he was in New York.

And let's not forget that Nile was big into drugs. Like, they talk about all the time in his book. Such a good book. Can we talk about that? book Lafriek, if you have the time to read a book, that is an awesome book. I read it from cover to cover. No holds were barred. He talks about in this moment he was like going clubbing and drinking and druggin. And before we go any further, just a really quick caveat, massive chic fans, both of us, massive Now Rogers fan. I have probably read or seen besides the book, like 50 or 100

other interviews, he's told a lot of these stories many times. I have come to notice that they don't always comport with each other perfectly. For example, what was the name of the bar where he first saw drag performers singing Diana Ross and dressed like Diana Ross, it might have been the gilded grape, it might have been Gigi's Barnum Room. It's unclear, but it was definitely a coolly named 1979. I have no idea. Because the grizzly pair was a... I love that name, though. The grizzly pair, we used to do karaoke there when I lived in New York. It's down in the village. That's a great, great name. Well, it's not clear which actual club he was at, but while he was there, or maybe he was at all of these clubs, He saw drag performers dress like Diana Ross.

He was a big part of the repertoire. And he realized that she was a gay icon. It wasn't something he was otherwise aware of. And he brought this idea into the writing sessions, wrote this song with Bernard, I'm Coming Out, didn't necessarily tell Diana about the gay connection. Interestingly enough, in fact, it seems as though she was unaware when she was singing, I'm coming out.

That she was singing a song about coming out. I've seen an interview where Nile says that he kind of, enjoyed it appearing as though she was coming out in the song I'm coming out. The way he pitched it to her was, this is going to be your first song when you come on stage, which is what came to pass. And to this day, I saw her play the Hollywood Bowl a few years ago. It was the first song. She was writing like a zip line or something onto the stage to I'm coming out. I got to say, the thing I like, and this is in his book, the thing I like about Nile's approach to songwriting is that he always says there has to be this thing he calls DHS, which is deeper hidden

meaning or deep-ended meaning. And for every song, like, I'm coming out, he was like, I heard that phrase. And I was like, that needs to be the, that needs to be the song. You know what I mean? There's like another layer that you may or may not get it on first listen or for your whole life of listening. But if you're in the no, then you know that there's the secondary meaning to it. Yeah, he talks about that a lot. I've seen an interview

where he talks about. Halston, Gucci, Gucci, Dio Rucci, yeah. Yeah, the average radio listener, not in New York, in 1916. or not in the fashion circles in that era. Wouldn't have known that those were fashion brands. Totally. But for him, it gave it a more sophisticated thing. So the New York crew, so the Andy Warhol crew that he was a little bit trying to impress

would be like, oh, okay, these guys are hip. Absolutely. He throws out a little nugget that, like, a little wink lyrically to let you know, oh, I'm hip to this. Because you have to understand he's coming from this moment, too, where the disco demolition thing was, he was concerned this was ending his career. There's a big reputational and career and money generating. Problem potentially if the music is considered,

if he's considered untouchable as a producer because the music has fallen from favor. So it's interesting, he's sort of balancing writing huge pop hits, but also throwing in little nuggets in there to indicate like, I'm still kind of on the cool art world sophisticated side of things. Absolutely. Why don't we hear a little bit of I'm coming out?

Have you seen the Fred Armisen routine with the drummer? With the drummer? He's like, I still, I can't, I haven't memorized it. 52 seconds of intro. That's epic. That's insane. But I will say I love songs that do that. I love songs that like the drums come in and they go away.

Yeah. I'm thinking about Shook ones by Mobb Deep does the same thing. Like the drums come in but then they take them back out. And you're like, oh, what have we gotten ourselves into? And it's perfect for an intro song for an album or showing up on stage that gives that minute of extra tension. So that's kind of risky to do a pop song on the radio. It's so dope. It's so dope.

Can I say my personal? favorite on this album is my old piano. Oh, I love that song. I love that song, sort of like the song we're talking about today, upside down. Something weird is going on with the drums. Like, the drums don't come in on the one. They kind of come in. I want to say on the three. Let's listen and decide where they come in. And this song, too, I find has one haunt.

For me, it's the haunting sound of this one chord on whichever organ they're playing. I'm not even sure who's playing and who's playing what organ. But there's this one organ chord. Let's listen. But here comes the best part. That's so now roggers. It's such a wild song. It's kind of like manic. Yeah.

But like in a way out that I like. But it's an arrangement thing, which is great foreshadowing for upside down because he does a similar thing with arrangement because the crazy part is interspers. We start with the not crazy part. We start with the chorus, which is just two chords, basically.

It gets us into the swing of things, and then we go all over the place with those chord changes. Baby used to say, like all the instruments do their own thing. There's so much syncopation and so many interesting chords. It's the syncopation. It's so fun.

Yeah. And Bernard Edwards is playing like, he's playing inversions on the bass, so he's not playing the roots. And they're so satisfying when he's playing like the major third or the minor third instead of the root. What these guys do with music is simultaneously sophisticated and pop in a magical way.

That's part of the genius of Nile and Bernard. It's so great. All right. We're going to take a break. But when we get back, for the first time ever, you're going to hear rare and unused takes for the queen of Motown herself, Diana Ross. You don't want to miss this when we get back. You know, today I was feeling a little rusty. I got to say. I know the feeling. But I decided I'm going to upgrade my morning routine. Want to upgrade your morning routine? Start with your coffee. Tray turns your daily cup into a moment of discovery, pairing you with fresh roasts from the country's best local roasters tailored to exactly what you love.

