One Song - Mark Ronson ft Bruno Mars “Uptown Funk”

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

This time on One Song we’ve got a real interpolation-palooza for you! Join Diallo and Blake as they wade through all the different layers of inspiration and interpolation that went into Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ modern classic: Uptown Funk.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm actor-writer and sometimes DJ Diallo-Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter, Luxury. And we've got a new show called One Song, where we celebrate and deconstruct some of your favorite songs from the past 60 years and tell you why they deserve one more listen. Luxury, my friend, how have you been? I have been so good. It's been a really big packed week full of stuff. The biggest thing has been preparing for this show. I'm so excited to talk about the song we're talking about today.

Oh, yeah. Well, you know what? Should we start the show? I think we just get right into it. Let's do it. Let's jump in. Let's jump in. Today on one song, we're talking about the 2014 hit Uptown Funk by producer Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. Uptown Funk was huge. It won the record of the year Grammy, beating out artists like Taylor Swift and The Weekend. It wrote records worldwide. The song was everywhere, including that one place no song wants to be inside the courtroom. Despite legal issues, Uptown Funk was certified,

11 times platinum. 11 times. 11. This episode, we'll take a look at the history behind the song, as well as examine how the song was made. Uptown Funk uses interpolation to create a throwback track that somehow sounds brand new luxury. For those folks at home who may not know, what is interpolation?

You know, it's funny, you should ask me of all people. I know. Interpolation, something that I like to talk about, it is similar but different from sampling. Now, when sampling, what you do is you take the record, you take an actual piece of the recording and then you reuse it in your song. With interpolation, you're taking the musical idea,

so just the melody, for example, and you're replaying it. You're coming up with maybe new lyrics and using a melody, but it's not the recording. So interpolation, sampling different things, and in this song, there's no sampling, but there is a little bit of a lot of interpolation. Yeah, I mean, like, as a layman,

I always thought that, like, interpolation was essentially replaying the part of the song. And that's right, that's right. But you actually talk a lot about this, very subject on TikTok and Instagram. It's true. TikTok and Instagram. I have a bunch of little videos where talk about songs from the perspective

of their creation. And every now and then, if there's an interpolation, I'll say something a little bit like this. Interpolation. That's right. I'm the guy who whispers interpolation. It's a cottage industry. It's my cat phrase. Well, listen, that's all good because uptown funk, one would argue, is a veritable interpaloza. Like, there's

so much interpolation going on. I love that word. You just make that up? That's brilliant. I'm going to definitely start my music fest called Interpoluza. Can I get in on that? I want to be a part of that too. Absolutely. And Perry Farrell can get in on it too so he doesn't sue me. Because you are kind of interpolating Lala Palooza when you think about it. It is verbal.

So many layers. All that and more on this episode of one song. Luxury, did I ever tell you about the very first time I played Uptown Funk when I was DJing at Sky Bar West Hollywood? No, I don't know the story. Okay. So here's it. I was DJing West Hollywood Popular Club area for those not in Los Angeles.

and I was playing a lot of spots like, you know, Skybar and Boulevard 3. Like the party scene in the middle of the last decade, it was all about the bottle service. Like a lot of these clubs didn't even have dance floors. They just had couches, you know, in front of tables, and you were basically like, you know, you go there. Drake would be there, Chris Brown. You know, you go to these places, no dance floors. And you just basically went to be seen. You know what I mean?

Like there was very little dancer. Very little dancer. Is that what it is? Yeah. It was like a 600% markup. a bottle of gray goose. You know, shout out to great goose. I hope they're one of our sponsors in the future.

There was also like a shift in music happening at the time. And, you know, EDM was like sort of like the driving force of pop by this point. And yet here comes this weirdo song, you know, that doesn't really sound like anything else on the radio. And I feel like in that time since, whether it's Bruno or Duolipa, like there's definitely been sort of this type of pop music. Yeah. that is very sort of like disco and funk driven. And I feel like this song, one could argue, was like an opening salvo,

along with, ironically, the godfathers of EDM, get lucky by Dapunk. Also, not your typical sound for an EDM group, also sort of driving this. Yeah, it's funny to think back that at the time, it was kind of like not risky, risky, but there was something to take a chance on going back to that sound.

