One Song - Public Enemy's "Cold Lampin' with Flavor" live with Questlove

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

On this very special episode of One Song, Diallo Riddle & LUXXURY are joined by hiphop legend Questlove, and a live studio audience packed with the One Song Nation. Questlove chose this week’s song, Cold Lampin’ with Flavor, and the great man guides us through its place in hip-hop history, the Bomb Squad’s prodigious use of sampling, and how it represents a masterclass in production.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. I am actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ D. J. D. O'L. Riddell Riddell. And I'm producer, DJ, musicologist, Luxury, aka the guy who sometimes talks about interpolation on the internet. That's me. Sometimes you whisper it. Sometimes I even whisper it. This is one song, and before we get into it, lecture, we are not alone today. It's true. We are joined today by a live studio audience. One Song Nation, make some noise. Wow, that is so cool. That is really cool. I'm going to get addicted to that. Can we have have you guys come back every time. Seriously, this is great. The endorphins I'm feeling right now. A rush. Now, usually we choose a song that's the opposite of a deep cut. If you look

back at our previous episodes, we've done Rihanna's umbrella. DojaCast Pate the Town Red, Britney's toxic, outcast is Mrs. Jackson, like, you know, huge songs. That's right. Huge, huge songs. But today we're going to shine a light on a very different song. A bit of a hidden gem, if you will. And you're going to come away from this episode with a new appreciation for what might be considered a bit of a deeper cut. It's very true. But listen, if a bonafide hip-hop legend calls you, a man who's won, you know, he's gone platinum,

he's won Grammys, he's won an Oscar. If a guy like that calls you up and says, Diallo, I want to talk about one song, and that one song is, Colampett with Flavor. Everyone's favorite song. Who is that? Who is that strange man?

No, seriously. You best believe we're going to talk about legendary rap group, Public Enemy, and their song, Coal Lampett, with flavor off the classic, classic album, it takes a nation of millions to hold us back. Ladies and gentlemen, that's right.

It's Quest Love. It's luxury. It's me and the One Song Nation, and it's live. Cold Lapid with Flavor by Public Enemy. This is one song. Quest, when we were texting back and forth, I think Welcome to the Terodome is kind of like one of our favorites. Yes.

You know, but welcome to the Terodome. You chose Cold Lambert with flavor, and I just have to ask, Why that and not welcome to the Terradome or fight the power or any number of their more well-known hits. Well, because I feel like the best part of performing a dissection is discovering what's inside. And for me, though, public enemy is a group, usually in hip-hop, whoever pioneers at first really doesn't get the, the creditor, the just do. It's always the person that comes behind them. And really for the sound, for what public enemy has contributed to the culture,

it kind of starts with Marley Mall and then Public Enemy improved on that. And then Dr. Dre improved on that. So right now, like, Dr. Dre just drank everyone's milkshake. I want to hear why you think Marley Mall's production led to Public Enemy's production. Okay, so here's an example. So the infamous MC Shan saw on the bridge. Of course. Do you all know the bridge?

I'm just curious. How many of y'all know what the bridge is? That's not bad. Well, I'll explain. All right. So this is the quickest backstory. Okay. Marley Mall tells the story of how he accidentally discovered sampling

via the invention of the SB12. And the SB12 is like a very expensive machine. and only like the upper echelon sort of gets access to this thing. It's an early sampler, right? It's an early sampler, but less expensive than the Sinclaviour or whatever, these quarter million dollar machines.

Exactly. So here's the deal. Trevor Horn, I believe... Definitely had a Sinclair. Had a Sinclaviour. Well, he had all the machines. He had all them, right. So as a result, his production work

on Yes's owner of a lonely heart is actually the first example of hearing. So listen to the beginning. They take, here, here's the sample. That's yes is drummer. So, no, this is Cool is Beck by Funk Incorporated. Oh, that's what that is? Whoa.

Right. Oh, by the way, the very first root song was sampled this. That was like our first loop ever. but if you're familiar with... Baby's first loop. Right. You never forget. So the song is called Cool Is Beck by Funk Incorporated,

which was really big on the kind of northern funk scene. People north of London wanting to listen to raw soul music instead of all. Northern soul. I don't know if I've heard of Northern Funk. Well, Northern Soul is more like Motown. Right. Where I love go. But then they would dig deeper.

Norman Cook would... go digging in America for, you know, rare 45. Norman Cook, of course, being Fat Boy Slim. Fat Boy Slim. Yes. Or even before Norman Cook, like... Yeah, of course. So this is the original song that Trevor Horn took for...

I remember this one. Oh, yeah, there's that... Bam, blah, blah, bum, bum, blah, blah. A very popular star. Owner of a lonely heart. Even, I think in the Sinclaviour, this noise is inside there. So, yeah, for owner of a lonely heart, that's the first time that we're...

hearing. I mean, I don't know that this is in my dad's record collection back in 1983. By the way, I love it when things are in the instruments that they use or the that we were just talking on the Rihanna episode about umbrella, like those drums. Yeah. By a Mac, you get that drum beat. You get the drum beat. Yeah. That's crazy. Exactly. I believe on the, for Money Cash Hose by Jay-Z, I believe Swiss Beets admitted that he used like beat number 63. Hey, Prince used, I believe, option 41, I believe, for what we know is 7779311. No, oh, the way your heart just broke right now when I broke that news to you.

Like literally in half a second, I saw your hopes and your dreams. When Jesse, I used option 40. Oh man, you were so close. No, but literally the heartbreaking, because the thing was I spent hours in the basement trying to do that drum pattern. You thought it was like Prince's like master's show. No, seriously.

777931, the drums on that, the beat on that is insane. And by the way, you have three drummers up here who've all accomplished a lot as drummers, I would say. An equal amount, I would say, yes. We're all sort of like, if you look up drummer, it's like... Pears, we're basically peers. Yeah. Yeah, but...