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And I agree, the variety thing, I'd gotten a little bit locked in with like my, you know, favorite brand for years and years and years, getting a little stale. So it's nice to have some something to try every single month. Totally. And by the way, they only work with the top roasters.

Only the top local roasters. That's right. Right now, trade is offering 50% off a one-month trial at drinktrade.com slash one song. That's D-R-I-N-K-T-R-A-D-E dot com slash one song to get 50% off one month. Drink-trade.com slash one song. Welcome back to One Song. I can't wait to get into these stems. So luxury, hit me with the drones.

Tony Thompson from Sheik, one of our all-time favorite drummers. Yeah, man. Listen to him. Keep it simple and yet throw in some interesting little things that make it interesting. You can hear the music, right? Yes. Playing the motifs. Here comes the motif right here. And you're right.

That crash is on the three. It's not on the downby. Who uses the three? Who uses the three? What the hell? The threes love this song. They never get to shine. That is a big part of the motif too.

Like there's all these little, little, like, they're hooks basically. They're non-melodic, non-lyrical hooks, parts of the song that are very distinctive and you can't wait for it to happen again. Yeah. It's recognizable. What was Thompson's background? Did he come from rock? I feel like he's like, he feels drivy and like almost forceful and loud in like almost a rock way more than an R&B way. He and Nile and Bernard started out together in the Big Apple band.

But before that, he was in LaBelle. Oh, Palo Bell. Which was a little bit of a funk. and rock and R&B hybrid. So we could have been there. Yeah. Yeah, you can hear it. And I will say, even though this beat isn't for on the floor,

I feel like it's disco. You feel like it's not. I think this is, we've had so many episodes where the question of what is genre and how do you define it? To me, what makes this song disco is more contextual than musical. So as we break down the stems, starting with the drums, it's not a floor to the floor drumming. If you were, first of all, if I said, play a disco drumbeat,

99% of drummers would go 4 to the floor, roughly 120 BPM, and they might add a, oops, open hi-hats. The open hi-hat, yeah. That was sort of like a ground zero for what might make it disco. And we've said on the show, like there have been rock bands that, you know, essentially made, you know, disco songs because of how we hear the drums. Yeah. And this is.

That's right. Like an Ozzy, Osbourne. We did crazy train. Yeah. Definitely disco drums, but then everything on top. not disco, and definitely everything, you know, visual and contextual, definitely not disco. But it's a drum. That's more of a disco rhythm section.

Crazy Train is more of a disco song. I agree. In the drums than upside down. Easy top legs. It's kind of a disco song. Totally. But, you know, I think we're saying the same thing. Because to me, disco, it's more of a feeling and a specific time.

You know, like almost anything that came out in 79 has some disco element. because I can see Studio 54 and I can see the Halston dresses and New York. I mean, you know, I wasn't there, obviously, but I kind of wish I was. And when you listen to certain songs like Upside Down, it sort of like puts you in a time machine. Yeah, it's where you find them in the world and when you found them. So in Studio 54, New York, 1980, they are playing this song. There's also, there are musical elements that are disco, but it's definitely not the drums. In the bass, when we get to that in a moment, I was surprised to notice a few things that I thought were there that aren't there that would have made a disco.

And last but not least, I think the strings, which we'll be hearing later. Can't wait to get to them. Disco strings are amazing. So we'll be part of the genre. That's right. Let's continue with the drums. So what we just heard was the chorus. We've been listening to a lot of Sheik here in the studio today.

And I'm realizing Nile and Bernard love to start with the chorus. Yeah. You know, that's not always a thing. But like it's, you know, the Beatles did it famously. Sheik does it almost every song. They almost always start with a chorus and not the verse. Yeah. And interestingly, you're right.

And in this song, they take it one step first. which is the song actually starts with the outro. So the upside down you turn in me, which is the entire minute and a minute and a half outro of the song. We hear a little tease of it at the beginning. Then we go to the chorus. It's a very interesting arrangement. That's awesome.

Which was very strategic because it hooks you right away to the hooky, hooky, hooky, hooky. So let's listen to the verse beat and it's even less disco than the chorus beat if that's possible. Check out the double snare hit in particular with a little bit of a syncopation in the open hi-hat. in the open hi-hat. So right there we got

one and two ands. And then the open hat is on that a of two, two a yanda. So there's a 16th note. So that's not a disco beat by any stretch of the imagination. That's funky as hell.

His rhythm. Yeah. To do that much syncopation is insane. Yes. The man has so much rhythm. By the way, one thing I noticed in the stems,

I'm done with the percussion per se. Uh-huh. In other words, there are no claps in this song. Oh, wow. But I hear claps. I know. It feels like a clap song. We're going to discover what's making that sound a little bit later, but it is not

happening with actual clapping or drum machines. It's 1980, so they wouldn't have had, you know, most of the clap drum machines hadn't been invented. There were some. We won't go down that rabbit hole. But there are no claps coming from either of those. The percussion section. Yeah.

It's coming from something else. I love how the bass locks in with the drums of this song. Can we bring in a bit of the bass? Let's do it. I'll start with Nard, as Nile refers to him, Nard, Bernard Edwards. I'll start with him isolated and I'll bring in some of Tony on the drums. But here is low-key, this is relatively low-key Bernard Edwards. This is the chorus, and this is the funkiest he gets, or the most active, I should say.

