One Song - Montell Jordan's "This Is How We Do It"

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

This episode is made in partnership with Spotify. SongDNA beta is available on Spotify Premium. This week, we’re bringing the old school back and diving deep into Montell Jordan’s 90’s party anthem “This Is How We Do It”. Diallo & LUXXURY break down the song’s iconic sample of Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story” and use SongDNA to show the intricate web of connected songs, taking us all the way back to an oft-sampled 70’s Jazz track. Diallo shares his perfect wedding DJ set and just where you want “This Is How We Do It” to come in, and the guys try to guess which other songs emerged from the same classic sample that birthed “Children’s Story” and in turn “This Is How We Do It”. Diallo & LUXXURY Talk About Music Patreon One Song Spotify Playlist SONGS DISCUSSED: “This Is How We Do It” - Montell Jordan “Children’s Story” - Slick Rick “The Rain” - Oran “Juice” Jones “Somethin’ 4 Da Honeyz” - Montell Jordan “Got to Give It Up” - Marvin Gaye “Atomic Dog” - George Clinton “Gin And Juice” - Snoop Dogg “N.Y. State of Mind” - Nas “Get Ur Freak On” - Missy Elliot “DNA” - Kendrick Lamar “Humble” - Kendrick Lamar “Take Me To The Mardi Gras” - Bob James “Angela (Theme from ‘Taxi’)” - Bob James “Nautilus” - Bob James “In the Air Tonight” - Phil Collins “Milkshake” - Kelis “Drop It Like It’s Hot” - Snoop Dogg feat. Pharrell Williams “Money (Dollar Bill Y’all)” - Jimmy Spicer “C.R.E.A.M.” - Wu-Tang Clan “Daytona 500” - Ghostface Killah “Beats To The Rhyme” - Run-DMC “Follow The Leader” - Eric B. & Rakim “I Want You” - Common “Feel Like Making Love” - Bob James “Submarine” - Bob James “Clap Your Hands” - A Tribe Called Quest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So tip up your cup and throw your hands up and let me hear the party say, I'm kind of buzzed and it's all because this is how we do it. Okay, I just want to say, there's a lot of drinking of this song. So tip up your cup and throw your hands up, I'm kind of buzz and it's all because. Nice. Woo. I think me and Montel are the same tenor. Yeah, you got it.

Luxury. Today we're talking about an R&B song that pulled from hip hop's past to create maybe, just maybe, the definitive party anthem of the 1990s. That's right, Diallo, and this song's mission to bring the old school back is built around a sample of a classic hip-hop song, which itself is built around an interpolation. Interpolation. Of an artist, too, at this point,

is essentially synonymous with classic hip-hop breaks. So to help us make sense of this complex web of samples and interpolations, can I do that too? You can. We've partnered with Spotify to use their brand-new song DNA feature. It basically allows us to show just how deep these connections. go. We're talking one song and that song is this is how we do it by Montel George. Oh yeah, return to the old school and return to the evil sinister half step. We're going to be

talking about that sinister half step up like we talked about on an earlier episode. I'm so excited for this one. I'm very excited too. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer DJ songwriter and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers interpolation. And for the first time ever, broadcasting from the Spotify studios in Hollywood, this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genre is 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 and Spotify. While you're there, please like and subscribe. And if you're looking for even more music facts, more conversations, and more us. We've got a Patreon now. Go to patreon.com slash diallo luxury. That's patreon.com slash our names. And every week we're doing a bonus episode there. And it's absolutely free.

And it's a lot of fun. All right. So Diallo, you mentioned to me as we were preparing for this episode that this song was kind of the soundtrack to your college experience. Do you remember the first time you ever heard it? Yeah. I mean, like when I think about college, this is one of the songs that always comes out.

I mean, this song was everywhere when I was in college. It was a huge hit in the dining halls, and it always felt like it was a song that every DJ was playing. And by the time, I became a DJ myself. I got off to a slow start, but I eventually started spinning some plates. I got it. It's a song, it's so easy to find, like, the first part of the song. Like, we've talked in the past how it's hard.

Like, some songs are a little bit off. They're a little wonky. It's hard to mix them in and always have them land on the one, so to speak. Not this song, if you know what you're doing. Easy to bring it in on the beat. This is how we do. So much energy when it starts. And as a DJ, you feel like, oh, okay, Montel's got the party.

You know, he's got the next three minutes of the party covered for me. And this is also what you're also. of the songs that not only as a song itself is like iconic and it's a party jam, it's doing what it's saying, it's like referring to itself, this is how we do it. Well, I think, which then transfers into your daily life as just a phrase that pops in your head when you're checking out at the shop, this is how you check out at the shopping mall, you know, like, it's like, no, I've always said, this song, this song, the title is so geniusly vague. Yes. It can apply to anything. Like, you know, you can be the head of a corporation announcing

like some solidarity to be like, this is how we do it. And everyone will think about it. And then they'll go listen and then pennies forever. You can be some shoplifters at a mall spotting out the Forever 21 and be like, this is how we do. Montel Jordan. It can be positive. It can be very negative,

but it's so wonderfully vague. There's not a single person who has a thought at some point, this is how we do. It's viral in the sense that like once you hear it, Montel Jordan is in your brain forever for the rest of your life on a nearly weekly basis, if not more frequently. Not even more.

Again, just think about the words. This is how we do it. This not defined, we also not define, and it really not defined. It's all pronouns. It's the ultimate pronoun song. I remember when we were at Falun, one time we were like, we should do a song called, That's How We Do. It's the same thing.

Just like, hey, just come up with a melody, get Katie Perry and Jimmy to sing it. What about you, luxury? What was the first time I heard this song? I definitely heard in college too. It's a college party song, is what it is. It is the perfect song for the peak of the night, and that's interestingly part of the original beginning. Talk about that.

It's like everything kind of builds to it. And then, because, you know, the night generally has a vibe. What's the word? A path, shall we say. And the path, it's like a ramp onto the freeway. And then, like, everyone, when the party's gotten going, you've got that kind of cohesion. And then you dial it up to 11. This is that 11 song.

You know, every DJ, when they first started off, it's like, I want to take the crowd on a journey. Right. It's like when writers, and I'm one of them, I can say it's like when writers are like, the city is a character too. It may sound a little bit like a cliche, but it's a little bit. It's a useful cliche. It's a cliche for a reason. It's a cliche because there's an element of truth.

That's right. There's an element of truth there. You don't want to start the night with this is how you do it. It's definitely like peak hour. I have had DJs open for me where they just blow through all the hits. They come on. They're like, what's the biggest song I can play at the big? You're just like, that's an amateur move right there.

All right. You're never opening me. Gradually ease us in. Now, as we said, this song is a quintessential party song, but it's really specifically a West Coast party song in a way. And, you know, it's got all the references to South Central, and we're going to get into that, too, when we talk about the lyrics. Musically, it also feels connected to a lot of the music that was coming out of the West Coast at that time.

This is not very far from the G-Funk and even the gangster rap scenes of that time. And for Montel Jordan, that was kind of the point. He grew up in L.A. He played piano in church. And as he was growing up, there was one song he noticed. He played at other parties. In the back of his mind, he's like, one day, when I have my big break, I'm going to sing and wrap over this song when the moment comes.

No, that's that's hilarious. Yeah, the song is Children's Story. And this song is come out by Slick Rick. And it had come out in 1988. But here's the thing. When you're at Pepperdine, a couple of years later, like, this is part of the old school set. Like, we're going to talk about this a little bit. That's crazy.