There's drums. Uh-uh. Makes no sense. It's fun fact, this is programmed by Dave Giribaldi. Tower of Power. Unsung Hero. I mean, for real, for real. So essentially, because Tower Power and Earthwinter Fire,

managed by Robert Cavali... Yeah. Like Prince's management company. My first boss in the record business was Robert Coole. Really? Rob Cobalt. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Yeah. I mean, all of the people were still. Are we rabbit holding too much for everyone? No, that's what we came here for. Yeah. So anyway, another fun fact I just found out. The infamous Prince Clap. That noise.

Yeah. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. What? Yeah. They just happened to be in the studio when Roger Lynn wanted them. Needed like them to go in the hallway. It's insane.

And so that's, that's actual hallway. I consider that, like, that is to me the most essential element of a print song. This, that clap. For sure. So that's Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker. So, you know, it's, I know that using pre-programmed or... Pre-programmed stuff. And the shock of me finding out that a lot of nation of millions was aided by

the pre-programmed SB200 drums because in my mind I was like wow they did everything organically like piecing piece-building like all these drums together it's a mixture of the two we on this show we've done you know a lot of songs that have a sample

but also like a guitarist or a bassist in the studio and then we've done songs like Deli Grooves in the heart where there's not one you know there's not one musician there's not even a drum machine it's all coming from it's completely out of just sounds and bits yeah oh god that that uh...

reference for that. I almost wanted to... You saw that? Yeah, jump out the window and I'm from it. Right. So anyway, leading back to Marley Mall,

so his, Marley Mall's started out as, there was this edit period of New York where, like, DJs that worked at record stations would try to make their own, remember, like, master mixes?

Absolutely. Crews like the Latin rascal, Jelly Bean. Well, look, Lucifer was Chris Leva Lava in Atlanta, and he started making his own tracks, and he stopped being Chris Leva Lovera

and became ludicrous. First thing I noticed when I saw that Mr. Magic's DJ was Marley Marl. I was like, there is a tradition of the DJ who's on at like the 4 o'clock traffic jam.

Like that guy putting out his own music and eventually becoming an artist in his own right. So Luticris was that person? Ludicrous was Chris Lovava on 103. That is crazy. All right, so this edit period produces like Mantronix, the Latin Rascals,

would do things like these big beat drums that sound like Ardenoys and a whole bunch of edits that they have to do by hand. So like, this is typical like the Latin Rascals level of editing. This is the first Beastie Boy song before Life's Deal came out. Anyway, so Marley Mall has an SB12. And he accidentally samples a snare drum for what we now know is honey drippers impeach the president. So this snare sound, which I thought was just a rolling. No, it's the first snare of impeach the president.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have the honeydressers in the house tonight. And he did it by accident. He was like, wait. You mean I don't have to just, you know, by then we'd all seem like the. unspoken hit comedy show the 80s starring America's former favorite dad in which he had Okay, we get it, yeah.

Groom pains. He who shall not be named. Of the pudding box. He shall not be given credit. But, you know, there's an episode in which Stevie Wonder is on season two. The story is that Stevie Wonder's limousine crashes into

Theo Huxstable and Denise's car and I guess to avoid a lawsuit, he's like, come to my studio and look at my toys, like, let me stun on you. So Stevie Wonder stunts on this family by showing him all this futuristic sampling equipment and lawsuit avoided. And of course, we all seen this episode and suddenly, we realized like, oh, this is how music could get made. And of course, the Cassio SK1 had just come out and it was cheap enough.

for everyone to purchase. I got it for Christmas, and then suddenly we're all doing the same thing. I really like the Basanova set. Right, the cheap one. MC Light used that, actually, on poor Georgie. Oh, poor Georgie. You're totally right.

Yeah, I can totally do you. Yes, a little cheap drum machine. Anyway, so Marley Mall discovers that he can sample drums and everything changes. So he's like, I don't have to use the stock sounds anymore. I can now just take the snare from. this song, the kick from this song, and the high hat, and make. So what happens is that particular song, which is called The Bridge by Marley Mall.

That is the bridge, when I asked earlier, that is the bridge. And I don't mean to catch you up, but the hardest part of that song is whatever that backward sample is. There you go. That goes so hard. There's a song called Scratchen by Magic Disco Machine. very much used on the... So normally, like stabs were considered...

A stab is what hip-hop producers would... A stab would be a musical onomatopoeia. Like when you watch those old Batman episodes, Kaplow! Blam! Right. And the whole purpose of it is to really accentuate the hardness. Like, if you're running the MC, you want to...

Like, that's a stab. You're a stab by that. Yeah. It's violent. Or a jab. Or a jab. But more a stab. And so...

So what winds up happening is Marley samples this. But then he accidentally reverses it. It reverse. So now this happens. So what happens is I'll slow it down. Wow. Oh, he slowed it down. That's amazing.

He'll slow it down. So that's what that sounds is. Is that a pitch? And so the reason why Marley Mall used that noise, because his project building was right where the Queens Bridge is located. And pre-Juliani New York, the sound of New York was traffic, that sort of thing. So he's like, I wanted to create a sound that sounded like New York traffic. So thus he said, this is my car horn and traffic. But we didn't know what that thing was.

And so suddenly Public Enemy takes that theory, which is something that stops you in your track. Like, what the hell is that? Something non-musical, right? Something noisy. Right. Something jarring and non-musical. And they took it to the nth degree. So, you know, before, a year before Public Enemy, yes, groups like UTFO, they're using break beats. Like, like me with a high IQ.

And she'll take to my rock, because my rap's the best. The educator back of the MD will never fast. So this is one of the first times in which you're hearing an authentic breakbeat. Billy Squire's big beat, rock song by Billy Squire, is like, that's the drum background. So suddenly you're seeing it transformed from house band to drum machine to, oh, now we can use the record collection inside of, you know. So as a result, and I'll get to pre-public enemy, as forward as hip-hop was, was more, again, more big beat. sounding New York stuff. Big drums,

little stabbies there, same with, or even with Rakim, like his brother, played with Larry Smith from Run DMC and very musical sounding. So again, another example of standing. Suddenly I had this. It wasn't me or either. Some of madness. Because I just can't stand around. So what happens is,

when public enemy first comes out, they sound rather like everyone else. They sound kind of primitive. Like, this is an example of their big beat. When I say big beat, it's a sound, it's the sound that a radio can withstand when you're walking down the block.