And then in the verse, it gets even more chill. He's just holding down that root, little rhythmic quarter notes. I like it, you know. This is not the Bernard Edwards that I've found. all in love with. Let's face it. It's not the everybody dance. Everybody dance. Like 16th notes and like punctuating everything with octaves. I don't hear a single

octave in the song. That's the thing I was alluding to that would have been super disco. You have your octave bass, boomga, boomga, boomga, right? And Bernard does that on a lot of songs. There's not a single Bernard Edwards' octave bass note in this song. I like this because on the verse where

he's just playing that route, it makes it tense. You know what I mean? Like it builds up this tension so that by the we get back to the chorus, there's a release. 100% agree. Yeah, there's, chord changes are only happening in the chorus and the intro outro. The verse is one note, building tension, build, build, build, build,

dun, and then we go back to the chords. That change every half bar, it's a four bar loop, four chord loop that goes like that. Right. But in the verses, it's just like, what's going to happen? Tense, tense, tense. Yeah. So Bernard, for the most part, is really, like, maintaining a chill groove.

He's not going crazy. Every now and then he throws in something, fun like an octave. He throws in an octave as a note, but not as a percussive boom, like a boinga boinga thing. Here it's one. That's it. He's just keeping himself interested by substituting the lower route for the higher route in that moment. But we were saying that this is actually the type of playing the bass that he actually enjoyed to do. So great time to tell this anecdote that I just learned, which I loved. We alluded to the beginning of everybody dance, which is one of our collective favorites.

So apparently Bernard hated this intro, and it was Nile who convinced him to do it and to keep it on the record. But he was embarrassed by it because it is so busy. It is so show-offy. And he did prefer to keep it relatively restrained. And, you know, what is the minimum number of notes I can play to accurately indicate what needs to happen here? Yeah. Is a little bit of the attitude, which is a sophisticated way of playing. So we've taught a lot about Nile.

Nile is the guitarist in the band. So what is Nile doing on this song? So Nile Rogers, famously rhythmic guitar player. So there's a lot of rhythm happening in his parts. The keyboards are where a lot of the harmonic action is taking place and a lot of the rhythmic action. But let's just listen and then we'll talk about it. Just staccato.

Sticado stabbs. So he's playing the staccato stabs that mirror the chords. He's actually relatively restrained. A lot of the exciting action of the song is taking place in the piano. In fact, arguably we're about to get to it. But that may be the unsung hero or one of the unsung heroes musically of this song. But he's also restrained. So both Nile and Bernard are kind of relatively restrained.

That's the chorus. Even more restrained when we get to the verse. And by the way, the change from the chorus to the verse is one of the exciting parts of the song that's very chic. We actually change keys here. It's a chromatic modulation from G, Dorian, maybe, to B-flat, 7th, maybe. And it sounds like this. And then you'll hear what he plays, which is not a lot. three, four, two, two, three, four.

He just plays a two-bar chord, and it's the same chord every time. A lot of restraint shown there because, in my ears, because there's so many instruments on this song, it all sounds very busy and very full. But when you hear the individual parts, it's not quite what I thought it would be. Right. You know, it's actually kind of like, like you said, restraint and simple. It's restraint and simple, and the complexity is in the arrangement. And one of Niles' genius skills is arrangement slash orchestration.

deciding what goes when and how all the different instruments He's not a guitarist who's like, hey, I'm going to show off right now. He's like, I want this guitar to sound like this. I want this bass right here. I want strings here. I want piano here. There's a lot of interesting use of they're kind of trading off to get to the ultimate bar of musical interest

where things are taking place. They're sharing the space. So once we get into the piano in particular, you'll note how all of these pieces are, they're basically puzzle pieces that he's piecing together to create the final riff. the overall riff, which is not only happening on a single instrument. But that's not all that he's doing.

Here is the answer to the question. Guys, for all these years, I've been hearing claps. Where are the claps in this song? And just for context, here's that same section. This is the chromatic modulation. This is going from the chorus into the verse. You don't even know it's interesting. You're like, what's happening?

But you're changing keys in this moment. I'll give it to you with a few more instruments. And can I say to my ears, there's something that sounds odd about the time signature of this song. But I think it's what we were talking about earlier, right? It's the three. It's like they're coming in on a half bar. Yeah, there's two things.

One is that crash happening. Dada, dun, dun, crash on three. One, two, three, four. Two, three, four. And then there's a second thing, which is there's a half bar. And we just heard where it happens. In the modulation, when we move from chorus to verse, that's a half bar.

I'll play it for you in the full song so you can hear. I'll count it out. Three. Four, two, three, four, one, two, one, two, three. Yeah. So there's a half bar that is added on the end. Totally.

And I would say as a DJ, that was very confusing. That made the song almost unmixable. Like, you can't do internal mixing on that part of the song because it's going to go way off. At least it's not like 5'4 or something super. It's still four for a time technically. But yeah, you do have this half bar that is shocking. Totally.

And it goes perfectly with the modulation. So it's a key change, it's a half bar. it's chromatic, you know, dun, don't, don't, it's not a scale. Yeah. So it's all this interesting stuff, and then it goes away, and we're back to pop music again.

We leave jazz behind. We leave prog rock behind. That's interesting, because I was going to say we've been talking about is this a disco song. If it's not disco, what genre is this?

Is it pop? Is it funk? I think it's more additive than subtractive. I think it's disco and, it's disco plus. So it fits in a disco set. It fits into...

So you're with me now. This is a disco song. I think in terms of, I think it's a non-reductive. Here's my, here's my political answer, right? I mean, I do feel like a politician saying, you know what, let's be all things to all people all the time. Both for luxury.