It was a risky song. It's easy to forget now. And I'm telling you, when Uptown, funk hit the scene, it changed everything. The hit 2014 single, Uptown Funk from Mark's fourth studio album, Uptown special, topped the charts in 19 countries. Wow. And sat on the billboard hot 100 for 14 weeks. It was inescapable. Wow. I mean, one could not avoid this song. But it was the perfect song kind of to bring a crowd together, like the perfect song to play at a wedding. Yeah, right. Or like

at a party where nobody really knows anybody. Right. Like, you know, like, are you on the dance floor? with a stranger? Even kids' birthday party. Like, it was everywhere. Kids' birthday parties. Like, there's actually, like, if I remember correctly, there's like one swear in it, but as long as you were ready to, you know, mute that one swear, you were good to go. Luxury, what was going on

in your life when Uptown Funk was getting the crowds going? When this song came out, I had moved to L.A. just a few years earlier for a publishing deal, which meant that I was here to write hit songs. And what that meant even further was to sit in a room with a stranger every day somebody knew. And I was more of the music guy,

and the stranger would be another person with a publishing deal who's more of a topliner. They were in charge of lyrics and melody. So it was a really fun job, but it was also like when you meet someone for the first time and you're in a room and both of your publishers are like, can you guys write a hit song? Brittany needs a new song or J-Lo needs a new song. We were kind of, and I think this is something not everybody knows exists. There is this kind of like screenwriters for movies.

There are pop writers for pop songs. And I was in that world. So what usually happens in one of these co-writes is you sit down, you kind of vibe, get to know each other, how you doing, nice to meet you. what are you listening to is almost invariably one of the first things. And so you'll go online and you'll kind of bring up some tracks that are like you're grooving to. Maybe it's something new. Maybe it's something old.

But the main thing is that I don't think I ever had out of my 200, 300 writing sessions. I don't think I ever had one that didn't begin with, hey, let's listen to music. Let's vibe on something. Let's get into a feel. Like what are we both feeling right now? So a lot of times there will be discoveries that come out of it like, oh, I never heard that before. Or sometimes you link up and you're like, you know what? I'm really feeling that

1979 funk moment. And I have a feeling that that may have been the origin of this song. It's my speculation not having been in the room, but I have a sense that that may have been what Ronson and Mars were feeling in the time. My understanding is that the song actually began when they would do sort of like a mic

check before the show. Right. Oh, really? Live. There was a very early version of like a jam, a funk jam that actually Bruno's band, I believe, would play during the show. show and that eventually like they brought Mark in and they would do like 82 takes or something like that and eventually come up with the song that we all know today.

That's absolutely what happened. I've heard Ronson tell the story and they were jamming in the studio. It was actually Bruno Mars was jamming on the drums, playing drums. He's quite a talented drummer apparently. Ronson was playing bass for the sake of the jam session and they had Jeff Basker, who's a huge songwriter in his own right, was playing keyboards. So you're right, they started out and they had this jam and they had this groove going. but apparently it kept taking months and months and months to get to the next step.

So they really loved the core of the idea, but then one of them would go on tour. They'd meet up in another city and kind of bring it back. They'd be in Vancouver. They'd be in Toronto. That's right. They'd bring it back. They'd be like, this song, there's something to this. Let's bring it back and try to finish it.

It took months. It took many studios, but they finally got to the conclusion. It took many writers. I think the song writing credits for this song are like Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars, Jeff Basker, who you just mentioned. I think he was like on Kanye's 808 and heartbeat. That's right. heartbreaks,

Philip Lawrence, I think, got a smeezington. Yeah, he's a smeezing tin with Bruno, the writing team. Oh, okay, cool. I mean, like, I've even heard, like, you know, this random bass player contributed, you know, something like this, but then they paint them out or something like that, but it's definitely a collaborative thing. Right, right.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, we can talk about that when we get into the stems, which, you know what? We're about to do that. We're about to feel back the onion. I don't think, and these aren't really out there, so I'm kind of excited to play these, maybe for the first time for people's ears. Oh, man. Y'all are here. and first time ever.

Yeah. World premiere. All right, let's get into the stems. Like I said, Bruno Mars was actually in the jam session of the writing of the song, play drums. And from what I understand, he's on the track, too. So let's listen to him. And you can kind of hear in there. I love Bruno Mars.

I think I could play that. I think I can play that. There's nothing complicated, but that's kind of, that's the genre. I think whenever you hear people say like, oh, Ringo was not that great a drummer, but you're like, sometimes the drummer's job is to both keep the time, but also not getting the way of everything else that's happening out there. And that's part of it. the genre like Gap Band, that sort of

1979 version of funk, the sort of post James Brown like syncopated funky drummer, like ghost notes on the snare. This is just like boom, cat. All you need is that backbeat on the two and four. That snare actually sounded like a drum machine snare to me. So what I hear in that as well, and

so this is pretty common in production in general. You're going to layer things. It's not just going to be that one drum track. With drums, unlike guitars, you can't really have two tracks of drums on top of each other. But what you can do, and what I think we both heard was there's that clap in the background, and there's like a reverse clap that goes into it.