With the boom box on your shoulder. Right. The way that everyone has any AirPods inside their, you know, in their headphones. 40 years ago, we literally just walked down the block with our big-ass radios. And it's big drums, big loud drums.

Like this makes you menacing as hell. If you want to reference, look at Bill Nunn and do the right thing as a radio writing around him. Yeah, I'm just thinking, yeah. Right. So that kind of big beat sounding, spare drums. That's very typical for Public Enemy sound.

And then... On your bum rush. Right. And then the B side that changed everything. And the reason why I had to go through that elaborate pre-introduction is Rebel Without a Pause was, in my opinion, for the recording industry, and I mean hip-hop. I'm talking about the recording industry, how we treat samples. The same way that I would say Orson Wells' War of the Worlds was, when that came on radio back in the 30s, everyone was. People were selling their stuff and like running for the hills.

Right. Everyone thought a real war was breaking out. They were staring at the radio's like, oh, the world's over. And they didn't know that it was a drama. They didn't know it was a drama. Yeah. Right. And so the first time this song gets played on the air is at 1 a.m.

In Philadelphia, because Public Enemy just performed. Shout out to Philadelphia. All the Phillies. Yes. Oh, more Philly. My dad. Great. So what happens is Chuck D after the show comes to Street Beat,

with Lady B in Philadelphia and says, yeah, we got a new B side because what happened was they heard Rakim. And Rakim is basically the BC-80 dividing line for modern hip- Right, old school. Like before Raq-Kim,

it was like your dad rhyming. Nothing wrong with dad's rhyming. No, for the record. Well, now, yeah, okay. You got some dads on the stage. But Rakim in 30 years will lead to where Kinsa Glamar is right now. Exactly. So imagine our Kendrick Lamar, like this every, every, I mean, he's using the iambic

pentameter and all this intricate wordplay. And public enemy fell old. And so they had to beg Def Jam, like, let us do a non-album B-side so that we can at least sound like we're current. Wow. They were really, like, Rakim came out and just made any rapper that came before him irrelevant. And so he played.

this record and you just don't know, like I get goosebumps hearing it now. It's Rebel without a pause. And when this came out in 1987, literally we just, we didn't know what to do with this song. Like it was just, it made everything that hip-hop is, everything that music is supposed to be, scaring your parents,

scaring the authorities, made you more confident when you walk down the block. Like, my nerd ass suddenly had, like, swag. And as a result, everyone followed suit. So suddenly, this, that squeal in the background, which my father always thought was a tea kettle, this squeal. They, of course, filtered it. That to us was, like, a guitar solo. Like, hip-hop really didn't have something that channeled in, like, teen angst.

Like, the misunderstood teen, like. So, like, this makes me feel more empowered. So all of a sudden, the entire world of hip-hop followed suit, groups like the skinny boys, suddenly you have to have an annoying loop in the background. That's an example, skinny boys get pepped. Dismasters, multi-muslour. So suddenly, every group needed an annoying noise to get your attention. So you're saying the 30-year-olds in our office.

who said, I can't listen to more than 15 minutes of this, they're actually, they're latching on to something. Right. But the thing was, it was so, it was such a monumental moment. You're not even thinking that they can even match it or they can't even match it

or come close to it. So in my mind, I'm just like, it's one and done. Like, Run DMC has one rock box or one Peter Piper. You're not expecting an entire album with something even pushing it further. So when Bring the Noise comes out and three months later, they go even more extreme.

Night of Living Bass Head, same thing. Chaos everywhere. So Chuck D has a theory and I actually subscribe to this theory that hip hop in five year increments follows the drug of the moment. So the reason why the discophied sounds of the first period with a house band is the sound of blow, recreational cocaine. the big beat sound of that drum machine period. That's the 40-ounce period. So Chuck D said that because crack was tearing us apart, they wanted to be music's worst nightmare.

And so what winds up happening is all those boring records in my dad's record collection are suddenly coming to life. And it becomes just a bull your base, a goulash, like, ah, let's add this and that, and this that, and just make chaos. And so as a result, NWA, Dr. Dre will take note from Public Enemy and suddenly his music sounds more menacing. Here's a better example with the DOC, Dr. Dre and the DOC.

Ice Cube does the same thing with Public Enemy's production squad. The Beastie Boys with their second album, same thing. Rapid sampling all over the place. my last example is with public enemy two years later they will hit kind of hit a ceiling with it and the ceiling is of course clearance samples no one's thinking about clearing these samples so the wild-wile west period of public enemies kind of Uli's gold discovery thing is really just a short period between 87 and 91 and then once lawyers get involved

which is why like De La Sol took 30 years to clear all those samples which we talked about on a recent episode yeah yeah we were going to bring up the word chaos there's so much going on

not just in their music but in society at that time I mean like you gotta remember that this is before we had you know five you know news networks going 24 hours a day you know Chuck D famously said we consider public enemy

sort of like black people CNN we're going to let you know what's going on so there's like a Jesse Jackson sample here. We're going to get into samples in just a little bit. There's like, you know, a movie sample from over here. And, of course, they've got like all these like musical samples. Real quick, P.E. in general, and Chuck D. in particular,

said that this album, it takes a nation of millions to hold us back, was their attempt to make hip-hop's what's going on. Do you think they succeeded? And if so, in what way? Oh, absolutely. Because, you know, and I, you know, and I, I'm going to be very careful for how I word this. Because even now, there's sort of talk on the internets concerning the reception of Cowboy Carter,

which is basically, you know, there's some sort of conversation going on as to whether or not, how important is the academy approval for your art? like, is it beauty and is it art on its own, or do you need the cosine? And of course, there's, you know, some, there's a lot of Hotepean sort of thing, like, well, we don't need, you know, white approval to say that this is art. But, you know, I will say that for Public Enemy, that was the first album in which, as a critic junkie, a person that would read religiously the village. the Village Voice record reviews, Robert Christa Gow, Great Tate, to for the first time see hip hop salivated over, almost in a way that, like, they were talking about pet sounds by the Beach Boys or the White Album by the Beatles, like, this is real art. And yes, it's art regardless. However,

that album was such a... paradigm shift. Yeah. Like it literally changed music. I mean, even a group like TLC who sold gazillion units, their sound is pretty much based on public enemy, like all the work that Dallas Austin did. Like this is their first single. I mean, you just strummed all my Atlanta heartstrings just now.