I think that there are disco elements. It makes sense in a disco club, in a disco DJ set. You won't get thrown out of the club if you're DJing and you play this. Hey, this is one of the biggest songs of the night. If you're listing the top 100 or 10 disco songs of all time, it's likely to come up there. But musically speaking, where the disco lives, it's kind of here and there.

Right? And it's not as like explicitly disco as like the Scat Brothers. walk the night or something like that. It's like, hell it is going. Or the B-Ds for that matter. And by the way, here's the answer to the mystery from before. We all hear claps in upside-down by Diana Ross, but there's no claps per se. That clapping sound is coming from Nile Rogers just chucking on the guitar. Right. And he did two passes, one left, one right? So it sounds stereo. I'll play them for you right now. I'll give you some context. And I'll put it in the drums. I'll take out the rhythm. Yeah, there you go.

So that's drums and chucks. And obviously, so this happens a lot on the show. The stems are before a lot of processing happens sometimes. I think there was some reverb at it and maybe some high end to make it more clappy sounding. But that's the source of that sound. Oh, that's great. The piano is probably one of my favorite things in this song. I think the strings is going to be my favorite, but right now it's competing with the piano.

You reserve the right to... Yes, I reserve the right to later say the strings are my favorite. What's the piano doing? I would totally agree with you. In fact, I would go so far to say as one of the unsung heroes of the song is the piano, and that means that I need to name the piano player. I'm not sure. It's one of these classic, like, album credits just list two names for all the songs and all the parts.

But listed on the LP for keyboards are Raymond Jones and Andy Barrett, who sometimes goes by Andy Schwartz. There's a lot of pictures of Andy Barrett with pianos. So I think he might be the pianist on this one. And I think the Rhodes part, which we'll hear in a moment, might be. Raymond Jones. Either way, this part is where like the heart of the like memorable motif riff action is taking place. And this is the part, I'll play it for you and then I'll keep babbling after. Let's just listen. That's it. That part right there. Those two little syncopated bupun. Yeah. That's the hook. That's the flash. That's the flash.

And neither Nile nor Bernard are playing that part. It's just the piano is left in that little space for that. which I thought was, that surprised me a little bit listening to the Sims. I just assumed that maybe they were doubling it or they were all kind of like playing with it. But they leave, Andy, Barrett, Schwartz, or Raymond Jones to have his little moment with that bump-p-p-p-pun. Now that's on the chorus. Does it change in the verse?

Actually, in the verse, kind of a bit of a hero as well. Let's listen from the chorus through the modulation. And unlike the restrained Nile and Bernard, there's some action going on here. We're getting higher. We're going to go up an octave. We have a little more action going on in the verse. And yeah, no, I think that those are like secret sauce of the song

might be happening to the piano. I really like that. Yeah. What's the Rhodes doing? The Roads is a little more restrained, but there's some little fun stuff in the verse as well. Here it is in the chorus. You hear the bleed from the headphones. Just doubling, and I'll bring in the piano.

Oh, well, let's keep going. I'm bringing some drums. Bring in some guitar. You can barely hear the guitar. And here he is in the verse, doing some fun stuff. Also rising in octave every time. One more time. So satisfying.

Boom, boom. You nailed it. You nailed it, man. I could have played Rose on this. Maybe you did. I'm not sure who did. I know. Could have been you.

I asked that my name be taken off the record. Rose always killed me. But I have to say, I'm a fan of disco strings. Oh, well, you're in for a treat here. So hit me with some strings, baby. This may be the most interesting revelation in the stems. And I did a little homework afterwards, a little research, a little recreation. But let's start with what was actually recorded, which you will notice.

I'll compare it, just to be clear, is different from what's on the final version. So here are the strings. And by the way, credit where do these are the sheik strings consisting of Valerie Haywood, Cheryl Hong, and Karen Milne. How fortunate that we actually have string player names. It's so rare that we know. You don't always get that. But the same players that play on I Want Your Love and all the other sheikh songs,

are also playing on this. Let's listen to what they play. So that's it. It's an eight-cord loop. But now I'm going to play for you that same section, that's the chorus, of the final song,

and listen for the strings. It's markedly different. I'll play it again because it's a little hard to hear, but it starts out with the first. What's recorded are eight, basically half note,

like it's half the bar. So each chord gets done to, done to bone, half a bar along, but it's just legato. And there's nothing rhythmic happening. They're just playing the interval, the two notes. But in the song, we hear the first one like that,

and then it disappears. It gets muted. And then little fragments of it are kind of thrown in there, but they seem to be kind of like bouncing a little bit, like a delay. I'll play one more time, see if you can listen. And then I'll do a little bit more of a micro adjustment to help you hear it. Like you can hear that, duh, right? Like that one is distinct.

You know what's funny is I thought the strings were actually going to be doing something that would sound a lot more familiar. Yeah. Just because I'm realizing now, this is really the difference between, like, a guy who plays the guitar in a rock band and a guy who has producer dreams. Because he has layered this in so many ways that, like, now I'm hearing what the pianos do it, with the rows doing, with the... It all kind of comes together to form something that's not on any one instrument. I agree. That's what I was saying before about the puzzles fitting together. Totally.

It reminds me a lot of George Vincent. give me the night, where the riff overall is kind of interplaying. It's like the guitar does a thing, and then the Rhodes answers, and then the strings. So across every bar or two bars, whatever, duration of that riff, you're actually hearing five different sounds that piece together what in your mind is just, give me the night. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually like an interplay, a dynamic interplay between the instruments.