I'll play it again. There's that clap, and there's that reverse thing. Yeah, right. Which will always remind me of Billy Jean. I feel like there must be that sound in Billy Jean. Those are just added in production later on. Those are just layers of probably sampled claps. Might even literally be an 808 clap that was added on top,

on top of Bruno's funk beat there. Yeah, there you go. Let's play the drugs. Boom. Boom. Genius. All right. it's pocket you know but that also the pocket element where it's right on the beat that also you can

kind of shift that around later by pocket i know but i think that's something words right pocket's a great word pocket is one of those words like funk or groove where it means something but when you try to define it it gets kind of slippery but it's when something even something simple like that beat has something that's not just a metronome it's not just a pro tools grid it's got a feel to it even though it's just boom cat boom cat you feel the humanity in there there's something that's something that's not just a something a little bit imperfect in the perfection of that. Yeah. We hear one song are pro-human and less AI.

Yeah, but we love the combination. I mean, that's why we're huge craftwork fans in New Order and Daft Punk, because those guys mastered the sort of machine sound with the human stuff combined, right? Yeah. I think that's a perfect example of what's happening in this track. And there is some wind drum on this recording, isn't there? There might be, I'm not, I don't know what's underneath what we just heard, what how many layers there are.

There could be that clock, for example, we just deconstructed. Lynn in there. I can hear, you know, I put Lynn and everything I do. Like that's my secret sauce. Oh no, I love some Lynn Drum. The Lynn Drum machine was one of the first drum machines in the 80s before the 808, which is like the backbone of hip hip-hop and dance music, the 909. The Lynn was what Prince used and made famous, but also the Human League,

don't you want me, baby, has a very famous Lynn Drum sound. So the Lynn is very much, in my ears, at least, exactly in this time frame of 1980-81 kind of zone. And I'm glad you say that Prince used the Lind drum because there's definitely a Minneapolis vibe to uptown fun. But now, that's the drum. What is the bass

doing? Let's listen to the bass. So this is on bass, even though Ronson apparently in the jam session that led to the song being written played bass, on the recording he's not playing bass. He left out to one of the pros. In this case, it's Jamerio artists. So here he is, funking it up.

And of course, that's of course that's mirroring the I want to say is if his name is Jamario, trust him. Oh, yeah. Trust him. He knows how to funk it up. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And of course, what you're hearing there is. Don't try to spell his name. But be like, brother, you can play the bass. And of course, what he's doing there is mirroring this. Do do do do do do. Which they left in the song, right? That is the beginning of the song. Yep, absolutely.

People don't use, like, the fact that wap, wabababababababoo, Bamboom was Little Richard trying to tell the drummer what he wanted to start the song. No way. That's awesome. That's the story behind that. But then somebody was like, why don't we just use your voice saying that? Like, again, the human voice is just some amazing things. Right, right. Yeah,

trying to explain to Jamario how he wanted the bass to sound. They're like, hey, let's just leave this in song. So all I'm saying is if you're describing to a musician, what you want to hear, think about using your description as the opening of your song. It might lead to platinum record. That reminds me the exact opposite it ended the spectrum genre-wise, but the Christina Aguilera song, beautiful, where it starts with her saying,

don't look at me. Apparently, that's really her in the studio saying, please don't look at me. It's such a vulnerable lyric. I love it when they leave stuff like that in. Absolutely. So now let's hear that together with Bruno's beat. So you can hear how it locks together. Okay. Can I say something about that? Please. I think this speaks to why this song worked so well when it came out. So we had been from probably like 2009 till 2014 inundated with all these, whether it was, gangham style what the fox says like the EDM was everywhere right yeah yeah and

and it was almost like Ronson and Bruno were like yo we're gonna take music from the you know late 70s and early 80s but we're going to construct it in an EDM way like that drum thing is just like LMFAO when they do like

ba-bap ba-bada-bada-bada-bada that's like the cheesiest EDM comes in with a big drop nailing it you're right and that is exactly what they do there. They view the, and the, the notes on the base are going up, up, up, up, up, and then everything cuts out. And in true DM style, they're like, where's the drop? Boom, bahn, but don't know, but it comes in with like a medium style. So it was almost like they were just, and even from a production point of view, like we were talking earlier, a lot of the

funk, the actual funk that they were inspired by, you know, some of it sounds like dusty and like, you know, people used to master stuff differently. I think Tom Coyne is the guy who did the mastering on this. Like, he's got it very clean. He's got all the parts very cleanly separated. And that's a very sort of, you know, 2014 club forward way of mastering a song. So it gives you the best of the

old with what was currently popping. That's right. And it brings it into the present. And you're totally, totally on point with that, with making the connection with EDM. In 1979, before even production methods had been invented to do full-on drops. Like, it was far less common

that you would have like a big build-up and a big drop. You might have gotten clown out of the studio in 1981 for doing that for that drum buildup. But like then, you know, in 2014, like, they were like, yo, this is going straight to radio. And it brings it up to date, too. It brings it, makes it more modern. So I'm going to play that bass rise for you again. There's another layer on top of the bass guitar. And it sounds like this.

And it is funny. Go to give it to you. Because I'm tough on. Go on give it to you. Saturday night and we in the spot. Don't believe it. Just what. Do you hear that, like that genuine pony?