Yeah. I mean, like, seriously, we heard the similarities between TLC and that Bomb Squad production, for sure yeah and basically that's that's also this will also explain why people praise the chronic because with the chronic dr dr dr dr dr dr dr day in one fell swoop will just clear the whole table of the chaos he'll slow the music down because then the drug of the moment wasn't crack it was weed right yeah so thus he slowed it down damn you dray and we had more crack stories to tell And the whole California, you know. It was more laid back.

It was honestly going from like John Coltrane to like Miles kind of blue, which is like a West Coast jazz. A very, a very laid back. And literally the tempos are slowing down too. But still gangster. Yes. It's still gangster. Hey, before we go any further, we do have to take a break. Yes.

But after the break, we will have more Quest Love, more public enemy. We'll have stems. We will have fun. We will have games to play. Woo! People like games. We will have more nerddom and we will have cold lamp of a flavor. Stick around. We will be right back.

All right, we are back. And luxury, you have some stems and some information for us. I do, but I've got so many questions requests. But we're going to jump around a bit. First, the bomb squad, we've been talking about them, just to put some names behind the moniker of the group. The bomb squad is the production team behind Public Enemy. So it's Chuck D.

Also known as Carlton Douglas Ridenauer. Hank Shockley, who's born James Boxley, the third, by the way. But Hank Shockley might have been a good name. for the bomb squad. His brother, by the way, Keith Shockley is the fourth member, but in this particular case for this song, Eric Sadler, Eric, Vietnam Sadler. So the three of them together are the production crew behind this track. And their technique, and I'm going to kind of go back and forth a little bit, because I had a question, we were talking, you were walking us through wonderfully the history of kind of, among other things, how beats are coming into use in hip-hop,

right? We've got, we go from the backing man from Sugar Hill game, performing a chic song, and then that being recorded, and then it being one of the first, you know, replay lawsuits when Nal Rogers walks in a club and go, hey, wait a second, that's our song. Wait a second. No, that's not us. Fun fact. Yeah. Base player?

Yeah. Sylvia Robinson. No. She plays bass. She's playing guitar on Love is Strange. That's amazing. Sylvia Robinson. Love, love is strange.

She was a musician, too. People don't know that in addition to being a CEO and singer. And she had like a single in the 60s. Somebody in Sylvia? Mickey and Sylvia. Love is Strange and also Pillow Talk. in the 70s. Amazing.

Yeah. So we go from a live bass, live band basically, making the entire track. And then we have drum machines and samples are both kind of separate things. Yes. But you were sort of walking us through,

especially with Marley Marl, is this moment where you can take the entire sample and take a little piece of it and you can start blending it with drum machines and start to have a track that doesn't just have one beat happening. It's got a bunch of little bits and pieces. I have a feeling that's what we're going to be walking through a bit.

Yes. Because when I opened up the track you sent me, when I opened up the stems, I was like, there are like 10 different drum events taking place in this. Yes. Yeah. So essentially what, so there was a brief period in which I taught at NYU. And now the current dean there, Nick Sincano, was the lead engineer for this album. Oh, okay.

And what he revealed to me was just the most mind-blowing. That's what we got to go, yeah. Oh, my God. So the first thing I did was I commissioned and asking you, you shall receive. I asked for the entire public enemy canon, or at least fear of a black planet and nation of millions, as stems just to... Go through the mother load. Wow. Yeah, just to look at what they did.

And you've never seen a more meticulous tracking. Like the track sheets alone for night of the living baseheads, which is... is a song, to answer your question at the top of the show, when you ask why I choose. This was the second most chaotic song. Night of Living Bay Sets is way too chaotic for us to really grasp how all these small parks make a hole. In basketball terms, you know, like,

if you're just looking at a Kobe or a Jordan, like, you see like, or singing, like one Michael and his four brothers. whereas it's better to look at a team where everyone's adding these small elements together to make a big story. And this is one of the more unassuming songs because, but yet it's everything that public enemies about.

Random samples out of nowhere that sound weird on their own but once put together makes total sense. And so Nixon-San, the first thing he reveals to me, is that they did this album is not

mixed or engineered which I never heard of that it is the way they made it the process how most people make records is you write a song you might demo that song everyone learns the song everyone goes in the studio

and then you record that song and once that song is on tape. You take a break, you live with it, and then you come back to EQ and mix how you want it to sound. I don't know if it's because they wanted to save time or not, but what they actually did was they pre-produced the album. The only other person I know that does work like this was Barry White, and Ray Parker Jr. says that Barry White didn't want to do any overdubbing because he wanted to be in and out the studio so he could pocket all the money. again.

Come on, Barry. No, but Ray Parker Jr. would say, like, there would be four guitar players on the same song because instead of getting one guitar player to take all day doing four parts, he was just like, no.

All four of you play at the same time. We're going to do this all in one fell swoop. Everyone gets there an hour early. The engineer pre-mixes, so it's to Barry's liking. And when they record it, that's how it's going to... There's no overdubbing later.

There's no mixing. One and done. This was done the same way. So if you, if you, I should have brought the Night of Living Basehead's tracking sheet. Eric Sadler's notes, literally it's a 200 and almost 83 bar account for what's going to happen. So like in bar 76, he writes down, David Bowie sample, left side, the temptation sample in the bridge. Like literally each bar is account. He's got to be a Virgo.

because I identify with that deeply. It's anore retentiveness to the next level. I respect that. That makes sense, though, because how else are they going to keep track of it? But to your point, which I had no idea, we have to remember also at this time, in order to mix a song, right? Or in order to bounce it to tape, you've got to have, you got 24 faders. So you've got five guys with like three to four faders each. They have to know what to do.