And you're totally right. Same thing is happening here. That piano does that one note, and then the Rhodes does the thing, and then the strings does the thing, and altogether, it's the riff. It's the overall hook. It's a classic example of something being more than the sum of its parts. Because when they come together, it just sounds amazing.

And it's arrangements slash orchestration genius. Totally. Yeah. There's something going on with those strings, right? Like, I feel like there might be an effect or something. What's happening there? Yeah, so I did some digging, and I think that there's two unsung heroes happening

in just the strings alone. One of them might be Bob Clear Mountain, engineer, and the other one might be the phenomenon of delay devices in the studio. So in this moment, Nile Rogers, one of the great guitar players of all time, gives full credit to Bob Clear Mountain for introducing him to some delay techniques. And he says that on Everybody Dance was one of the first times he learned. He could do two things. So on everybody dance, there's a clav solo that's very rhythmic. But actually the clav player was just playing whole notes. And it didn't sound very funky. So Bob Clear Mountain, who's a tech guy,

who's like, you know what you can do. You can play guitar. And I can key that. I can side-chain it basically. So whatever you play, you'll only hear that in the clav. Literally what you're hearing in everybody dance, kind of like in daft punk, I was going to say a French touch. When the kick drum plays, then the bass ducks down under it and you have that whoa, whoa, whoa, wow, sound. They're using both techniques on the strings in this song. One of them is the keying. So you hear a little wobble in the strings. When you hear that, it means that Nile was playing the rhythm he wanted those legato strings to go. So he's playing something rhythmically. You don't hear the guitar. You just hear what the rhythm does applied to the strings. The second thing he does, and then this becomes a big Nile Rogers

Bob Clear Mountain thing, is actually using delay. And I'll show you what that means because it's much easier to hear it than it is to explain it. So I'm going to play for you one more time what the strings were recorded to sound like. Here is what was not muted. So step one is you mute everything but this. Muting. Right? So first step was to mute the parts that you didn't hear, but the second step is to add delay.

And now I'll show you what that does. Right here. So that is the magic trick that was used to give the rhythm aspect to the strings, to give it some funk, to give it some bounce, and to have it fit in with those other parts. So I'll play that again with the piano and the guitar, and you'll be like, oh, yeah, now I'm starting to hear what the song upside down sounds like.

Right here. Right? It fits it right in that little gap. So it fits right into that pocket, just like we were talking about all the puzzle pieces coming together to form. What that riff is being shared across different instruments, little fragments of sound at a time.

Like those are literally 16th notes in the strings. Kind of a magic trick in 1979, 1980 to take a string part and do that. It almost sounds digital. Well, it wouldn't be a Diana Ross song without the Queen herself, Diana Ross. So let's dive into the vocals. You said earlier in the show, something that I didn't really even realize, the song kind of cheats the outro at the beginning of the song. It's true. We just got a little snippet. You want to hear that?

Let's hear it. Let's start. I said upside down, you're turning me. You're giving love instinctively. Round and around, you're turning me. That's Diana, and it should be mentioned. Another group of unsung heroes is that she's not alone in the intro, nor is she in the outro. She is accompanied by the chic vocalist.

basically. Yeah, so that's Alpha Anderson and Lucy Martin from Sheik, along with Michelle Cobbs, who is also in Sheik sometimes, and Fonzie Thornton, Luther Vandross's childhood. Oh, wow, yeah, totally. Go back to that episode. We're talking about Fonzie, so it's that group, you'll hear a little male vocal in the, kind of in the, I think, higher tenor range, actually. But here they go, the Sheik vocals, and then I'll

put them all together. Upside down, you're turning me. You're giving love instinctively. Round and round, you're turning me. It's so funny. I can really hear that male voice. now she called it out. That's Fonzie. Yeah. Let's listen to all of them with Diana again.

Set upside down, you're turning to me. You're giving love instinct to me. Round and round, you're turning me. That's the Supreme Center. That is the Supreme Center. That's her. And by the way, I found some really cool earlier takes of the same vocal. That's her final take.

But it's really fun to listen to these early takes because she's trying to find what she wants to do. These are some of those unused takes that we were mentioning earlier. Yeah, well, this one is my favorite. I'll play it for you, and then we can talk about it. But it sounds like she's trying a different character. Think of her as, like, being an actress for this song. It could have been, she could have been this role. I said, upside down, you're turning me.

You're giving love instinctively. Around and around, you're turning me. Like trying to be tough or something. Ah, yeah. I was thinking like a fun auntie. Yeah. Yeah, she's like 35 in this moment, right? And that kind of corresponds with the picture on the cover.

The picture of the cover is sort of like a sexy mature lady. Yeah. As opposed to like, you know, like in the Supremes, it's like all this, you know, sort of like diamond dresses and stuff like that. But in this one, she's like just got on a white t-shirt and some jeans. Right. And in Motown and the Supremes, it was meant to be like the youth for the youth. It's like the youth of today, the youthful sounds of today or something.

Wasn't that the Motown motto? Motown motto. And she's moving away from that and trying to be tough. That's what I hear. By the way, it should be noted. We mentioned all those chic vocalists. Diana asked for them to give her a guide track. So she ended up singing upside down to the chic vocalists

to her background singers. They did the whole song so she could kind of bounce off something. And that was unusual for her apparently. Yeah. I really like the sound of those background vocalists because I actually read somewhere where Fonzie, our friend Fonzie, was saying that what they gave to Diana was that staccatoed way of singing like that.