That sounds like Mark Ronson, like on a vocal or. I think it's a talk box. Yeah, talk box. I think it might be kind of an homage to the like Zap. Roger Troutman. Yeah, Roger Troutman, absolutely. California love. A hundred percent.

I mean, like in a song full of homages, like you could not miss the fact that this is a Roger Troutman homage. You know, computer love, more bounce to the ounce. Like, yeah, they're throwing it all at the wall. There's so many things they're throwing into the song. Right. That worked, you know, probably 20 years before it came out. I can't do the math.

Math is not my strong suit. It's about 30 years. It's about 30 years old. We can just leave out the math. We're going to, in just a few minutes, we're going to get into sort of the implications for this song of what those references and borrowings can lead to. But you have to remember contextually, it's kind of relevant to say that they did that,

I think, fully throated with love in their hearts being like, yeah, this is an homage. Well, you say love in their hearts. I mean, like, devil's advocate, so we can address sort of the elephant. in the room. You could, maybe it's love in their hearts. Maybe they were just like, ha, ha, we're going to sneak off with some of this stuff. Like, I know for a fact, you have some guitar parts

from some other songs from the period that sound really, really similar. Well, I'm about to play them for you, and let's see. We're just going to really quickly play a game for the guitar. I want you to identify what you hear. I'm going to play a little snippet. Tell me what song you think this is. Are you ready? Here we go.

Here we go. It's real, real short. Can you name that tune in three notes? All right. Here we go. Okay. That is up to. That is correct. What about this?

It's a short snippet. You know what's crazy is I hear enough fuzz on like the snare that I know that that is not Uptown Funk. It is not a song. I don't know. Play it again? Mmm. I don't know the song.

Okay. Well, that one's collage, young girls. Collage. No collage. 83. Wow. That's definitely a throwback. That's definitely a throwback.

Great group. If you like throwbacks, you might even like this one. Okay. I know that that's that's that's that's that's that's a lot. That's trauma. We were just talking about him. That's the guy who does the talk box. You nailed it.

By the way, I'm sensing a theme here. You think? Yes. Is there a little bit of a connection? I'll give you one more. By the way, that sounds incredible. Yeah, it's so good. That sounds really good.

And it's so simple. Once again, you don't have to throw, I think sometimes people just overproduce their songs. You don't need much. You know what happened in the late 70s, early 80s? We got recording technology down. There really haven't been that many improvements since then. It sounded good 40 years ago. Sounds good now.

Who was that last guitar by? That was Sky, Calm Me, by the band Sky. I love Sky. And you're right, they all have a similar, they literally are playing the same riff with the same rhythm on the same instrument because it's a genre thing. It's a trope of the genre,

just to be pretentious and musicological about it, which just means that if you're playing a funk song, you're already narrowing it down to a certain kind of tempo, a certain groove, a certain sort of instrumentation. Within that, you're going to have new melodies, hopefully in lyrics, but a lot of the things like the lack of chord changes, and if you have chord changes, they're likely to be

the one to the four, maybe to the... Well, yeah, not to get too into the weeds, I feel like James Brown said funk is all driven by the one. So you probably have something heavy, base-wise, happening on the one beat, and then what else is left? You need something on a high end, because you need low and high.

Something on the high end happening on the guitar that's sort of syncopated. It seems like all of these songs have that. But in in the moment that the songs came out, I think it was understood that these were funk songs and the DJ will play one into the next. There wasn't really any sense of like, hey, I already played that guitar riff. You can't play. Now, of course, where that line is is really tricky and not easily found.

But in this case, my presumption about the Uptown Funk Writing Session was, this is a guitar riff that's a funk riff. Not it's a guitar riff that belongs to anybody, to anyone band, because they'd very likely heard it in all the sources we just played. And I think that's true across the board as we get back into the. listen to these stems. 100%. And then there's also this other guitar riff

that Ronson played interchanging with the other one. And it sounds like this. Does that remind you of anything? Is that... Play it playing him. Yes, it does... What is that?

It sounds a little to me. I'll tell you what it sounds like a little bit to me. And you tell me for me. Oh, yeah. Big time. It's a little bit of that super-sad. I mean, look, we're not... They didn't take it, but

Like, yes, 100%. It's another trouble of the genre. That's James Brown, super bad. Yeah. You know, it's just... Were the J.Bs blocking James at that point in his career? I think this is 1970, which is like that one year that it's Bootsie and Catfish, right? Oh, man, that's a great story.

That's a story for another time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bro, how did it make you feel when you realized there was a connection there? That's part of what I just love about music in general and being a fan, a maker of music, a DJ, and now a radio podcast, talker about music. Like all of it to me is related because it's about the lineage and the storytelling and the shared history. To me, it's exciting to hear something where I'm like, oh, that reminds me of this other thing. It's as simple as that because it reminds you that music is historical.