Because like on a dropout, they all have to know, okay, here's the bar where we all ride the faders, you know, or mute or whatever it is. That has to be known. It can't be like on the fly. So it makes sense that he's writing all this down. And so the way that I'm to believe the story's told, each member of the bomb squad, Hank, Keith, Eric, occasionally flavor, flave, Chuck wasn't part of this process. They would actually have jam sessions.

So each guy had their own drum machine, their own turntable, and they would load in all their sounds. So song, like, don't believe the hype is literally them. Matter of fact, Rebel Without a Pause is not programmed. it's played. This is actually the operation of a lot. Like the amount of stuff... Are you saying that there's no computer that's like quantized this thing?

It's literally being done live? This is so... This practice is so normal and it's mind-blowing. Even... Not to fall off subject. Jimmy Jam just revealed to me they never use Simpy. He was like, Simty is what keeps everything in line. He was just like, well, I was a DJ back in the day,

so when we would do a remix... He would literally take the reels and just blend the reels as if he was a DJ. So all those Janet Jackson cool summer mixes is just them playing stuff. Internal clock. Yeah, without. Jam's heartbeat. So thus, this is insane. So thus, this public enemy album maybe has an appeal because in the way that I'd salivate over the work of Jay Diller, like how it's offbeat and jarring.

Maybe there's a subconscious version of that with this. record in which is so sloppily crafted together that it sounds human. It's crazy that you can take all these tiny little parts. There's nothing telling you, oh, the next beat is here, the next beat is here, and create something cohesive. Can you play us one of your stems? Yeah, let's start getting into these stems here. I mean, we're going to listen.

There are no fewer than, I'm going to count about eight different drum tracks, but half of them, more than half of them, are just a single hi-hat or a single snare. There's three different kick drums happening, and the intricacy with which they all come in and out is perfection. And the fact that it's done, the way you've described it, is sort of mind-blowing. But let's get into it. So here are the first three stems, and these are all kick drums. And I'll play them isolated and then in the mix together. This is kick number one.

And by the way, importantly, to my point earlier, I was talking about how there are 808s on this record. That sounds like an 808. And from what I've understood, maybe you know more than me about this. so please enlighten this. I understand the 808s on this record were all sampled from 808s on records as opposed to the 808 drum machine. And the only base content in this song or majority of it is coming from what I just played for you. There's not a baseline per se. There's not, there are samples that have technically some base content because it's the lower end of the EQ.

But most of the bass, that's the baseline of the song as well as the kick drum. And it interacts with these other two kicks. This is one of them, which is obviously just a challenge. chopped kick drum. You may know the source of that. I'm trying to figure out what sample comes from. I can actually... If anyone knows it's you. I know I know it, but I can't name it now. Here's the second kick drum that's also sounding like a sample. Two, three, four, one, two, three. And now I'll play them together, and then I'll start

adding in some of the other component parts, which are the two snares and hi-hat that are also sampled individually. That's all three kicks. And I'll start to bring in some snares and some hi-hats. And now we got some top. So that drumbeat, what you just heard, is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven different things. Yes. And we're not even done. I'm going to play the breakbeat isolated, one of the two break beats isolated. Trouble funk.

That's Trouble funk. Yeah. Go-Go. Let's, I think it's a, let's get small. Yeah, so to give you context. There it is. Beautiful, big, juicy break. You got to use that.

These are probably the hardest drums of the first era of hip-hop. Like, even though Trouble Funk is a go-go band, there's kind of a church and state, oil and water. But, you know, they're all one. However, sonically, from a sonic perspective, Yeah, I'll say that Trouble Funk as a band Sonically is probably the best engineered group of musicians. Not synthetic substitution.

Well, but that's not, that's, I mean, that's, you know that's Bernard Purdy, right? That's Benar Prudy drum on synthetic substitution. Melvin Bliss Jr. artists, but yes. But I'm just saying that that's a record that was recorded 69, 70. So I don't count that as, I count that as the

part of the ingredients, but I'm talking about from a band after hip hop is invented. Those are really exceptional. Right. Hard. Like hard is a compliment in the hip-hop world. That's hard.

Well, it's also hard, like, it's also challenging because what we're hearing together, like on its own, that has some swing to it, but not everything has the same swing. And somehow, you're about to hear me play them all together. The way they come together, that's the magic here. But we have one more breakbeat. Yeah, I was what to say. There's one more breakbeat. We've already heard it today because he played it for us.

And you've all heard it a bajillion times. It's the, it takes two, to make a thing go right. It's the same song, but it's the drum break. Oh, think, Lynn Collins, yeah. Lynn Collins, J.Bs, we've heard a lot of J.Bs already today. We're not done. And notice how they do it. They started there. One, two, three, and then back to the one. One. So they're already kind of boom, two, three, one, one, right? And this also, I believe, confirms my theory. Even though we credit Clyde Stubblefield and funky drummer,

the drum break funky drummer by James Brown is often, you know, applauded as, you know, the greatest breakbeat of all time. And it is. However, you know, if you really look under the surface, for those who don't know, funky drummer is. The only flop in James Brown's career is like his most popular sample of all time. Yeah. Well, for the streak between 65 and 75.

And that's on no fewer than two or three songs on this record altogether, but not this song. Funky drummer is literally the manna from heaven that will provide... The gift that keeps giving. Yeah, but you're about to say about Clyde. Yeah, but the thing is, is that Clyde Stubblefield, James Brown's, one of his many drummers, is giving credit. And yes, it's a work of art. But I always consider it funky drummer to be kind of like boutique shopping, bespoke.