Punctuated. Yeah, like totally. And it kind of goes with the chucking. that Nile's doing on the guitar. Absolutely, yeah. It's all staccato and very deliberate. Each sound is very deliberately placed with strength and conviction.

Totally. One more arrangement thing, to Nile's credit, like as a genius arranger, you always kind of want to be from one part of the song to the next. Something stays the same, something changes.

So we just had a lot of fast notes, a lot of eighth notes. That da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Now we're about to go into the chorus and things are going to slow down in the vocals. Here they are. Notice now how.

how in the chorus is a lot of quarter notes and rests. Outside down. Boy, you turn me inside out and round and round. And then we have our chromatic shifts. And then we have in the verse where the music bed is one chord that stays stable, she can then contrast that with her melody is going to be faster now. So here's verse one. Instinctively you give to me the love that I need.

I cherish the moments with you. A couple of things. I like how it's always like, respectfully, I'm aware that. Like, there's like, there's this one, two, that happens. But also, until we really sat down and listened to the song, I didn't realize that she says, you're cheating on me. Can we talk about the lyrics of the song a little bit? She's not happy.

It's not a great relationship. She's not happy. She doesn't want to be upside down. Yeah, this is a bad upside down. Not like upside down. I'm in love. It's upside down like, what the hell? Can we hear some more.

Out takes that didn't make the cut? Yeah, those are fun, right? All right, let's go back a little bit. Here's in the chorus. There's a first take that sounds like a first take to me because it sounds like when you haven't done the song yet and you're learning it, it's really chill, and it's very charming. Upside down.

Boy, you turn me inside out and round and round. Right, it's kind of tentative. Upside down. It feels so vulnerable to me. She seems sort of shy. Yeah. It's sort of how I feel. when I hear that.

I also hear sexy. Yeah. You know, I really do. Yeah. It's funny because I was trying to imagine this, this era, Diana, in the studio singing this. You know, this is the Diana who was in the Wiz. It's not the Diana. You'll even see just a couple of years later singing, you know, missing you.

So it's a really interesting era. Right. And it's not the Supremes. We'd go back and listen to our Supreme's episode. You keep me hanging on. That's a different Diane altogether, right? That's more of like a different character. Yeah.

Bampi. Yeah. is a good word. But this one is like, you know, it might be vulnerable. It might be sexy, but it's like more chill. More low-key, yeah. I also never noticed until you just said it about the speed, how it changes. Like, so it comes in fast, and then it goes to the chorus and it slows down.

Then at the verse, it's fast again. This is basically some music math. You know, I'm not sure how much of it is intuitive and how much he's literally sitting down with graph paper and mapping it up. But you really could sort of put it on a grid all of the different parameter choices like chords change frequently. chords don't change frequently. Melody in the vocal is rhythmically complicated, but melodically simple. All of these parameters across the song are perfectly managed so that we have contrast from one

section to the next. We have contrast sort of horizontally, whatever's going on here in the music side, in the drums and bass, is contrasted by what's happening in the vocal on top. Genius. And then when we get to the end, he goes fast again. Can we hear the outro? Let's listen to the outro. This is one of those great episodes where we have post-fade adlives that have never been heard before. Up and down and round and round, you're turning me. Give in love instinctively. Round and around you're turning me.

I don't mind that one. I don't buy the up and down your ground, you're turning me. This is super. This is super projection and who am I to think that I can get in the brain of Diana Ross? But like sometimes when you're doing your ad lib take, when the song is done, you've got the core vocals you need. But you're doing one last pass through the whole song. Just whatever comes into your head,

whatever there are gaps that you notice. Sometimes it can be stressful to be like, I'm not sure what to say. Because you've got to pick your lyrics. Like, am I going to just use the lyrics that I already know? Or am I going to add something new? Like, that's what I'm talking about. Like, you know what I mean?

And then you have to decide what notes. So I kind of hear a little bit, I'm projecting again. Like I hear her being like, I'm not sure what else to say besides the lyrics of the song. And she's sort of just singing the same notes in the same lyrics, but just a little placing them differently. Yeah, but she's like having fun. I think there's so much staccato going on in the song.

Like, I think she's just like, you know, she's doing a bunch of syncopated freestyling, essentially. Up and down and around, you're turning me. It's like you see the footage of like Judd Apatow movies where they're like, where he's like hurling ideas for him to like riff on for Seth Rogen and whoever's like. It turns out that some of those are actually ad libs that Paul Rudd and whoever are coming up with. But a lot of them are like ideas that it's. It's helpful to have coming from the sidelines.

When we're on set, we always have a couple of the writers there to pitch jokes in between takes and, you know, it's... Improving its own game. That's its own brain, I'm sure, that I do not have. This is one of those fun things, too, with the stems that you hear this is a real band. The song fades out on the radio, but we have how the band stopped playing. You've never heard this before. It's so fun because you hear a band stopping, performing together. Yeah.

And here it is. Here's the real ending of Upside Down. One song exclusive. It's so fun. That is so real. By the way, I think that's a sample waiting to happen, that little guitar thing he did at the very end. You like that.

I mean, these are guys that have been playing together at this point for maybe a decade, close to a decade. Yeah, Tony Thompson, Bernard Edwards, Nile Rogers, just having fun in the studio. And it's so good. Yeah. So we have to mention that the version of the song that everyone knows isn't actually Nile Rogers

and Bernard Edwards' original mix. Motown thought their mix pushed Diana's vocals too far back. So the label stepped in and remixed it. And Nile has been very open about the fact he was devastated when he heard the Motown version because he felt it didn't reflect their artistic intention. I'll be honest, I've listened to these a couple of years back.