And music is a cultural phenomenon. It does, it's not isolated. It's something that we share as a culture. And when you hear something, it reminds you of something else. And then you talk to somebody and they bring up a third song and that excitement that you all have about loving all the music. Yeah. And you want to just go out there and share it with somebody. I feel like that's a lot of.

what good DJs do is like they'll hear one note or one thing and then it's like oh snap I'm gonna make sure the next time I DJ I'm gonna blend those two things together so everybody dancing on the dance floor is like also like oh yo I never realized there was a there was a connection that's it that's it and the feeling of sharing I think goes for whether you're a fan that becomes a DJ and then a DJ that becomes a maker of music it's the same chain of events in the in the brain of excitement like I like this I want to show it to people I want to remix it I want to cover it. I want to interpolate it. I want to sample it. I want to touch it. I want to grab it. I want to be a part of what this sounds like to me, what the feeling it gives me is, the emotion

it brings into my feelings. I love that. Yeah. All right. So we've heard the instruments. Let's get into the vocals. Girls hit you hallelujah. Girls hit you hallelujah. Girls hit you hallelujah. Because uptown funk don't give it to you. Because uptown funk don't give it to you. Because I'm town funk going to give it to you. Saturday night and we're in the spot. Don't believe me. Just watch. Come on. Oh, my God. There's a party in the studio.

The girl sent you, hallelujah. I just love hearing that isolated. Yeah. Funny. That's a lot fun. You know, in the case of Uptown Funk, we have basically writers interpolating a lot of popular songs from the past. But they also brought in this very popular hook that was not too distant in the past when the song came out. And I do want to point out that, like, I read where the record label liked this interpret.

so much that they actually pushed Mark and the guys really hard to name the song just watch. Oh, no way. They pushed them very hard. And Mark even says, like, you know, this song did not come together overnight. Obviously, there were a lot of sessions. There was a lot of work that went into it. But because there was nothing else on the radio that sounded like it was recorded in 1981, he was like, I had to make sure everything else was absolutely dialed in and perfect and

contemporary with what was happening on radio at that time. So adding in a popular hook from Trinidad James seemed to be the missing ingredient. My man, can you play us a snippet of it? Yeah, totally. That's a great lead in. Let's listen to it. Don't believe me just watch. Don't believe me just watch.

Don't believe me just watch. Don't believe me just watch. It was really funny that you point out that I never thought about. But there's no reason why the song shouldn't be called Don't Believe Me Just Watch. That's the chorus. That's the hook. Or as a person who works in TV, I'm like, damn it, why did I never come up with a song called Just Watch?

But it's just so funny. Sometimes you'll be listening to a song and not notice the disconnect between what it's called, the title of the song, and the fact that Uptown Funk is just something they kind of say in the pre-chorus. But the hook of the song is, don't believe me, just watch. I never noticed that before. That's hysterical. Uptown Funk uses, with permission, the hook from rapper Trinidad James' 2012 single, All-Gold, Everything. Let's hear a bit of that. Take me back 11 years.

That's about all you can play from that. song with your parents around. I'll never forget the unfortunate, you know, Caucasian grandmother who was caught on on probably Vine doing that chorus. But you know, here's some fun facts. This is, first off, Trinidad, Jay. Shout out to Trinidad James. I always thought he was from Atlanta. Apparently, he's from Trinidad. It makes so much sense. It never occurred to me. It never occurred to me. The Trinidad James was, I didn't think he was from, you know, from Dominica. But still, it's amazing to me that that never occurred to be. He was signed to Def Jam recordings.

It was a platinum single. I don't even know how many more platinum singles the man has. I do know that Females Beware was a absolute hit. Kind of slept on from Trinidad. And in 2015, this is a fun fact. In 2015, it was reported that James earned over $150,000 in royalties for just the use of the interpolation of his hook. Props, 150 grand, that's a nice check.

Yeah, yeah. You don't already written the song, too. This is for just sitting there while somebody else used it. That is passive income if I've ever heard of it. And that was for one year, there have been eight years or so since then. So multiply that. Multiply that. I mean, like, here's what's interesting.

Bruno and his band, sort of typical, like the roots do this too. Like, when they're in between songs of their own, they'll interpolate and bring in songs and choruses and lyrics from other. 100%. And at that time, the whole don't believe me, just watch was something that Bruno was doing during his concerts. And he saw the reaction that it would get from people. Right. Oh, that's so interesting. I mean, I can tell you from personal experience, you step in front of the microphone to sing to come up with the top line. Usually you start, especially in modern day music making, start with the music. And then it comes time, all right, we need some vocals to this.

When you step up for the first time, a lot of songwriters use melody first with just phonemes like da-b-d-de-b-do boot. Like scatting almost, looking for a lyric, but starting with a melody. And a lot of times if you do that for something, it starts to stick and it's difficult to find the new one. Yeah, it's hard to move away from it. I will say it sounds like this is actually an example of a touring band because, you know, this is Bruno Mars, him and the hooligans and his band. Like they tour almost all year if they're not just doing a Vegas residency. And it seems almost like this is a case of them having sort of audience tested something. Yeah.