It was already old. It's already old. Seven years is a long amount of time in this period of hip-hop. Like, we were talking about this before the show, how that seven years means a lot when you're a teenager or even when you're in your early 20s, it can be a third, even half of your life. Sure. So when DJs would go to their old school set, they're only playing songs that if they were

playing now, these are like songs for 2018. Yeah, when you're in college, you were in early preteen, potentially when, you know, seven years earlier. But also, musically, so much changed from 88 to 95 in a way different way than like 2019 to now. Like music has not radically been transformed in quite the same way as it did in a previous era. You can make the case that music is not changing, especially hip-hop.

is not changing as quickly as it was back then. Also, I just want to point out, he was at Pepperdine. I always say kids of Pepperdine are freaking spoiled. Like, if you've ever been to Pepperdine, like they have their colleges on the beach. Like, I don't even understand what that is as somebody who's always trudging through a sad, snowy New England winter. I was going to hold my fire here, but like, can you not say the same thing about Harvard students?

We weren't on the beach. You weren't on the beach. It was no beach. There was no absence of privilege there, I would imagine. But, yes, no beach, fair point. And like he said, you know, you're a DJ too. There are always those songs I used to call midnight songs. Those songs that are big enough that you can play them after midnight on New Year's Eve or just at the height of the party.

And everyone's going to be happy and go crazy. And Children's Story by Slick Rick is one of those songs. Let's hear a little bit of a children's story. Look, drown good and from expectations. He decided he'd hit from the subway stations. But she was coming and he made a lap. He was running top speed till he was out of breath. So I'm not an old man down and swore.

killed him. You know, here's the thing. So iconic. So iconic. I don't know if anybody, like, Cole Porter was one of the first lyricists to really string together a phrase. Like, I think that Slick Rick, uh, in the 80s. The storytelling. His storytelling was so phenomenally unt tortured. You're at the edge of your seat. It's like so interesting. Like it's endlessly interesting. You want, you want to know what happens next. So many of his songs were actually telling stories. But the storytelling aspect was so unique for him the way he did it. It was so good. And then you've got that, that, doom, doom, don't, which I actually started doing like old school.

Like I started doing the Roger Rabbit and the Wop in my seat. Like, these are like. There's a certain move that you have to make with your body. Absolutely. That sound just gets you going. You can imagine being at these parties with Montel at that time and just going nuts. But then his lilt, the way he, his cadence, his accent, he has a British accent. It's so special.

And it's like, so unique. And he changes his voice for different characters. To this day, anytime I talk about my kids, I feel like sometimes I inadvertently imitate him doing the kids at the top. When he's like, well, the kid voice is the top. The very top of the song, he's like, they're like, hey, we'll tell us a bedtime story, please. All right, kids, you guys get into bed. Oh, okay, yeah, right.

Like, he's doing all these voices. The whole song has this, the word lilt. Everything about the song is lilting. How his cadence, his accent, his British accent, the beats kind of are lilting beats. We'll talk more about the beats when we get to the stems. The baseline, the interpolation, there's a lilt to the whole thing that's really cool. It's really cool. And it goes with his eyepatch.

He's got an eyepatch. How can anybody with an eye patch not be cool, am I right? Surely after graduating, Montel worked on a mixtape that got the attention of Russell Simmons, and that's what allowed Montel to become the second R&B artist to sign to Def Jam. Do you know who the first was? Not. How about Orange Juice Jones? I saw you and him walking in the rain.

This is how we do. It was actually one of the last songs to come together for his debut album. How many times will we done songs that were like, oh, we've got a little bit of time left. Let's just do that last song. De La Sol, me, myself, and I comes to mine. What are some other ones that? I can't remember, but with this one, this is on purpose. This isn't one of those, like, we're desperate.

We don't hear a single. Like the classic line, the record company doesn't it? you're a single, so you go back and it's M&M probably, or it's Tom Petty in that case. In this case, he saved it to the end. He tells the story that he had been saving this since probably age 11 or whatever it was, and they did all the other songs first, and then he was ready to do the one we're talking about today. I like the fact that he and one of our unsung heroes on this episode, his co-writer, O.G. Pierce. They were working on this track.

And as he says it, you know, they were just workshop and melodies and lyrics over it. And at one point, they were both suddenly hit with, this is how we do it as the refrain. Yeah. And they look at each other and they're like, this is something. We have to do something with this. They knew it was the thing.

To combine with the sample, that was the hook, and then the rest of the lyrics were built around that. Everything else came from just piecing the peanut butter with the chocolate in that moment, so to speak, you know? Perfect. Absolutely. A little bit more about O.G. Pierce.

There's not a lot out there, but he did also produce something for the honeies, the follow-up single. Oh, something for the honeys. Yeah, makes sense. Follow-up single. Then he went on to work with, he did Ulala with Kulio a couple years later. Unfortunately, O.G. Pierce did pass away at 46, way too young.

Way too young. But I guess, you know, for better or worse, left us with a wonderful legacy of some great music. Now, when it came time to record the song, Montel knew he wanted some of that vibe that Marvin Gaye has on Got to Give It Up, which is famously like Marvin Gaye, Don Cornelius's soul train. And like, it's kind of like a very fun group of people. It's a party vibe for a party song. That's how you got a party song. Hey, brother, how you doing?

Hey, man, how you do? Hey, hey, man, how you? Yeah. I love, I love when albums and songs can start off like that. So Montel invited some of his friends down to Paramount Recording Studios here in L.A. on Santa Monica Boulevard to basically come through and have a party. As he tells it, he set up a keg on one side of the room, liquor on the other. I guess it was dealer's choice.

And in the center, he put an omnidirectional microphone, which he used to capture the sound. of the group as well as that this is how we do it vocal. Which is so brilliant. It's such an underrated. It's kind of like having a laugh track. It's like you're suggesting to the listener what they should do and it worked. If you hear a party in the song, you're gonna play that song at a party. As a guy who works in comedy, I'm actually in some ways jealous of shows like Chappelle Show which had you know videos that they were not like SNL, they're not shot in a studio, but I heard what he did was he would show the sketches back to a live studio audience

and get those real reactions. It is pathlovian, just the degree to which when we hear other people laugh, it's like, oh, well, there must have been something funny about that. I'm jealous of it because nowadays we work in the sort of like post-the-office phase of comedy where it always has to... You never get to hear other people laugh. Weird fun fact, those laugh tracks, even on modern shows, are still primarily from like the 50s and 60s. So everybody's dead. You're hearing dead man laughter. I hate to break it to you.

I love that. The original sampling. It's the original sampling. And it's usually a guy, the laugh track is usually brought in the same boxes that they've always used. It's not like a digital box. It's like, yeah, there's like a guy who shows up. There's like tape, because there's also like levels, right, but there's also levels so you can like, there's like the loud woman. Yes.

You can have the loud woman be higher or lower. You have like the 1960s, ooh, depending. Oh, everyone's going, oh. When there's a puppy. You have laughter, aborrious laughter, all that stuff. By the way, Diyah, you call this song the quintessential party anthem. First of all, does that mean it's the fifth most essential? Because of it's the quintessential?

I've never broken down that word, but it's a weird one. And if so, when you play it, what are you playing before or after? Oh, no, you're putting me on the math spot. What are the other four songs? Gosh, you know, I mean, this song has definitely moved into a certain pantheon of, like, you know, these songs can be played at weddings around the world, and nobody's confused. You will destroy the disaster.

So I would say in front of this is how we do it. Maybe September by Earthwin and Fire. Ironically got to give it up, still a hit. I want you back by the Jackson Five. This is a really interesting list. I'm definitely on the spot. And I'm going to go with Twist and Shout by the Beatles. Those are maybe the four wedding songs that might go in front of.

This is how we do it by Montel Jordan? Have you played it at a wedding? Because I have. I have DJed this song at a wedding. Oh, I've definitely, I've played it. I might have played in my wedding. So listeners out there, we have a Patreon, and we're also available to DJ weddings. That should be our top-level Patreon, by the way.

For 10 grand, you get both of us to DJ your wedding. That's a promise to you. Give us 10,000. We will show up. You can marry us, actually. We will divorce our wives and disown our children. Give us $10,000. That's all we need to get through the summer.