I couldn't really hear that much of a difference. The differences are really subtle. Yeah. Let's play some back to back and see if we can spot it. Let's do that. And you're absolutely right. Nile was not happy. Nile was not happy.

The way I've heard him talk about it, there were lawsuits. There were threats to take. his name off the record because he was so unhappy with it, doing Alan Smithy kind of version of Diana. Alan Smithy being the name that directors use when they don't want their name on the movie that they directed because of the studio.

I'm happy when they don't have final cut. Exactly. All right, well, here's a section that I think reflects some of the changes. Here is the final mix, and then I'll play the chic version afterwards. So here's that same section. And this is the rejected.

chic mix by Nile and Bernard. Upside down, more you turn me. And I'll just, some things to listen for... I still don't hear the difference, and I'm looking for it. I'll tell you some things to listen for that I hear. There's more bass. Okay.

There's less guitar, interestingly. There's more strings. And this next thing you'll notice in a different section even more, but there's a lot more reverb on Diana's vocals. Okay. So they're a little more buried sound. In the chic version. Which is important because what Diana wanted,

she felt that the instrumentation... was drowning her out. And she wasn't clear enough. Her vocal wasn't clear enough. In part, that could be a mix of volume thing. But I also think when you add reverb to a vocal, it tends to drown it out a little bit. That was going to say,

the one thing that I thought that I noticed was that the vocals sounded a little different. Yeah, that is what I'm hearing. To my ears, I'm hearing more reverb on the vocals, more bass, less guitar, more strings. Let's listen again. Here's the final version, a little brighter, less bass, more guitar.

Less strings. Offside down. Boy, you turn me. Not no reverb on the vocal, but less. No, but less. And here's the chic version of that same part. It's so subtle. It's so subtle, but you know what?

Now that I'm listening for it. Right. It's almost like Motown wanted Diana to say, hey guys, this is a disco a fun genre. You know, like that's what I'm getting from those vocals now. For sure. on the Sheik version, it's like Diana's actually singing a disco song. It's interesting, though, because one of the changes that I noticed is that the guitar is actually louder in the non-Nile Rodgers version.

Yeah. Like, he had his guitar lower in the mix. I'm telling you, he's not, you know, for a long time, they're like, you didn't even know what Sheik looked like. You know, they wouldn't, they were like Roxy music. They would kind of go out of their way to like. That's right. Be background players, yeah. I'll give you one more section to listen for where I hear the guitar a lot louder.

And then that same section, this is Nile's version. It's super subtle, but Nile was very unhappy. I like the idea of the record label feeling like, this mix is going to tanker career. Yeah, they were worried. Like, they changed like a five to a six. Yeah. This stuff mattered, obviously, a lot to them. I think it was Bob Clear Mountain, who may have done the original mix.

Russ Taranak was brought in. He was Motown's original engineer from the 16. So Diana had worked with him in the Supremes. The two of them sat over the tapes, and she gets a co-production credit, co-mixing credit. And, you know, ultimately the final mix is the Russ Tarana and Diana Ross mix. Yeah. Yeah, Nile said, quote, we didn't want the public to assume that these were our mixes. That's why he had their names taken off.

The basic problem was that we had two different concepts of what her voice should sound like. So it sounds like the voice was kind of the key area of difference between the different mixes. So it's very subtle. Like I said, more reverb in one than the other, but to the average listener, I gotta say, I don't know that the public would have noticed. I think you're right, yeah. All right, luxury. So now that we've heard this song, tell us how the splits break down.

This song was 100% written by Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards, who split at 50-50 between the two of them. Yeah, I'd love to hear a good 50-50 story. Yeah. All right, Diallo, what is the legacy of Upside Down by Diana Ross? You know, I don't think it can be overstated enough that this song really revitalized her career. the global success of Upside Down really introduced her to a whole new audience

and era as she continued to make music throughout the 80s. That's right. Diana entered the 80s less a fading 60s phenomenon. Yeah. And more just a new, kind of a new star in a way to a new generation. Totally. And Michael Jackson and her had this great collab which is one of my favorite unsung

Diana Ross songs. Do you know the song Muscles? Such a weird song. It's a crazy song. It's a Michael Jackson production and co-write. Yeah. Or I think he wrote it fully, I should say. I think you did. Yeah. And the video is unhinged. Can we play a little snippet?

How are they doing that? That's Michael. For those who are not fortunate enough to see what we're watching, a lot of muscles, a lot of, a lot of men, a lot of oil on muscles. And she's like blowing them away. And then she's, they're like walking on her arm. Oh, the FX, the special effects are. Special effects for the 80s. Over the top.

It's five years after Star Wars, by the way. So it's not like they couldn't do more. No, this was clearly Lucas' films for finest work. What I will say is that I didn't know this was even a song until my co-star, Marlon Essence Atkins, was telling me how much she loved this song, Muscles. And I was like, Muscles? And she was like, oh, yeah, you don't know this song.

Like, so there is an underground of muscle fans out there. You like this song, too. I love this song. That's why I brought it up. I couldn't have this episode be completed without bringing up muscles and listening to Muscles and watching the video for Muscles. I ain't doing the episode unless I get a shout out to muscles.

What about you, luxury? What do you think the legacy of upside down is? I think from the Diana Ross perspective, we have a lot of thoughts that we've just shared. But I think that it's no small shakes that Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards also go into the 80s with kind of new wind beneath their wings. Because the end of disco demolition

was the end of sheikh's career, but not the end of their career. As mentioned, we have David Bowie, we have Madonna, we have Duran Duran, we have all these incredible iconic songs. Yeah, they did notorious. They did No Notorious and Wild Boys. Not notorious.