That he was like, oh, it'd be cool if we could throw this into the song. That's so interesting. You might be right about that. That's so cool. Y'all, are you a fan of the Gap Band? The Gap Band. Are you talking about the 70s and 80s? Fun group, whose name is actually an acronym for Greenwood, Archer, and Pine.

What? This is new information. That band, yeah, I guess I know. Okay. Well, apparently you're a Gap band. You got some deep cuts. I'm a Gap fan is the way I would put it. Yeah.

You know, shout out to, you know, party train. Not to be, you know, if you've ever been to Venice Beach in Los Angeles, you have not been to Venice Beach until you've seen their video for party train. We're going to get those hats, aren't we? We're going to get those outfits. I'm so glad to hear that you're a big fan of the gap fan. Yes. I didn't, I wasn't really looking for the sartorial appreciation, although I'm glad to know that we have it.

All right, well, fine. Don't hurt. Oh, I didn't mean, all your feelings, man. Not at no, no, no, our friendship is too deep. I'm sure you brought up because of town funk. It's funny. You should mention that because it's a matter. Matter of fact, there is a connection to Uptown Funk.

I know it. Yeah, you were right. Go with your instincts. Trust them. So I'm going to play you a little bit of Uptown Funk, and then I'm going to play you a little gap band. Tell me what you think. Uptown Funk You Uptown Funk You Up.

Everybody knows that part, right? Yeah. Have you ever heard this before? Oops upside the head. I mean, not only do I know it, but any time a kid would slap another kid on the back of the head, they almost always just find it with oops upside your head. So, yeah.

I mean, what happens? if you put them together. Does it sound like this? Upsetown, upside your head. Say, boom, subside your head. So clearly there's a connection. There's a connection. There's a connection there. I mean, man, I just interpolated the Gap band in what I would say. But I mean, like, yes,

this is obvious. I mean, like, look, there are some big similarities in that chorus between Uptown Funk and the Gap band Zoops Upside Your Head. By the way, just, you know, for extra credit, what do you think about this? Woo! So, first off,

they also had some thoughts on the matter. Fantastic chorus. Sequence Forgotten Sugar Hill Records Group. And also a lot of people don't realize this, Angie Stone. It's Angie Stone. It's Angie B in sequence. So shout out to Angie. And what if we were to play them all together, just for the hell of it because I do it on TikTok all the time.

Just a little interpolation cacophony. It's definitely Interpapalooza. And when we come back from the break, we're going to find out why Interpolza landed a bunch of people in court. Welcome back to one song. Before the break, we were talking about Uptown Funk,

Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' Neo-Funk track that gets everyone from your grandparents, if they're still alive, to children on the dance floor. And if they're not, may they rest in peace. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talking about your grandparents, not your children. That's a very dark place to go, guys.

But bringing you back to interpolation. Yes. This song is a much happier subject. We have so many great words to describe. We have interpalooza fest. Wait, sorry, interpapalooza. How do you say that word? Interpapapa-papap.

The pupa, it kind of trips me up. But Interpoluio. You ain't got to say it. I've already copyrighted it. It's a master class in interpolation. It's also a master class in homage and reference. A lot of going, a lot going on here, which is a shout out to the songs that these guys loved. So who do they reach out to first?

So when they were done with the track, they actually went directly to Trinidad James' label. Right. Because nothing goes down in the music business unless Trinidad signs off on it. That's right. So they knew they had that was in the rulebook when you enter the Los Angeles city limits. They hand you the rule book. And that's Chapter 1, page 1. So Trinidad James, right off the bat, they gave.

them 15% writing credit. They were like, clearly this is your hook. There's no question about it. If anything, this is the chorus, as we've just determined, 15% of the songwriting credit. The Gap Band thing that we played earlier, that oops upside your head, that was a little too close for comfort for the Gap Band when they heard it.

Because they didn't get that knock on the door. They had to knock on the door. And so they sued. They were added to the writing credits to the tune of, I think, 17%, which meant that when you take it all together, or 15, you know, take 100% of a pie. They took that out of Mark and Bruno's, right? That's right. They took it out of Mark and Bruno.

So each of the four original songwriters get 17% and the gap band get 17%. And then Trinidad James gets 50%. So that pie got split up with all these pieces. Some of the other things never quite either made it to court or were settled. We don't have all the publicly available information. But we do know what we know about Trinidad James. Those are official now IP owners of the songwriter. Right.