In other words, his other drummer, John Jabble Starks, is, in my opinion, kind of really the meat and potatoes of the James Brown drummers. And is actually, that break is used more than funky drummer. basically Clyde gets the glory of being James Brown's number one drummer but really you could do more with you could do more with John Jabbo Starks's snares and stuff which is why it gets used more than like the sound of new jack swing that dat dat da da da da that like think of like the Fresh Prince of Bell Air theme

like Motown Philly like all the new jacks all the stuff on Michael Jackson's dangerous record like the sound Can you give us an example because I don't know that I know That's Jabbo All right

Let me take the drums off So the reason is All right So Jabbo's strength Jabbo's strength is actually his kick When James Brown is

explaining the theory of the one He's basically saying that there's more emphasis On the one You know One two Three but James Brown says One two

Three four Like we all have to be in agreement So I would be in agreement so I will say that Jabbo's kick foot is gargantuanly strong. So all of his, so thus it gives you a better option. Whereas Clyde Stubberfield's drumming, Clyde's drumming on what do I have to do to prove my love to you

is a wonder to hear because his left hand, listen to the work that his left hand does. A lot of snare ghost notes. A lot of grace notes. Right, which is cool, but it determines too much. And with Jabbo, you can, you have more options to get the James Brown texture so that you can determine how the rhythm should go. Whereas with Clyde, you have to adjust to his world.

So truth be told, John Jabbo-Starks is probably not only the go-to, choice of James Brown's drummers to use for stuff like this, but also just in period of like the whole sampling culture, like John Jabbo never gets... Doesn't get enough love? Yeah, because he's too normal. Like, it's like converse. Like, no, well, Converse and Air Force ones will never die no matter what. You know what I mean?

You're always going to have the White Air Force ones and the Canvas Converse from back in the 40s. Yeah. That's what John Jabo Starks is. Meanwhile, the Jordan 6th limited edition, that's Clyde Stubblefield. Like, it's a shinier story. That's true. It's true. Peter Bogdanovich is wearing like...

I should have just said that at the top instead of taking 25 minutes. No, no, no. That totally worked. I was saying that Peter Bogdanovich is wearing the same shoes that I used to wear in high school in Last Picture Show. And it's just because everybody can wear those converts. It will never go away. Classic. So cool classic.

In the interest, let's hear all of that put together so that we have the drum track. We've just set up how those beats, those eight different sources, I think, are forming this combined single beat, which has complexity and yet together it works. So I'm going to play just those two samples together first,

and then I'll bring back that, the three kicks and two snares situation that we had. So these are both break beats together. And now I'll bring in everything, all the beats. That's eight different sample sources in 1988. The use of the... Now, as you, it's not blended and, you know... Right, exactly.

But the idea is there. Right, the idea is there. It wouldn't be... It wouldn't be public... If there wasn't rap, it wouldn't be anybody rapping on this one if it wasn't Flavreflav. I'm lamping. I'm Lampin. I'm cold cold lamping. I got Louis Boy. I'm not tramping.

I just came from the crib, you know. I want to go throw your tank in the Metro. Let's talk a little bit about Flav. You know, coming up, like, I feel like Chuck D was like the drawing for Public Enemy, but Flavor Flav was like, and even my dad who liked Public Enemy, he used to talk about how he, in his mind,

flavor was like the court jester. You know, he was like the guy like, if, I think someone online said, if Chuck D was all by himself, it would almost be way too seriously. It wouldn't work. You needed somebody like Flavor Flay to show up with the clock. Comic relief.

And be like, yeah, boy. Like, it's almost like the first seasons of the Simpsons. Like, you needed Bartman. You know what again? You know, season's four and five when they're like, oh, Homer's actually the star of the show. You know what I mean? Like, in that sense, the show doesn't exist without. I'm going to worry this extremely carefully, especially in light of Billy D. Williams' recent quotes.

Oh, no. Right. No, no. No, but the thing is, is that I think throughout history, especially at that point in 1980, for black people really to gain. mainstream America's trust Humor was a weapon of choice.

It's stealth. Yeah. There's an interesting and the reason why I didn't kind of want to be careful how I word this, there's a black America's first millionaire

actor, step and fetch it. Right. Now look at your face. We went 30-something episodes of this show without mentioning Mitchell C. Thank you for crossing the Rubicon. No, no, no, but here's the thing, though. I found out something in the last five years that it never occurred to me.

Now, of course, Step and Fetch it and kind of his offspring, at least the next 10 years of, you know, Amos and Andrew actors that had to wear a black thing. Yeah, yeah, I get it. What I didn't know was that it's, it's. one thing when you think that if someone has to use a kind of court jester clownish thing you kind of think that that's them and i later found out that step and fetched discovered early if i keep white people laughing in the 30s and 40s i might not get lynched you know what i mean so it's a protective measure and once and that's a weird thing because it's humor is has been used much to arsagrin.

There's a serious sect of folk who, you know, rightfully so, says this is very degrading, very, you know. I mean, you're really talking about Public Enemy that had a song called Burn Hollywood Burn. Exactly. Had the incendiary video with all these images that I as a kid. I was like, wait, Bugs Bunny was racist. He used to do blackface and sing I live in Dixie.

Like, it was very drunk. It was the norm. So the reason why I'm bringing this up is that the kind of sort of we come in peace, hands up, don't shoot. Level of acrobatts that most black artists have to go through in order to gain acceptance. The reason why James Brown required his band to always wear suits. Why do we have to wear suits even offstage? Well, you know, in case we get pulled over, you'll look respectable politics. That whole, you know, and there's also downside to this whole respectable politics thing.

Of course. Which is why a group like Slide on the Family Stone, one of the first original zero-flex-given groups, like, we're going to come dressed in our street clothes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't go on stage without a suit. Are you crazy? You know, that's what it was. You'll never book Sullivan. Exactly.

So Chuck knew instantly that public enemy needed a comedic factor to sort of take away from the. seriousness of the group or else they were going to scare everybody. And here's the thing, though, it worked because when I first got the public enemy record in 1987, their first album, they were, they're all right. They're cool. However, when I got to Flav's solo song, Too Much Posse, I was 14 years old and suddenly like, I was like, yo, who's this guy talking all this shit? All right, smarty, people bust the group.