You can give us a playlist. You can give us a do-not playlist. If you don't want any Fergie at your wedding, I hear you guys. But I do love well I am, so that's just me. That's how I get to do. You love him. I love him. I'd marry him without $10,000.

All right, we're going to take a quick break, but when we get back, we're going to hear Montel Jordan's isolated vocals. The man can sing. And we're going to take you on an intermulation journey back to a legendary artist sampled in not just this song, but literally hundreds and hundreds of songs. Stick around. We'll break it down. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusives.

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You're just people And people are either productive or dead weight It's my first day of work, and I need to make a big impression. Were you just checking me out? No. It's too bad. I see at least 15 ladies I need to talk to you before my beta block wears off. My coworkers don't take me seriously.

It's not a human. It's just a piece of meat. Someone bring a gurney. All right, welcome back to one song. Let's get into the stems. Luxury, should we start with the drums? Let's start with the drums. That's it.

You've heard the loop that goes through the entire song. This is how we do it. That's it. Pretty simple. And that sort of tracks with children's story because I don't remember there being too many changes in the loop on children's school. That's absolutely right. And since you mentioned it, let's play them back to back. And then we're going to do a closer listening. So you can hear the ways in which it's transformed because in my brain, they were more similar sounding than actually they are.

Oh, wow. Okay. So let's listen. So here's just a brief snippet. So you can train your ears to listen. Here's this is how we do it. Now listen to that beat, right? And here's the original from which there is a sample,

but there's also a lot more going on. Children's Story by Slick Rick from 1988. Okay, I already hear one big difference. You're already hearing some difference? Let's do a closer listen now. I'm going to isolate that even more. So here are the drums from this is how we do it. This is just one bar.

I'll play it, and then I'll give you the back-to-back with Slick-Ricks version of it. With what is sample, I should say. And here is Slick-Rick, Children's Story. Back-to-back again. I think what's most similar about that, first of all, it is a sample. But here's a couple of the transformations. There's a layered kick trumps, probably in 808.

Yeah. That covers up a little bit of the top end, especially, of the slick Rick. And then the snare in the slick rig. I was going to say, the snare is what jumped out when I was like, oh, I already hear it. Like, to me, by 95, you know that you want this party to jump off. So, like, you definitely want to be hitting that snare hard. It's got a hard snare. Even more, I was going to say, it's replaced with a clap.

I don't even hear the snare at all. I was going to say, I don't know enough about the snares versus, but I was going to say like that snare clap is loud and it's doing a lot of work. And it's in contrast to children's story where at that same part, it's just, it sounds like just a rim shot or something. Like it's not that loud at all. So listen for the snare in Slick Rick, because you won't hear it. And this is how we do it.

Right. Lots of reverb. that it's very high, it's pitched up. It's an Oberheim D.X., I believe. That was the drum machine. He was used to go back to our Jimmy Jam episode, go back to Blue Monday, uses the same drum machine. So that's the snare, and it's pitched up, which is why it's kind of high pitched, and it's got reverb. But I do not hear that at all, because it's completely obliterated by this 1995 party jam clap. Hear that it is again. Listen to the two and four. What's left to me from the original sample in the percussion at all.

all is just there's a little bit of that high end that's coming from the DX's shaker and high hat combination, I should say. Can you play Montel Jordan? Sure. One more time. And here's what to listen for. It goes, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And it's in the high end.

Listen for that pattern. Just one 16th though. Dut, da, da, da, da, da. And can I just say right off the bat? I'm thinking that I'm hearing Atomic doll. Okay. And I think that. Oh, the claps are definitely George Clinton.

Yeah, like that, that feels to. I mean, like, if you put them back to back, all of a sudden, Slick Rick sounds like a song produced in New York in the late 80s. But that drumbeat on, this is how we do it, definitely has that West Coast atomic dog sound going on. I would bet my life on that being a sample of a time. If it's not atomic dog, it's an undiscovered layer that isn't currently on any sampling, sample spot or website, including song DNA, which, by the way, We've got it on our phones here. Song DNA. Spotify has this really cool feature in beta for Spotify Premium,

which is literally they bought Who Sampled, and it's integrated now into Spotify's experience. This is a music nerds dream. Yeah, I know. It's really cool. It's really well done. And we would have told you if it wasn't well done, because we are the Uber nerds of music sampled discussion, shall we say,

at least in this podcast format. So we like how it's done. And there isn't anything there that is revealing a specific parliament funkadelic song. But boy, to my ears, that is a George Clinton Cloud. It sounds a lot like atomic dog. It could very well be atomic dog. But we don't know that because we should say, thanks

to Who Sampled and SongDNA, we don't see it in that mix. But it definitely evokes that, and that's where I think some of that West Coast vibe in this is how we do, it comes through, that's not there in children's story. Sure, and it's also, the layering is the transformation. So one important part about like the exchange

from, and there's a third layer we'll be getting into, there are three songs we're talking about today that share elements is how transformed they are. When you isolate each of the elements we'll be talking about, they go from, it's like a game of telephone. Like it changes each time, and by the time it gets to, especially the link in the chain for the melody we'll be talking about,

boy, it is so different from the original. You can still hear elements of it. You can hear where it came from. But it's not the same anymore. By the way, if you want to use song DNA on a song like, this is how we do it by Montel Jordan, just search for the song, select the song, and then go to the three dots in the upper corner,

And then if you scroll down just a little bit, you'll see Explore's song DNA. It's still in the beta form. But then you just click on that. And all of a sudden, I have so much information. I can see who actually contributed in making the song, Montel Jordan, O.G. Pierce, Ricky M.L. Walters. We know that's Slick Rick. We got Wino and Bob Morse.

So I can click on Wino, and it's going to tell me he was studio personnel and a remixer. Dude, I'm going to lose a whole 24 hours just going on a deep dive. That's insane. And on top of being able to see who created the song, man, you've got all that wonderful information we used to get from who sampled. I can see exactly the songs they were sampled. Children's Story by Slick Rick, Jimmy Spicer's Money Dollar Bill y'all. This is so dope.

I mean, another thing to notice in this is that there is a new jack swing vibe going on here because there is, it has a swing. This is post-Taddy Riley, New Jack Swing, absolutely. But 1988, when Children's Story had that lilt, remember I was saying lilt? I think part of the lilt, I'm noticing now. That would have been the earliest New Jackson Wing. Yeah, 1988 is like dead on. Like, that is definitely Jam and Lewis.

Actually, I guess 86 Jammin Lewis technically with Janet Jackson, right? A little bit. You know, when I think New Jack Swing, I'm definitely thinking more Teddy Riley, groups like Guy and Troop. All of that. All of that has happened by 88. And go back to our Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis episode. He does, he has a legitimate claim on Dana Jackson's control record.

They're being some of that. But anyway, some of the lilt is coming from that. that's got a swing. That's got a little bit of a jazzy swing to it. It's a triplet. It's three over four. All right, let's move on to the bass. All right, let's listen to the bass from this is how we do it.

All right, what do you hear in there? I'm hearing a keyboard. I'm hearing a bass keyboard. I'm hearing, yeah, it sounds like an upright bass as played in 1995. On a keyboard, though, right? It's played on a keyboard, yeah. But it's meant to evoke the sound of an upright. It's got that kind of percussive sound to it.

But for whatever reason, I just don't imagine a keg on one side. liquor on the other side, and then a guy with an upright bass, right? It's kind of classy. It kind of plays into the jazzy vibe, right? Right, right, right. But this is definitely a keyboard, right? I believe that is a keyboard. I don't know why.

Even when they put in the string sound, it always sounds like someone's hitting keys. Because it's probably a Yamaha, if it's not a DX7 or a RX5, something like a mid-90s keyboard, they haven't dialed in the, it's still uncanny valley. Like it doesn't sound like what it purports to be.