So moving forward, they will be paid royalties. But wasn't there like a Morris Day element to all this? So, you know, I hear, I think a lot of people hear, there's a little bit of jungle love in that kind of vibrato synth. So what's going on in Uptown Funk is you have that synth in the chorus, da, da, da, da, da, da. And it's kind of got a wobble to it. And that's called vibrato, where the pitch kind of shifts a little bit,

just like a little wavy, wavy, wavering. And to my ears, especially because it sounds like the same synth that Prince would have used when he wrote Jungle Love, because as everyone knows, the time is really, Prince with Morris Day on top of it. The music was really composed by Prince, and I'm hearing a lot of that same synth, actually, the synth sound, and then that vibrato on top. But apparently Morris Day heard it, heard what we hear, which is like, yeah, I'm kind of hearing a little jungle love too, but you know what, I'm not, that's fine. Go for it. Morris Day, by the way, I've worked with Morris Day. He's one of the

coolest dudes out there. And you know what? If Morris Day ain't tripping, then, you know. And that's how it should be, but that was that line I was talking about. So Morris Day is on this side of the line. He's like, I feel loved. I feel like you're paying tribute to me, some oh much the Minneapolis sound, but it's not, I'm not going to go, I'm not going to take you to court over it. The gap band had different feelings. But to be fair, that line was maybe crossed. It's a little bit more explicit how, what was taken or what was borrowed or what was interpolated. I will say, I have heard from multiple people that Morris Day and the time, you know, they toured all year. To see them perform live was like so good. And I, I would actually recommend to any listeners.

one song. Go on YouTube. There is footage of them performing, like, you know, Hollywood Bowl, 1984 and stuff like. Like, you see a tight crew. Like, they are so tight, like, just from a performance. I feel like Bruno Mars is that now. Like, when I, I took my wife to a Bruno Mars concert, and I will tell you, the man sounds better live than he even does on his album. That's amazing. It's insane. So, you know, shout out to Bruno. Shout out to those people who tour all year. And when you finally see him live, you're like, oh, man, this is not a little pump. This is an amazing live show. People don't know about Morris Day is that he's a sick drummer.

That's about a little pump. He's a sick drummer, too. More started on drums. Ah, man. See, drummers make great musicians, guys. We don't always have to sit behind everybody else. Right. So basically, it was interpolation that got everybody sued.

And just a little reminder, interpolation or interpolation, if you prefer, is when you use somebody else's melody. It's not the recording. That's a sample. It's just a reuse of melody. Which is clearly what happened with the Gap band. Absolutely. We're talking a lot about interpolation.

And I will say that sometimes I think we give names to things that have been out there for really long. Like to me, when I think about hip hop, even going back to Sugar Hill Gang, yes, that's probably an early example of sampling, but it's also an early version of interpolation, right? They're replaying. It's a house. They're replaying it. Exactly. And I think about like even just how rappers will constantly, you could call it paying homage or you could call it, you know, biting. It's sort of a 90s, but like they're always using each other's lyrics.

Like I remember the first time I heard YGs, who do you love? And the Drake verse on there was very clearly to me as like a hip-up fan. And I was like, oh, shoot, he's easy rap and Forte's whole verse from Players Club, you know. And I appreciated it for that. But I just found out because I was going to use that as an example of saying like, you know, rappers are always interpolating each other. cares. Well, apparently rap and Forte do care because

he heard that verse and I guess no one had ever reached out to him. Oh, no. And he tweeted out like, oh, so Drake just go take my whole verse and just change the lyrics. It turns out that like Drake's camp heard that and I think it's public knowledge. I was able to find it on the web pretty

good. It was, they paid him $100,000. Oh, damn. Okay. To do that now. I will say that that actually surprised me just because I assume that rappers were all always in the habit of interpolating each other's lyrics. The whole first verse of, I just want to love you, parentheses, give it to me,

is Jay-Z essentially doing Biggie's verse from, the world is filled. His whole, you know, when the Rimmies in the system, ain't no tell, whatever, like, that's all Biggie. It's a reference. I mean, that's the thing where it's a line. It's a reference. But it's like even further than just like a word here, word there like he keeps coming back to the the biggie verse throughout his verse and by the way even as

i'm talking right now the name of the song is i just want to love you give it to me if i'm not wrong that's rick james rick james is give it to me i just want to love you like i wonder if at some point did feral try to like because that was like when deja pelle i want to say like everybody was rediscovering rick james in the early 2000s It makes me wonder if Farrell had tried to, like, sample that song or, like, use that song. Yeah, it might have been left over from that. Oh, my gosh. Even the part with your boy who's like, give me that funk, that sweet, that funky stuff.

Wow. Okay. Revelations are happening on mic. Epiphanies are happening on Mike. Give me that funk, that sweet, that funky stuff. See, I love all this stuff because it's a reference. That is Interpoluza. It's Interpoluza, but I also want to make a distinction between interpolation as, like, a copyright protection kind of situation.

where there is legal ramifications and IP is being, you know, shared. And on the other, it's a spectrum. There's not a clear obvious demarcation because many things that you just mentioned to me would just sort of fall into the area of reference or homage. It's meant to be understood that Jay-Z is making a reference to nods. An homage. He's making an homage to Biggie. Or Biggie in that case.