It's guarantees to shake your butter. So on each song, this guy, like, I would listen to Public Enemy's album just to hear the guy talk shit. Even on disc records, like, when you hear a disc record, the lyric's okay, but it's always the last part that you want to hear where they're just talking like, yeah, motherfuckinck. Now the next time you talk shit in a moment, it's never. Tubac, like the last 12 minutes of hit him up is just him airing some stuff out. Dude, I would actually, I would actually. Because I was like, ah, man, forget all this rap. I don't like you.

Dude, I would actually respect, I would respect Tupac hit him up. Yes. If his music tracking was better. This sounds to me like... Hot takes, here we go. No, this sounds like, look, I've already gone on the internet and spoke. But hit him up to me is disqualified,

not because of the over- Vitriol? Yeah, the misogynist. Like, forget all that. it's like dude you're rhyming over like smooth jazz dinner music Dennis Edwards I'm sorry Luther Vandros can sing over this

Okay Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait hold on Hold on So wait you're taught hold on this is Dennis Edwards Wait am I right? Yes don't look any further Wait I'm curious Don't look any further

I'm curious because I know How many years younger are you to me? Oh I don't know I actually don't know how old are you I'm not even lying. Well, let's not reveal that now. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I assume that you might be a couple of years,

four to five to six years younger than me. We'll see. Right. No, but this is always a difference because people who are born in the latter part of the decade that I was born in. All right. All right. You're right. Yeah, like their relationship with Tupac is different than my relationship.

Yes. And so thus, when this came out, I was just like, You know, they were like, yo, this heart is shit, man, this. Yo, he's killing it. And I was just like, dog, he took, he, he'd smooth jazzed up Dennis Edwards. Like, it doesn't count. But you know what? It's crazy is, and I remember exactly where I was sitting, I was sitting outside a Turtles record store in the heart of South West Atlanta.

Oh, turtles. I was sitting out there in my car, and I was listening to this and I was like, ooh, this is going to end bad. Like, because nobody had released it. I mean, like, no Vaseline by Ice Cube is rough. but even this sounded way more personal. And the fact that he didn't, in my brain, he didn't want to clear the Dennis Edwards sample. So he had like the death row all-star band

like replay the music. And that's why it sounds like smooth gas a little bit. Like to me, it'd be a better song if he had sampled just the original. You mean if there wasn't an interpolation? Yes, I did it. I got one in there. He gets paid when he says that word, you guys. Thank you very much.

My thing is, my thing is, if you're going to annihilate me, on a disc record like at least at least have if you're gonna kill me I want you to take me out like Cleo at the end of set it off like that sort of thing

like I can't get with hit them up because the music to me is just that that's fair that's fair you know I actually think that you know we should do this show is called one song and obviously we deviate from just talking about one song but I do think we should do like a special

format breaker one off called one beef and just break down the history of beef tracks in hip hop. It probably had to be a two-partner because there's some great ones going from, you know, Roxanne's Revenge all the way up into the current kerfuffle. But no, I just got to point out that while we're talking about hit him up and some of these other beef sauce, this is technically a beef track because you start off, cold lamp and with flavor. You start off with the Mr. Magic.

And we talked a little bit about this before you showed up here. I actually have the clip. It starts off with, you know, no more music for suckers. Let's hear just a little bit of the song that was sampled from this. So the back story is Mr. Magic's not a fan of public enemy. He's not a...

Mr. Magic, it turns out, was not an early fan of Public Enemy. Let's check it out. Which we'll be back with 30 minutes of non-stop rap attacking. I guarantee you, no more music by the sucker. We'll be back after this.

Like, how are you going to be playing somebody saw and basically saying, yeah, these guys suck. Mr. Magic, but I mean, Mr. Magic basically, what I'll, now, if you want to know the legacy of Mr. Magic, Mr. Magic was the, we talked a little bit about him. Yeah, yeah, he was like the guy you had to impress in radio. And what winds up happening is, I mean, look at the boogie down production situation. Boogie Down Productions approaches Mr. Magic and says, hey, here's our tape. where you play it on your radio show,

he plays it and he disses them. And he dissed them so hard that he's just like, yo, this is weak. And he throws the tape and leaves. Marley Mall, who's also at that session, is realizing now, wait, now it's one of me and seven of these guys, I better get out of here too.

So without thinking, Marley Mall just vacates, the premises, but he leaves behind his drum, his drum reels. And so when we talked about that snare at the top of the bridge, that snare on MC Shan's the bridge, people, basically BDP was like, oh yeah, we whack, well, we got your drum sounds. So thus, weird enough. and I went back to listen to that song. Have you heard the song that Mr. Magic heard? Public Enemy Number One?

No, I'm talking about Boogie Down Productions. Oh. I'm just saying the history of... You're talking about the bridge is over now. Right, but literally the music, the song that Boogie Down Productions did was almost akin to... It was almost neck and neck with the theme

of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Wonderful, do, wonderful, fun, fun, and do your homework, and then, da, da, da. Then we got to win. You know, and... Where is the KRS one in this? It's right. And so thus, kind of Mr. Magic was right.

He could have did it in a more nuanced, polite way of saying, you guys got to try better. So what winds up happening is Marley Mall's drum sound patch basically just gets passed around the entire hip-hop nation. And thus, that drum, his drum patches will wind up feeding. And he's done all the work of isolating. the snare, the kick, all these beautiful things. He did the work for you, so a lot of those songs come from that. But yes, also, Mr. Magic wasn't a fan of Rebel Without a Pause either. He thought that Chuck D.

So I think the reason why Chuck D got in his head about, oh, this is my fault. Like, he thinks I'm old. And Chuck D was old. He was 29. By rapper standards, yeah. Yeah, he was already over the hill. And so the reason why he felt the pressure to make this record was because he felt that Mr. Magic thought.