The strings, the horns, they're not really strings and horns. They're keyboard strings and horns, which now has its own charm to it. And back in the day, it became, you just got used to the sound, your ears got used to it. But the earliest version of all these simpler samplers and synthesizers,

those sounds not sounding like the original, like people would be upset by it. They'd be like, this isn't real music. If you're coming to look for an upright bass, you're disappointed. But if you're just like us, kids listening to these sounds coming out of the speaker, it's opened up a whole new range of sounds.

That's right. That's right. So the other thing that's going to, on here, and we've talked about this before. We talked about it. Go back and listen to our Nause State of Mind, NY State of Mind. We've got nine or ten episodes back. There is a flat two going on in here. When you hear, bum, bum, bum, and then it goes boom, bum, bum. It's going up a half step, okay? So that's important. And once again, it's arguably the most important note of the song. With the difference here is that that flat second on Nause, we talked about how it made

the mode Phrygian, that wonderful word Frigian. I'm not sure this is Frigian. I'm not sure this is Phrygian technically because in the vocal, he never sings that half-step up. He's never, the song's an F, but he's never singing the G-flat, which would be above it. We'll talk about that. You know, because this is how we do it. That's right. That's absolutely true. Right. So what's happening is that the note that he's singing, this, this is how we do it. That's a half-step, but it's up, it's the flat-sixth. So technically, the flat-sixth is just a normal minor key. We're getting in the weeds here, but that's what we do on the show. Yeah. That's why you love us. This is definitely a flat too.

Whether or not it's Frigian, though, got questions for you. If you're a music nerd, a theory nerd out there and you think this is Frigian, let me know in the comments. To my here, I don't think it's Frigian. Comments are for you. And just one more, if you haven't heard that episode, got back and listen to it. What that does, the effect of this flat second is that it sounds sinister. It sounds kind of sexist. It does.

Right? It gives it kind of a mysterious telling us. We say sometimes that Frigian comes in and gives us hotness and gives us heat. And sometimes it gives us, like, sinister. That's absolutely right. You hear the flat two in jazz and classical and metal. And in this moment, you're starting to hear it more in hip hop. Now it's arguably extremely common. It's interesting that it went from being a relatively uncommon in popular music. Again, outside of jazz and classical and metal for that matter. Around this time in the mid-90s, you are starting to hear it more, especially

in hip-hop. So gin and juice also came out the year before, Snoop Dogg. Nause, as I mentioned. Missy rhythm, I be kicking, musician, inflict the composition of pain, I'm like scarface, sniffing cocaine. Missy Elliott, a little bit later, get your freak on. And then to this day, it has, again, in this modern era, maybe one out of five hip-hop songs to my ears, I'm hearing an awful lot of flat seconds. You can hear it in Kendrick's DNA.

You can hear it in humble. There's Tyler the creator's songs, Childish Gambia, a little Uzi Verit. The list goes on. But in 1995, it was still relatively new to our ears. And that, I think, helps give this song some of the flavor. Because when it goes there, it's like, it's so tense. You really want to get back to that home base of the F when it goes up that half step to the flat second. So that's what's going on in the bass.

Can I ask you a question? that bass that's so, you know, prevalent and, you know, awesome. Is that a sample? So this is a replay. And what's interesting is I hadn't even noticed until I went to break it down for this episode. It is in Slick Rick's Children's Story. He does do that, but not until two minutes in. The first two minutes of the song, he's just playing.

I'll just play you the song. Notice we're not going up a half step. It's just doing that. It's just doing it. You are hearing that half step story, please, half, please. You are hearing that half-step thing happen, but as I mentioned, it's not the half-step from the root. It's da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah.

That's the fifth, fourth, flat-sixth, fifth. So, again, technically, it's in, there's a half-step that's being semi-sinister. It's being played, but we haven't gone there yet. We haven't gone there yet. Once we get to the middle of the song, and then we're hearing it a lot, it gets halfway through the song, we get even more sinister. And it makes sense because the story has gotten more sinister. That to me is like a very sort of like obvious and genius creative choice. Let's hear that sounds after the two minute mark.

Siren sounded. He seemed astounded. Before long, the little boy got surrounded. He dropped his gun. So went to glory. And this is the way I have to end this story. He was only one. Ain't I mad?

Man's dream. I still hear him scream. Man's dream. The cop shot the kid will still hear him scream. This ain't funny. So don't you dare laugh. Just another case about the wrong path. Straight.

Or now your ass gets cast. Good night. And now I'll always hear that they brought in that frigate note at the end. And that's actually when he literally says, I have to end this story. It enhances the storytelling. It absolutely illustrates it. It's like anomatopoeia, you know, with the music. It's perfect.

Consonance. Anomotavia. O-N-O-N-O-N-I-W-N-T. In the baseline, you can hear where it's layered. It's overdubbed in 1988 technology. So it's kind of charmingly awkward. Here is the isolated bassline for Slick Rick, children's. story.

You can hear it sort of awkwardly. Yeah, it's overdone. I'll play that again. Listen. Is he still playing the F? It's actually a moment of dissonance because the F is still playing and there's an F sharp on top of it. It sounds messy, but we would have never heard that part. No, and it's not a problem. And it contributes probably even subtly psychologically because it's so buried in the mix.

Maybe your brain partially picks up on that. And it's adding to your experience of the storytelling being like, oh no, something's happening. That's, you know, sinister, bad, the cops, whatever it is. So that's a really interesting thing to now notice and never unhear again in the song, Children's Story. There's one last piece of samples from a children's story. Can you play that for us? Sure. This is the keyboard, that iconic keyboard line. And as you'll notice, it's just a two-bar loop. It's not the entire thing. So this is what sampled throughout the entirety of this is how we do it. Back to it.

Yeah, because by that point, you're listening to that. Until I just said, I don't, da-don-da-don-da-don-do. I don't think I realize the nautilus of it all. Well, I'm glad you mentioned that. We're about to get into the nautilus of it all. I've been listening to this song in my entire life,

and I knew that we were at some point going to be talking about Bob James on this episode. But is the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Is that really the main crux of the Bob-Game sample? We're about to take a deep dive into that because on close listening, we're about to discover together as friends and listeners as an audience,

will all be in the same room, listening and noticing what the transformation is, that telephone game, that goes from Bob James to Slick Rick to Montel Jordan. There's something that remains from the original and there's a lot that gets transformed and changed.

Sure. Sure. I imagine that we'll be talking samples and interpolations. We're going to be, in this case, only talking about interpolations. Yeah. And it doesn't sound... But the question is, are we also talking about or are we only talking about evocation combinations?

I know we're going with that. Yeah. Yeah. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, listen, it's fair, but among sample geeks, hip-hop heads, music nerds, there's the song... Interpolation cognoscenti. Spell that. There's an artist named Bob James.

I think he would have to call him sort of a... He's a jazz musician. Got a lot of amazing songs. I think of him is primarily in the 70s, even though he has music in the 60s and in the 80s, but I think it's his 70s catalog that has been sampled so much by hip-hop, by drum and bass,

by anybody who samples, Bob James and his compositions and his drummer, all of those people, like, we have to stop and talk about it because they've been sampled thousands and thousands of times. Among the many, many, many songs and compositions from the 70s that you've heard before,

take me to the Mardi Gras. Angela, theme from taxi. Sign of the Times, Westchester Lady, and the song we're talking about today, which is Nautilus. Yeah. Gosh, this man, can I ask you right off the bat? Who is his drummer? Listen, he works with a lot of players across his catalog, but this is from his first record from Bob James I. Really scary cover. Really scary cover. Don't look at it in the dark. Go ahead. 1974. Bob James is playing Rhodes and ARP. His drummer is Adrease Muhammad, legendary Idris Mohammed.