Or I'm thinking like the Nause verse or there's like the time when he uses fame in that. Oh, yeah, and the takeover. He actually had to pay for that. But the point is like he's like, he's. did, yeah, even though it's just one word and it's a replay, he had to pay. Oh my God, see, it's just crazy to me. But that's crazy to them too. They didn't think they'd have to pay for it because it was

a reference, but they were like, no, it crossed the line into over here where it's actually interpolation you got to pay for it. Wow, that is bananas to me. I just, I would never think of that. I would never think that you would have to pay just for, I mean, I go back to BDP. I go back to BDP. Like, you know, he

uses a part that's like an Elton John song in one part of the bridge is over and I can guarantee you nobody at Boogie Down Productions was like, hello, you know, Sir Elton, we need to use that first. It was late 80s. It was Wild West with how it was clear. It was the Wild West for sure. Right. The beauty of it though, and I totally agree with you is like interpolation and reference, what I love is where it's in the realm of a conversation culturally, where it's meant for you, the listener to be like, oh, he's talking about this other thing that I know. So you're kind of

inside the head of the artist, kind of like there's a conversation, there's a connection you have. and that brings me back to the idea of Bruno himself when you really think about his career and where he started he literally started as an MJ impersonator right Michael Jackson impersonator I think it was MJ and James Brown apparently right so his whole career if you think of him less as like say on the like far end of the spectrum of like

the introspective artist who's trying to change the world like he's an entertainer and what he's doing is he's using reference points and literally the makeup and hair of a known thing, Michael Jackson, to get attention to be seen, and sort of that's the beginning of his career, is like entertaining people using pre-existing

known, in this case, face and hair and clothes, right? So there's a parallel. There's kind of a through line from that as the beginning of his career to like writing songs with influence and inspiration coming from, you know, whether it's a police song on the earlier stuff.

In this case, it's all the sort of references the James Brown Gap band, late 70s era funk. It's to him just a natural way of creating. And just to be clear, like, that is not shade on Bruno Mars. He's got the cultural references, and that's what he's bringing in. He's also sharing love for this genre. I'll bet you the whole bunch of people that heard Uptown Funk

that may not have ever heard the Gap Band or these original acts. That might be a way in for them into this new thing to love, this new type of music to love. I love that. All this to say, like, I think Bruno across the board, he's such a great entertainer and he's such a great master of references. I'm going to go out of the limb and say that he might just be the way. world's greatest living interpolator. Boom. Hot take. Boom. There you have it, folks.

There it is. Mike drop. No, I mean, like, look, I say hot take, but I think that's a very fair take. I think both Mark and Bruno have a lot of respect for the craft and the people who went before. Totally. And I think to be clear, to me, it's interpolation. There's this area where you might be thinking, oh, they're just too lazy to write their own material, but that's not what this is. This is referential. This is love and homage and paying reference. It's both referential and reverential. And paying fellow songwriters. Well, that's sometimes an unfortunate outcome when it crosses into that other zone. But to me, the intent is what matters as much as the outcome. I'm not trying to say that all that matters is the intent. We weren't trying to rip you off.

But the fact is, and I think what's really interesting to think about is how Beyonce on Renaissance really does an amazing job of kind of balancing those two things out. That album is thick with love and reference and reverence for what came before. That is a love letter to house music, it's a love letter to black music. It's a love letter to black dance music. And what she's done with her like pages and pages filled with credits that are on the album is not only has she used sort of tropes of the genre, like I was saying with the guitar parts that nobody really owns, there's a lot on that album. To me, in my opinion, I did a video about this. I think that Break My Soul is a very different song from Show Me Love, because if you break it down to melodies and chords, they're not the same.

it's just literally the sound of the synthesizer patch that was used. So when you break it down, there's nothing, I think their lawyers might be in a agree. Yeah, the lawyers and the artist might be like, let's get out a little bit ahead of this. It's very possible that that's what it was, but it also may have been, you know what, let's give Robinette some flowers, let's give this song some attention, let's give it some love, let's give it some credit. So to me, what I love about the album is she did that on every song. She's got what are very clear references and homages, Tina Marie, whatever, it is, Calise, and her effort was to say, I want everyone to share in the glory, to share in the

spotlight, and to share, in some cases, in the payment. In the booty. Yeah. In the pirate sense, you guys. Yeah, the pirate sense of booty, not the other sense of booty. That's what it is. Diallo, dude, it was so fun talking about Uptown Funk with you. Absolutely, man.

And it was actually more fun just talking about interpolation with you. Interpolation. I'm going to start whispering it when I say it. Please do. Okay, well, that's all the time we have today. Thanks again for listening. I am producer, DJ, and songwriter, luxury. And I am actor, writer, sometimes director, and sometimes DJ, Diallo Riddle. And this is One Song.