He was whack. Wow. And he didn't really want to do this. Rick Rubin had to beg him. Please take this record deal. You have a great voice. Ah, man, I'm too old for this. I'm too old for this.

And so the provoking of Mr. Magic and the non-approval or the unapproving stance of Mr. Magic is what will prompt some of the greatest music to fall out of the 1980. Yeah, yeah. Because you have something to prove. I think we need to ask real quickly, what do you think is the legacy? of Cole Lampin with flavor? You know, there are 16 songs on this record. So to me, it's like, okay, gross example.

If someone right now ripped five of your toenails off completely. Okay. I love where this is going. Right, the way that your audience has grown right now. I meant, will it kill you? It's painful as hell, but will it kill you? Not really. I'm just saying that cold ambamor flavor is an important part of this Godzilla monster known as

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. Now, is it an important organ like the heart or the brain or, you know, the knees? That remains to be seen. I mean, in terms of if you prioritize the important songs of it, yes, it's a Flavor Flav solo song. but for me it was sort of like almost like a needed comic relief on it's it's the fourth song on this record of which they already kind of just burnt down the entire village yeah black radio uh bourgeois black people yeah crack dealers like in the first four songs they just light the entire the education system so it's like and now a commercial break and then flave comes along

and then the rest of the album continues. So in the body of a nation of millions, I'll say that maybe Cold Lambloom flavor might be your wrist. Still need it. Yeah. Still need it. But it's just a small piece to a bigger puzzle.

Absolutely. And by the way, even though we're only four songs deep into the album, probably 200 samples used by that point. Luxury, I'm going to invite you to say what you think, the legacy of this song, and that bomb squad sound is. I mean, I don't have much to add because that was perfectly put.

I will say the one thing that we didn't get a chance to talk about too much that I would love to hear your thoughts on is we talked a little bit about the abrasiveness of sound and the absence of bass. But another thing, I mean, first of all, we've got a Slayer sample on this record, right? We have at certain point public enemies on tour with Gang of Four. They do a tour with Sisters of Mercy, by the way, one of my favorite God bands who I see. Pro Game of Four. And then, of course, there's the famous Anthrax collab, which is essentially a cover version. but it's anthrax and public enemy doing

Bring the Noise So there's a lot of, I would say sonically as well as aggression and lyrically There is some post-punk and punk and metal And rock in this band P's slowly discovering that like Moss culture Is how

These acts that they're opening for Respond to them You know if it were 15 years early And you were James Brown You know Some funky stuff to make you you want to move and groove your head like that is the order of the day. But because public enemy is sort of coming in a weird raps version of bad brains, if you will.

Totally. If you look at the 82 CBGB's bad brains performance, like that level of adrenaline, that's what public enemy is slowly discovering that they need to come across in order to survive on the road as a road bin. I'm so glad you said that, by the way, because I just found it in researching this episode that the Slayer sample was originally a bad brain sample. Did you know that?

It was originally a re-ignition, the track on eye against eye. Really? Yeah. I just found that out. Yeah. So bad brains is absolutely in the mix. Wait, wait, I'm sorry.

Did you just tell him something he doesn't know? This is news. We'll cut that. I just saw your face. You did not know that. Amen. Our job is complete. I'm...

Mind balloon. Good night, everybody. I will sweet tonight. So the last thing we're going to do is we're going to play a game. It's called five degrees of, everyone say it with me, interpolation. Five degrees of interpolation. Here's how it works.

Okay. Our producer, Matt, that gentleman over there, he's written down two names, and they are sealed in an envelope. No one has seen what's inside of these envelopes. What you have to do is connect the two artists named in the envelope via five steps or less. So we're going to get two names. It's like five degrees of Kevin Bacon, but with interpolation.

So you can connect them through songs, writing credits, samples, interpolations, or even interpolations, whatever it takes to connect these names. So I'm going to have this revealed to me. I'll be the only one with the knowledge. Okay. Five degrees between the following two names. 60 seconds on the clock and away. We go. Chuck D to Mel B.

A.k.a. Scary Spice. 60 seconds. Okay, so I believe that connection-wise, okay, so Chuck D. sampled Bobby Bird's, Hot Pants I'm Coming, which has John Jabro Starks on a caught, can I get a witness, aka the Big Daddy Came Raw Break. You're eating up time. And I believe that, oh, oh, oh. And I believe Want to Be is the drum.

track to that. What? We did it in two? He got there in two. Are you saying wannabe from Spice Girls? Yeah, they both used hot pants. I'm coming. He got there technically in one.

Okay. Okay. We gave him five. He got her in one. Okay. Sorry. I think you just ultimately proved your Quest Loveness. Did I run out my minute?

I think you solved it in 12 seconds. But I think we have so much wonderful stuff that we discussed here. There's so much stuff that we would love to. Like, I can't tell you how much we wanted to discuss. But sincerely, we can't think, we'll have you back on the show. And when you come back on the show, I want you to bring what song. Here's the thing. I'm not saying you have these stems, but if you want to borrow the DeAngelo stems.

Oh, my God, something from voodoo. And so we could talk about voodoo. Be kind of cool. You obviously don't have those things because that could get you in trouble. Maybe I found them. Maybe I found them. Yeah, put it on him. Maybe I found them.

Hey, it fell off a truck, right? It fell off a truck. I was told to fall off the drugs. All right, everyone, this has been so much fun, Questlove, my friend. Thank you so much for being here. Everybody, make some noise for Questlove for coming through. That was incredible.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't say that you can download Questlove's podcast, KLS, wherever you download your podcast. And that's the same for our show. I am Diallo Riddle. I am Luxury. You can find us. I'm at Diallo on Instagram. I'm at Luxury with Two X's on On On On On On On On On On.

all the social media sites. Exactly. We've had a great time. Thank you for coming. It's so much fun having you guys here. Thank you. And this was one song. This episode is produced by our producer of Matthew Nelson. Additional production support from Casey Simonson. Engineering from Marcus Homme. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric

Wyle, and Leslie Guam.