Yes. And the bass player, importantly, is Gary King. And he's got other players on it, but these guys, their work has been heard. That's great to know, yeah. On hundreds of songs. We'll be talking about that more later. We will, but I just got to say right off the bat

that, like, you know, every single bit of Nautilus, and so many of its songs, but I'm thinking specifically Nautilus today, so many parts of this song have been sampled. Yeah. I do believe, you know, especially based on our conversation

with Fat Five Freddy on a recent episode, that most of what put this song on hip-hop's radar was the breakbeat. There's a wonderful classic breakbeat towards the middle of the song. And I feel like that breakbeat has been sampled so many times. And that's probably the most anonymous part. Like, it's such a classic breakbeat that when you hear it, you just think, oh, that's a hip-hop song. You don't necessarily think that's Bob James' knowledge. But if you go and listen to this whole song, you're going to be blown away when that breakbeat comes in because you're going to be like, oh, yeah, that's one of those classic.

It's like, amen. You know, it's like one of those classic braids. Give the drummer some. It's one of those breakbeasts that you can see guys out in the park, you know, going back and forth on their records while people rap. All right. Without further ado, let's listen to a little piece. This is Bob James Nautilus from 1974.

I count the number of notes in that bass line. And first of all, note that it's a bass line. That's the first thing I want to point out is that, so that's Bob James Nautilus. That is a line that we're going to be hearing in all of the songs, but they're transformed. It's a little different every single time. And can I just take a step back and just say, like, you know, it's spacey.

Sounds a little science fictiony. Yeah. It also sounds like thinking, if that makes sense. Like, it sounds like your brain at work, like that, that, be, no, no, no, no, no, no. I feel like that's because it's the kind of song or that, that ARP, I think it's an ARP, a very early synthesizer that's making all those kind of ethereal, spacey sounds. But also in the TV shows of that time and the movies of that time, it would have been one of the instruments. used to illustrate mystery and space and strangeness. What wonderful stuff was in the water that, you know, that sound, which doesn't really exist.

I mean, it might pop up on like a John Cage record or something like that in earlier decades. But, you know, to me, like, it goes towards, and this makes sense why it pops up so much in hip-hop. So much of hip-hop, especially in the 90s, was sort of like, I hate to be so blunt, but like a thinking man's music. Like, you're supposed to be, like, locked in on the... the lyrics and you're supposed to be nod in your head, like letting the lyrics into your head. And yeah, maybe we were just influenced by television, but that sound does to me sort of represent sort of like, this is how your brain works. And some of the best, like, Tribe Call Quest samples, like, when the loop is in a weird place

and you just feel like your brain can, like, fall out of focus. I don't know. I think you might be right about the TV thing, though, because I've always said, as much as I love Bob James, and this is not a diss, this is a compliment, his music always sounds like it should be in 70s detective shows. You know what I mean? Like they always, I always see like a burgundy, you know, car with like a gas guzzler.

Definitely burgundy. And like it's a nighttime scene. You got to find the guy selling heroin. A sharp edge, something soft or smooth on it. Absolutely. It's got that really cool lighting, not that harsh LED lights that we got in the cities nowadays, but it's got like that soft amber glow. A leather interior. Yep. A lot of polyester. No, it's a beautiful sound.

It's such a cool song. So there's that other element of this is how. we do it, that to me sounded like it was from a children's story and from Nautilus. But can you play us the piano part? All right. So let's listen to what you're referring to the piano part. We just heard as the baseline of Nautilus. Let's play them side by side.

And I'll slow it down and break it down so you can hear how by the time we got from Bob James through Children's story to Montel Jordan, it is transformed and changed in many ways. Let's start with Bob James. Those seven notes. First of all, it matters that there are only seven. count them. Here they go. And just to name the notes, right, just by their scale degree, that's 1-5-4-3-4-7-1.

15-4-3-4-7-1. Now let's listen to Slick Rick Children's Story. By the way, we're moving from A-minor to F-minor. But listen for those notes and count them. Okay, there's nine. Want to hear it again? We have two more notes. transformation number one.

Transformation number two, we're no longer playing, it's not bass. Yeah. We're on piano now. Okay, so we moved up the register and octave possibly to,

you know, considering that it's bass. I think the bass is doubling, is doubled by guitar in the Bob James original. We have two new notes. The pattern is now new. We've added two more notes. It's one five,

one four, one three, four seven, one. What he added is the original is and this is, So this note comes in twice. Just to give it a little more bounce. So that's the first transformation. And by the time we get to this is how we do it.

And this is the crazy one. This is the thing where you're going to have like Mandela effect, Streisand effect, whatever it's called. In my mind, I never noticed that this was all so different. Here is, this is how we do it. Count the notes and notice what they are. It's hard to hear. What?

I'll isolate that. I'll isolate that. part. It's hard to hear in the mix. It's already blown. Hard to hear in the mix, but this is what's being played. I would have never thought I was listening to. That's crazy. So we're keeping the piano, we're keeping

the two extra notes that Slick Rick added in Children's Story. Yeah. We're keeping that it's on the piano. Yeah. But we've rearranged the notes. So now we're going 1-3, 1-4, 1-7, 8-7-1. It's the same pattern, the same rhythmic motif. It's definitely the med-dell effect, because we

definitely, if you were, if I thought it was exactly like children's story. Well, let's go back to Bob James and listen to that next to it. It is definitely, listen to this. So here's this, I'll play back to back. This is how we do it. And then Bob James. I can't even sing that. And then here is a gun in my head. I'm dead. And then here's the Bob James where I began. Right? Listen, it's. Isn't it interesting to hear how that got transformed and how

our brains kind of tricked us this whole time? How many long, long wedding ceremonies have I heard, Montel Jordan's is how we do it? I never thought that that's how that part went. Right. And it's like that throughout the whole song. It's like that throughout the whole song. You're always hearing instead of, here, I'll play them both on the keyboard again. Because side by side with the same instrument, you can really hear how they're different.

For what Bob James was. Slick Rick was. And I have to remind myself what it is. I know. We all do. We absolutely all do. And then this is how we do. It is and they're similar. The pattern. There's very similar. Do you think this was done so that they wouldn't have to pay for the, yeah. Because there isn't anything Bob James in the song at all. It's when you don't sound alike in TV. Like it's like, oh, that's supposed to be OPP by by nature. Absolutely. But it's a little different. And the extraction of an element that you can legally use,

that evokes something else. This is the evoke. evocation combination idea that I've been propagating. Because it's such a big part of what musicians do, and especially composers and film and TV and parody writers. You're looking to find something that will make you think of something else, but not need to something else. Close enough, but it's not the same thing. And it's this pattern, which, by the way,

is a pattern we've talked about on the show many times. This is Phil Collins. I can feel it. It's Melly Mel White Lines. da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Right. We hear this three-over-four kind of hemio-thing or trisio thing many times across music. Nobody owns it. It evokes a lot of things, but it's so interesting when you isolate what's the same across all three of the songs in that pattern. It's just this rhythmic thing. And of course, some of the notes, but we went from

bass to piano. We added two notes. We changed the notes. It's no longer Bob James. Can I say that's the one thing I think our show does really well, which is that you think you know these songs, but you don't know these songs. at all. And you'll never hear them the same way again. It's like on Dayline when they find out that the husband's the killer, they're like, we didn't know him at all. It's exactly like Dayline. You didn't know Montel Jordan at all. Montel Jordan, too be clear, has killed no matter. He's not a murderer. He's not,

this not daylight. It's one song. Well, like I said, this song is a DJ's dream. Not only does it keep the party rocking for over three minutes, but the way that he comes in on the beat is just so helpful. Let's play Montel Jordan. By the way, Montel, amazing voice. voice. Let's play Montel Jordan's isolated, iconic opening. This is how we do. This is how we do.

There's a little flat on purpose, I think. This is how we do it. It's attitude. You don't want all your boys, you know, drunk off kegs trying to sing. Like it would be wrong. Yeah, they're rockets. It's raucous party. This is how we do.