And to this day, Nia Rogers is out there 40 years later his career going strong. Yeah, he was on, you know, the dad punk song from 2014. That's right. He's on Get Lucky. Let's not forget, exactly. And Bernard went on to produce for Air Supply and Rod Stewart and Jody Wadley. Oh, let's not forget Power Station. One of my favorite productions.

I love that record. Bernard, such a gifted, talented individual. Unfortunately, he struggled with addiction pretty much his entire career. He died way too soon. But Diana, still around, still, you know, she's 81. She just performed this song for New Year's Eve because this song has had a whole new, you know, like it's actually back on the charts. Yeah.

So I guess this is just going to be another decade where Diana continues to entertain us. Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song. It's the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gym with you, the One Song Nation, and with each other. You go first. All right. Well, for my KCRW show, I'm doing post-punk, and I am going down some wonderful rabbit holes. as much as I thought I knew a lot about genre X

and the main practitioners, I'm always finding something new. This week is no exception. My new discovery of the week is an old band from the 80s. This is a German band called Exmal Deutsche Deutschland. The song is Polar Lecht. It does everything I love. I literally thought it was like a Cato Twins record

I'd never heard before. It's so, I love it. It's got the light. What year is this? It's like, I think 1984, Polar Lecht. I guess that means polar like, you know, the light of the North. North Pole or something like that? I'm not really sure. My German's not that good. But they look exactly

like you told them to look like five members of some cross between the cure and the dams. And it's four women and one man and Exmal, Deutschland, is the name of the band, X with an X. I love that. What about you, Diallo? What is your One More Song this week? My One More Song comes from our listeners, actually, because I've had a couple of people who asked me if we're going to cover a song called Debris Shade of Soul by Urban Dance Squad. I think it's such a funny song because for so long I've tried to think to myself like, what is this? Is this like, is this skateboard rap? Is this, what is the genre of the song?

Let's listen to it real quick. That's the one. What is the genre? I have an answer for you. The genre is 1990. Because that's the only moment that music sounded exactly like that. I will say, you know, it's easy to laugh at a song like this because it's so like, I don't know, it's like weirdly 90s earnest. Yeah, it's so earnest.

But the hip hop in the pop music. It was hip hop. I think they're white. They're dressed like, there's a black guy. There's like a black guy. Are they Dutch though? I think they're for, are they not Dutch? Yeah, they're Dutch.

That explains so much. Yes, it does. By the way, the name is urban dance squad. That sounds like a faith-based dance. There's a translation thing happening here. They're singing in English, but they're Dutch. Yeah. So it does that sort of like, it's a little bit of the Austin Powers, you know, thing.

Yeah. Like the Dutch stuff is English, but a little bit different from, I don't want to say off. I'm trying to avoid saying off. It's a little off. It's fair. I mean, I have some thoughts on it because by 1989, when this song comes out, we now are deeper, we are deeply, we are deeper, we are deeply into the decade. And we've had enough time for hip hop and electronic music to both simultaneously start using samples, like in different ways. On the new order in Depeche Mode side, and on the Frankie goes to Hollywood side, we have these new tools. We're using samples. And the hybrids are starting to be Fast and Furious.

Totally. Now the electronic or the pop side of it is adding back a layer of hip hop with the rapping, if you can call it that on the song. And the use of the sample is kind of marrying both worlds, I would say, which happened in this moment where we have like electronic folding in some of the hip hop that had been happening. Right. I mean, it's kind of funny because...

Awkwardly. This group is Dutch, and I thought they were from California based on the music video. But I do feel like there was a genre in the 90s. we covered one of these songs on, uh, DeLy Grooves in the Heart. It's like, it is that collage of, of,

of a bunch of samples. Yeah. And there's usually like hip, like, you know, Q-tip raps on, you know, grooves in the heart.

Yeah. This guy's got a, it also reminds me of, like, um, there's a song called standing outside of broken phone booths with money in my hand by primitive, uh,

radio gods, which is another one of these, it's the one of, it's the one of, like, you know, even woke up this morning, got myself a gun.

You know, like, there, There was just a type of non-hip-hop sample-based music. This is what I'm talking about. It's like coming from more of a band or electronic side, but they're integrating new technologies and capabilities and sounds that are definitely being pioneered in hip-hop.

But the result is not hip-hop. Even if there's rapping on top, that's not a hip-hop song. It's not electronic either. I wish there was a name for this specific. It's 1989. 1990. That was the moment this is all happening. And by the way, since I've known this song forever,

there wasn't Who Sampled back in the day. I literally have this on vinyl. I get to now go on Who Sampled and find that this is the source. It's a deeper shade of soul by Ray Barreto from 1968. Oh, it's kind of Latin salsa-e. God bless Who Sample. If only we'd have that back in the day. That was a fun little dive. That was a fun little dive. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo and on TikTok at Dalla Riddell. And you can find me on Instagram at LUXXURY and on TikTok at LuxuryX. And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok at One Song Podcast for exclusive content.

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Luxury helped me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ songwriter, musicologist, and every Friday from 10 p.m. to midnight, KCRW DJ Luxury. And I'm actor, writer-director, and sometimes DJ, D'all Riddell. And this is one song. We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duanez. Our video editor is Casey Simonson, mixing by Michael Hardman, and engineering by Eric Hicks. This show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wyle, and Leslie Guam.