Like, you're like, hey. You don't want it to sound church. Calm down, Phil. This is not choir. It's not your time to shine. No. This is party. You're drunk. You're wasted. It's a party. You're having fun. Yeah. No, I love it. And again,

it can't be overstated how much it's on the rhythm. Yeah. This is how we do it. And you know, that's the only time in the whole song we hear that melody. That's right. He never repeats that, which is crazy. It's one of those great moments Jay-Z has, Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Hove. Like, any time that the singer comes in by himself or herself right on the beat, it's going to help your song do well

because it makes the DJ look like, even amateur DJs look like they know what they're doing. They can count it in. We do avoid the songs that have challenging intros that don't have on the beat easy to mix intros. We do. We avoid them.

I avoid them. There's some songs I still stay away from. And by the way, Farrell is really smart because I feel like Ferrell does the BAMB, oh, see, I'm spoken of that. He's like, you know, he always says a lot of songs where there's just a very simple countdown. People have that who don't know.

Every Farrell song begins with a forecount. Dun, dun, dun, that's brilliant. It's his signature. And when you can bring in just something as simple as like a human voice or that one Pharrell, you know, sound that's just going blah, blah, blah, blah. Like it gives the crowd a time to react. Yeah. They know on those songs about to begin when that drop comes in.

That's the hip-hop drop. People talk about the house drop a million times. The hip-hop drop is usually at the beginning of the song where it goes from one. one instrument or voice into the song. And that, my friends, you know, to the beach, y'all. That millisecond people will freak the hell out, man. They're so stoked. They absolutely freak out.

But what's about to happen. So people who listen to the show and they're working on music, give us a count-in. Or give us a couple of lyrics on the rhythm. Let's get back into the verse. There's so much funny stuff going on in this song. You can tell Montel is a man with a sensational sense of humor. Let's play a little bit of the first verse. So I reach for my 40 and I turn it up.

Designated drive, I take the keys to my truck. Hit the Shaw because I'm faded. Honey's in the streets ain't money. Yo, we made it. Guys, fight me. He doesn't say hit the shore because I'm faded. I know we're in California. Pepper died and all that.

Yeah. He's singing about a party on the west side, which back then would have been west of central, south central, west of central. And he says hit the shaw. as in Crenshaw people forget the Crenshaw Boulevard was hit the shawl because I'm faded

How does the streets say money only How many streets honestly do you have at the shore? Probably one And how many accents? Is he dropping in this song? And how many accents is he dropping in this song? Because that's like there's a little bit of a slick Rick lilt to some of the vowels

every now and then like he's doing a little He's throwing a little bit in there Well he's definitely, we'll get to it when he gets to the verse He definitely at one point just goes full slick Rick impression But there's so much that I want unpack on this first verse. If it's cool, can you play us the very next part of the song? It feels so good. It feels so good in my hood tonight. The summertime skirts and the guys ain't connile. The gang bangers forgot about the drive by.

Ever since I was a kid, first off, Carl Knais used to have a very popular line of clothing that we all, you know, some of us used to rock. Cross colors, Carl Knai, Fubu. These are like the classic urban wearers. Yeah, it's very 90s. But then also the gangbangers forgot about the. the drive-by. Wasn't that a wonderful summer? Like, they're... We once made a joke like, hey, man, pull out your to-do list. Okay. We got...

They forgot about the drive-by, man. They forgot to do it. They forgot to do the drive-by? It was on there to-do list. People lived. Unfortunately, the calendars that came out... They slept through their alarm clock? Like, what happened? See, that's the problem nobody talks about. Like, now we have all these reminders and stuff. Nobody's going to forget about anything. Unfortunately.

No one's going to forget any more drive-by. I wish they would forget about some of this stuff. I wouldn't forget about what's going on the world. Can we go into the chorus? I want to hear the chorus because that is what gets the party started and it don't stop. So tip up your cup and throw your hands up

and let me hear the party say I'm kind of buzzed and it's all because this is how we do it. Okay, I just want to say there's a lot of drinking of this song. So tip up your cup and throw your hands up I'm kind of buzz and it's all because like everything is like

I think me and Montel are the same tenor. Yeah, you got it. But think about that. There's a lot of drinking of this. song and to know that there was a lot of drinking in the studio, now it all makes sense. It was a party song, party vibe, party is in the song itself. There's literally a party in the recording of the song. There's literally a red cup. This is like a lyrical red cup.

I feel like this is, this song was made for red cups. Can we go to verse two? There's another part in here that I think is worth noting. You see, the hood's been good to me. Ever since I was a lowercase g, but now I'm a big G. The girl see I got the money, $100 bills, y'all. If you were from. This is one of those songs that I know every single lyric to. Like, you know, every single inflection.

Maybe this is my new karaoke song because I know every good one. You sing it so well. Well, thank you. I will be at the gaslight in Santa Monica this Thursday. Hopefully sober enough to sing the song. Another opportunity to give us money directly. Well, seriously, Patreon. Patreon people, you'll get our full calendar.

You can come meet us. When we're picking up our kids and all the fun stuff we do. $100 bills, y'all. Yep. That's a, that's an interpolation, I guess. guess you'd call it? Let's check it out. It's a Jimmy Spicer Interpolation that you've heard before. Here's the original money dollar bill,

y'all, 1983, Jimmy Spicer. I love that Jimmy Spicer track. That's a great track. And then I wouldn't have known that Spicer track, but I would have heard Cream by Wu-Tang. Shout out to Jimmy Spicer. Shout out to Method Man as well. I think the one thing I'm noticing now that I'm hearing the isolated Montel vocals is that

he's really enunciating his words really, really hard, which I got to imagine, like, even though he's got this great singing voice, he also had some desire to be a rapper as well. I think that's probably, in fact, he does rap in the song. Can you play us the rap portion that I think comes after the second course? The DJ and Paul was his name. He came up to money. This is what he said. You and O.J.

You're going to make some cash. Sell a million records and we're making the dash. Oh, I'm buzzing. I love that he did a slick-rick impression there. It's so great. Yeah. I'm trying to figure with the specific, like, why do we know that that's a slick-ricker perception?

Like, what specifically about it? I think it's the sing-songy nature. I mean, like, Snoop's sort of, you know, you're an O-G are going to make some cash. Rob, blah, blah. That's exactly. You know, it's that sort of, it's sort of silly, but it's also playful and fun.

And again, when you're 21 years old, that seven years makes a big difference. So he's having fun. He keeps calling it the old school. Yeah, seven years ago. Like you said, it would have been for now if you were talking about 2019. So I also think it's hilarious. It sticks with the trend. There was something in that water.

Everybody who's in R&B or hip-hop in the 90s has to tell you what year it is. It's like, for the non-trade. Like, they're just like, they never let you go, is this 97? on a Wuttex triumph. Like they just always had to remind you what year it was. Right. Nobody now does it is like, yeah, 26. Like I've never, I don't think I've heard anybody call out the year.

You know what's interesting about that to me a little bit as a songwriter? It's like my one of my goals is when I'm making something. I want it to feel timeless. Timeless. Yeah. I want it to be outside of time. And I also don't want it to be late. Like you may be making it whenever like in October and it comes out in January.

You want to be 2000 and late. You want to be 2000 and late. And so it's interesting that you're right. There is a currency for this era of hip hop especially to have the time stamp right there in the song. They always put it on. And then I think it was sometime in the early 2000s. I forget if it was most deaf.

It was one of the really like thoughtful conscious rappers or whatever. Most deaf will hate that. Yazin Bates apologies. But one of them said, yeah, so-and-so told me not to say the date because we got to make music assignments. So at some point it came in that people were like, No, we're not going to say the date anymore. But that is something about, it's 1991.

N.W.A. is here. Like, there's something that made it feel immediate when they would say the year. I do kind of miss that. And maybe that's also a legacy from early hip-hop, which is live. Like, when you're just doing it not to be recorded necessarily, you are going to be talking about who's there, what date is, et cetera, where you are. But once it gets recorded, it's interesting. Like, the timelessness does get impacted slightly by there being a date.

But it's not, it really isn't, there isn't anything. negative about that. Like, you're not going to not listen to it because the date was... I'll still listen to the soul of mischief 93 until infinity. So there you go. All right, luxury, now that we've heard the song, tell us how the splits break down. I'm so curious how the splits break down on an old school track. So for this is how we do, we have 25% going to Montel Dushan Jordan. Woo, good job, Dushan. 25% going to his producer O.G. Pierce. All right, the Pierce estate. 50% to Ricky Walters, aka Slick Rick. That's really, where's Bob James coming to this?

Well, I think as we noticed, there isn't any Bob James in there. What remains from Nautilus has been changed twice, significantly transformed by the time what we hear of that is just, it's really the pattern in a handful of notes. And there's no Bob James. I'm so happy to hear this because that's, you know, that's sort of the opposite of what we usually hear. Usually it's like, I thought it was going to be 100% Bob James. And, you know, Montel has to be on the Remember When tour. You know, like, no, it sounds like he was actually saved by a. game of telephone. I personally think that might be part of it. I also think there's a lot of Bob

James wonderful content out there. He's been a real historian. He's connected to the hip-hop community. He's even sampled himself, and maybe we'll get to that in a second. So Bob James is very aware of his catalog being used across literally thousands of songs. He also has told stories about how some of them are wins and some of them are losses. I don't think that this is a loss. In other words, there were times that there were statute of limitations issues where he was unable to claim that he was sampled or interpolated because time ran out, he didn't want to put money into a lawyer to go litigate. There's a lot of really interesting stories from the early days of sampling that Bob James can tell. But from our understanding, this isn't one of them.

This doesn't seem to be one that he has any sort of remnant feelings. I think he must notice as we do that it is not what he played. And I'll also say that, you know, when you talk to older older black musicians who know Bob, they all say Bob's a really cool dude. I don't know why that means something to me. Like if he was like some guy, like some crotchy old guys, like, yeah, pay me my money. You know, like I would feel a certain way, but apparently he's a really cool guy. When I first heard him on QLS, it changed my mind because in the back of my head, from seeing his name up here on a lot of credits, and a lot of songwriting splits.

And seeing the numbers associated with them, sometimes I'm like, man, like he should get something, but that seems like a lot. I actually was convinced that he's trying to do his best for himself, for the community, for music. He's a real musician. And in fact, the one thing that I love about when he talks about being sampled is he'll often hear him say, it's about the permission more than anything. It's not even about the money. It's just like, you took this and I didn't know about it.

I might have done something different. We could have collared. You know what I mean? There's sort of this vibe of we could have done something together had I known that you wanted to use some of my music, which I think is an interesting perspective. Listen, listen, Keith, that classic. early 90s R&B artist is like, hey, you can sample me, but let me hear it first because I might have creative input to give you before you just go and sample a willingness. I love that, and I think

it's important to add to the list of reasons why it's important to clear samples. It's not always about the money. It's often about the money. It's frequently about the money, but it's not only about the money. If you want to sample one song, it's about the money. Come find us. And let's keep going through the credits. So children's story is 100% slick Rick, Ricky Walters. So this might be a case where I don't think Bob James knew about it. He might have missed the statute of limitations. There's definitely something there that he would have claimed. And this is before the Bismarkey case, too, so who knows?

Yeah, that's right, 1988. It was Wild West back then. There might have been a clearance for $250 on the master site. Anyway, this is beyond, you know, there's stories to be told there. But to be clear, you can see many interviews where Bob James talks about, this is how we do it, and Slick Rick. He's fully aware of it. what's done is done at this point.

And finally, Nodless is 100% Bob James, which, by the way, he did write that baseline. He talks about how he came up with that keyboard part, but it was performed by his bass player and guitar player. He's not actually playing it in the song, which I always find interesting. When you have these, like, sample phantoms

and, you know, credit ghosts, as I call them, he's 100% of the songwriter and his musicians who you're hearing got paid a flat fee on the day, but they don't get any publishing splits for life. Unlike Bob James. There you go. All right, so as we've been discussing all through this episode, this Bob James song Nodless has been sampled many, many, many times, at least 441. If you scroll

through song DNA, it's a very long scroll to see all the songs that have some association with Nodless. But what's interesting about it is that they're not all using the same break. In fact, I counted no fewer than seven or maybe even eight breaks throughout the song. I'm sure there are more. These are the different portions of the song that are we used. Often on a song, there's like the drum break. Maybe there's, two parts of it. Sure. Now, this is like, this is like that thing where they're like, you know, the Native Americans would

take every single piece of meat off of the bison. Nothing wasted. Nothing wasted. Every single. The Aleutian Islands with the Alaskan... Piece of musical meat from Nautilus has been removed by somebody. Yes. And I think that's actually very cool.

I actually love the fact that there's not a single untouched piece. So let's play a game which is called Nautilus or Not. I'm going to play you hip-hop song. You have to listen. And with your discern. turning ear, tell me, do you hear a portion of Nautilus, the Bob James song being sampled, or is it just another song? With no Bob James in it.

Wow. Okay, cool. But there's only Nautilus, right? It's only Nautilus, right? It's only Nautilus. Some of... I'm gonna play, like... One of the seven or eight or more sections of the song that have been sampled.

Are you hearing one of them? Okay. Here we go. Song number one, Nautilus or not. Yalla Riddle, put your ears on. I'm ready. Yeah. I think this would be Dayton

500, definitely samples, nozzles. Absolutely right. Ghostface Killer feeling Requiem. One of my favorites. Capadonna. This came out in 95, right? 96.

Yeah, I'm telling you. When he did this, it was another classic example of Ghostface Killer, not changing the song much and just kind of like rapping over the most obvious part of the song. But it worked because it felt subversive. It felt like there was too much instrumentation for a rapper to actually talk over it. He did it. They pull it off. This is one of my favorite.

This guy, Capadana, Ghostface Killer, Requan, all of them. I love this song. And by the way, this is the first time today. We're hearing the sample of the Bob James song being used. The other two songs are interpolated and transformed. But this is the sample from that song. That's right. That's right. Great song.

If you don't know Daytona 500, not the freaking album by Pusha T. I'm talking about the song, Daytona 500 by Ghostface and Friends. Check it out. All right. Song number two. Yeah. I love that song. Yeah, that's absolutely Nautilus.

That is Nautilus. Let's listen to where it comes from in the song. This is at 3 minutes and 20. seconds. Such a good part of the song too. Oh, so good. What's so cool is that we only hear that once. That's a major seventh interval

played on this ARP, which is this strange new synth. And then he goes on to play other strange intervals and pseudo-melodies. It's a little atonal. But they picked out that part and turned it into a freaking hook. Is that such a hook in the... By the way, what song is that? Do you know?

Yeah, that's for N DMC. Beats to the rhyme. Hose to the rhyme. Up for the Rhynd. leather, 1987. And with that repetition, that crazy interval, that's a major seventh, it's not dissonant, but kind of dissonant.

It's such a hook, though. You know who else did that part of the song that I really, really like is Raq Kim and Eric B for Follow the Leader? That's another great use of that particular part of the non-oist sample. But wait a second, that is one of the songs. We're going to do it, but it's a different part of the song.

Is it? Are there two parts of the song? song? My memory for Follow the Leader is definitely that there is a Nautilus. So, okay, we'll give you one. That's a freebie for Nautilus or not. But it's, it is definitely a different part of the song. Let's play, play it. But there might be two parts of the song and I'm forgetting the other one that you're remembering. And you're forgetting the one that I remembering. Let's listen. Are you thinking of the... Yeah. The...

That's a different song. Follow me into a solo. This is where it comes from. This is two minutes and 26 seconds into Nautilus by Bob James. Yeah. It's different. That's a different part of the song. Yeah. And this might be the case where I just know the song too well that I'm conflating. Yeah, that's the part I thought it was.

Yeah. Oh, but you're right. You're right because it's ready to see it's too. Yeah. Oh my gosh, the same instrument. You're right. I conflated the two. I think this might be the roads, but I think it might be playing the same interval.

So you're not crazy. Let's listen to these back to back. Because back to back is we're all learning today. Your brain can't too much time in between listenings you'll forget. So here's- I'll say peace. Follow the leader. Here's two minutes, 26 seconds from Follow the Leader.

That was Eric Bian Rock Kim, followed leader in 1988. Here's Bob James Nautilus. And now quickly, before anything else gets said, here's Run DMC. I hear it now. I'm an idiot. I freaking killed myself. Yeah. But they're related.

They're related. They're related to the same song. I love that. Do, do, do. You say that's a Rhodes. Three minutes and 29 seconds sounds like the ARP, the Odyssey. That's the ARP Odyssey, I think. That's the ARP.

It's a little stranger sounding. It has a longer sustain. When the note ends, it lasts a little longer. It sounds more science fiction. It sounds more science fiction. And then here's two minutes and 26 seconds. I love how deeply nerding out this is. Here it is again.

This is the Eric B1. It's also two notes versus three. It's a short. Notice how the notes are shorter. Sure. That's a Rhodes. and yeah, but they're similar. Similar range.

I love to have a expression back because her roads always sound is so dope. Yeah, awesome. This is so much fun. You got any more for me? I do. Okay, let's go. Because I got it as a kid with so much to give for me. I never heard.

The love that I wrote on the mirror, it got smacked. My friends say it was a change for the better. No, and by the way, it helps to know the song that you're playing to know if it's sampled it. Now, obviously, there's something that sounds like heavily, phased in the mix. Yeah. So I don't hear the Nautilus,

but maybe it's that phased part. Well, you're right. There is no Nautilus in Commons, I want you. Oh, thank God, okay. Tried to trick you. It's impossible. It's impossible. At least I was honest to say, I don't hear it. But there is another Bob James sample

from the same record. Oh, okay. That's what you're hearing. Here it is. This is from Feel Like Making Love, which, by the way, we did our Roberta Flack episode. That was one of her hits. Oh, yeah.

This is a Roberta Flack song. Bob James recorded it and the intent was to let Roberta Flat come out with her version first and have it be a hit but things that the record label got messed up so his version came out first and pissed her off Oh I believe it.

So this was actually the hit from the album one which Nautilus was kind of like the last song on the second side kind of a filler track. There you go. I feel like I know some songs that have sampled that too. All right, D'allel Riddle for your final Nodliss or not I bring you the following composition.

Are you ready? I'll never be more ready Here we go I heard I heard it What song is this? What's the call? Is that Nautilus or no?

Oh, absolutely that's Nautilus. You're absolutely right, that's Nautilus as sampled by Bob James himself Oh, whoa! For his 2018 composition Which is called Submarine in which he went back And sampled himself

From 50 years earlier, 40 years earlier, yeah Can I play one for you? Please. of my favorite samples of Nautilus. Play clap your hands now by a tribe called Quest. Because until you know that it's, now that you're so familiar with Nautilus, I think you, the listeners,

will really enjoy, as I did, going back and realizing, oh, that's Nautilus too. It's really in the background there. This is in the background a little bit. It's the entire notes. It's the beginning of Nautilus. I'll play where it comes from. That's 0.05 seconds.

Oh, yeah. To Nautilus. It's at the very beginning. That's the point of it. And we won't play it on the show, but if you ever want to hear something that also samples another part of the song that very few people sample actually. Check out Sincerity, The Remix, by Mary J. Blythe's featuring Nas and DMX. That's another part of Nautilus. It doesn't get us sampled as much. And there's so much more to go. Maybe we'll do a part two of this deep dive on our Patreon.

I would love that. You know what? We have like all the time in the world on the Patreon. trying to go double down on Bob James. Nautilus alone will take us another hour to get through. When we first started talking about this show and doing one song, we long, long ago, long before song DNA thought, what if we did one sample, like a one song called one sample? And I feel like we have inadvertently done that. I love that. I feel like this is going to be a tempo for another bunch of, a bunch of episodes where we just really go down the rabbit hole like this. We love it. Those rabbits won't have nowhere to live. You will be in their holes. That sounds awful. You know what?

I don't think that that is. is what you meant to say. I don't think I have a job anymore. But you did say it. All right, Diallo, what do you think the legacy of this is how you do it by Montel Jordan is? Well, first of all of his children and grandchildren through college and far beyond. Yeah, I just think that like, look, every now and then there comes a song that's infectious. It's a lot of fun to dance, too, and it makes a DJ's life a little easier.

All the chasing promoters down to get paid weeks after you've done the gig. Like a DJ's life is not that easy. No. And I always tell people, oh, I want to do it. DJ. I'm like, hey, stick to engineering kid. Don't come anywhere near the aughts of the humanities. But I think that this song is just, it's fun.

It reminds me of the 90s and that wonderful time in R&B. We didn't get to talk about this song in the context of so many other great R&B songs for the period. R&B in the 90s was at a very special place and I'd love to tackle on a future episode. But I think this is how we do it is the

party anthem of that period in so many ways. What about you? What do you think of legacy? I think a couple of things. One is that on this we try to tackle a pretty wide swath of songs that are canonical for different reasons. Across genres. Across genres, that's right. I would say that for every helter, sculpture and for every massive attack, like this song, if you're ever in a situation where you need to DJ a wedding,

where you need to get a party started, it's important to have in the back of your mind a list of songs that will slay no matter where in the world you go, no matter what time of day it is, no matter the circumstances, this will always destroy a dance floor. Keep that in mind. It's important. It may happen to you. You may get the ox cable.

At an awkward time in life, you will not fail if he put this song. But I will also say you might find yourself at a wedding as a one-song listener. And I always say our shows are literally just giving you all that you ever need to really rock the party with your fun music facts. And you can walk up to, you know, maybe it's one of the bridesmaids or one of the groomsmen. And you can say, hey, DJ's playing, this is how we do it by Montel Jordan. You want to know about the obscure jazz track that inspired this song? Did you know? You might luck out that night.

So we're just here to facilitate that. That's the only reason we're here. The ways in which it was transformed from Bob James, seven notes on the bass to nine notes on the piano with an interpolation. Or is it an evocation combination? You will make many friends. You will not go home alone. You will not walk alone.

But we really do want you to hear songs that you've never heard them before. And I think there's a classic example of that. Well, listen, as always, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo. That's just DIA-L-L-L-O. or on TikTok at Diallo-Riddle. Sometimes I post even on TikTok. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-R-Y and on TikTok at Luxury-X.

And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok at OneSong Podcasts. Listen, you can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One Song Podcast. We'd love it if you like and subscribe. And if you're looking for even more music, conversation, discussion, facts, all of the above. go to our new Patreon. Diallo and Luxury discuss music, or is it talk about music? I think it's Diallo and Luxury, talk about music.

You know you want to do it. Sign up. We're going deep over there, too. That's right, and all you need to know is the URL, which is patreon.com slash our names, Diallo Luxury. Also, be sure to check out the One Song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. And if you've made it this far, you're officially part of the One Song Nation.

Show us some love. Give us five stars. Leave a review. and send the episode to a fellow music nerd. It really helps keep the show going. Luxury, help me in this thing. I producer, DJ, songwriter, musicologist, and every Friday night from 10 p.m. till midnight,

KCRW DJ, luxury. And I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ, Diyala Riddle. And this is one song. We will see you next time. This episode is produced by Casey Simonson, engineering by Kevin Corrigian and Chris Thomas. Mixed by Eric Hicks.

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