A cut -n- paste masterpiece brought to you by the guys behind Chopped Herring Records, Pro Celebrity Golf and Jay Glaze. This is the first time the OG digital files have been made available. Created from 100% original vinyl pressings. An automatic download that will keep you entertained and even amazed. –Philaflava
While t.r.o.y. focuses primarily on hip-hop music and culture, we know a thing or two about other genres and eras as well. After all, what kind of diggers would we be without at least a few crates full of jazz, funk and soul LPs? Early this month, the music world suffered a tremendous loss with the passing of jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd. A masterful bandleader and prolific sideman, Dr. Byrd is survived by a gargantuan discography spanning five decades and perhaps as many styles and subgenres. The lasting impact of these recordings was and is especially evident within the annals of hip-hop, as Byrd’s music has been sampled literally hundreds of times, by everyone from the Bombsquad to the Beatnuts.
Shortly after Byrd’s death, DJ and record collector Gilles Peterson got to work on a comprehensive multi-volume tribute, appropriately broken down into two parts, “The Acoustic Years” and “The Electric Years.” These mixes can be streamed below, along with a video introduction by Peterson himself.
As I said earlier, Dr. Byrd’s music has been sampled and re-sampled numerous times over the years. This begs the question, what’s your favorite Donald Byrd flip? Hit us up in the comments section, and maybe we’ll get a poll going.
Snagged this mix from the good blokes over at Dephect Clothing. In their own words:
A chronological blend of over 60 De La Soul classics and the original breaks used to create them from their first four albums; ’3 Feet High & Rising’, ‘De La Soul Is Dead’, ‘Buhloon Mindstate’ & ‘Stakes Is High’ & coming in at around 1 hour 45 mins this is a must for anyone with a love of Hip-Hop, Jazz, Soul & the art of sampling.
While this isn’t quite the monumental feat of sample source remixing that A Tribute to the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique was, it is a nice mix to enjoy over the weekend. Click here to download.
-Samuel Diamond
From the Giving Up Food For Funk blog:
Here’s a compilation I’ve been wanting to put together for a while. Having listened to a lot of hip-hop growing up, I’ve always been fascinated by the use of sampling, and how looping a few seconds of an original song, speeding and chopping up a breakbeat or a bassline, could create an entirely new song. Of course, most of the best beats created were made using classic soul and Rn’B samples, so I’ve tried here to pull together a selection of the best original tracks — that were or were not hits in their time — hoping you’ll say to yourself “Oh, this is where they took that from!” when you play them.
Mostly, these are all excellent stand-alone Soul gems, which just need to be rediscovered.
Download here. For the full write up, track list, and to leave comments for La Prayve, go here. The big names from The Delfonics to Bobby Bland to The Isley Brothers and more are represented, so you really can’t go wrong. Props to Markshot on the assist.
It’s mostly tha voice, that gets you up.
It’s mostly tha voice, that makes you buck.
A lot of rappers got flavor, and some got skills
But if your voice ain’t dope then you need to [chill... chill... ]
What defines a dope track? For many of us Guru was on point, it is the voice. For some, it’s the beats and in this case it’s mostly the sample being used. It’s a topic that usually gets overlooked but when you look back at many of the crowd favorites of yesteryear you’ll notice how prevalent this really was in the 90s. If you sampled anything off Illmatic, ATCQ or Rakim you pretty much had a sure-fire hit on your hands.
This is not to say you can’t have a really dope track with an equally dope sample, “Take It In Blood” or “I’m Ill” are testaments to that, but with the death of vinyl, indie labels, non-existent budgets and a surge in sampling lawsuits you’re likely not going to hear many new tracks featuring these invigorating samples. That is, unless you’re sampling your own work, see DJ Premier.
We wish more rappers sided more with Jay-Z on this one…
So yeah I sampled your voice, you was usin it wrong
You made it a hot line, I made it a hot song
But they don’t. So here are some examples where it’s mostly the samples…
Just a little Sunday treat for you. This is the O.G. version and for those that don’t know what I’m talking about… –Philaflava
This is the Geto Boys 1990 self-titled album, the original version, before it was shelved by the record company. You see, the Geto Boys used a sample from the Steve Miller Band song “The Joker,” on track #4, Gangster of Love. This however, was an unlicensed sample, and Steve Miller sued the record company over its use, to which the record company decided to shelve this album. This album was the Geto Boys first album available nationally, while all their previous releases as the Ghetto Boys were on a more local/regional level. This sample was also used on their earlier version of this album as the Ghetto Boys called Grip It On That Other Level. However, it was also a different recording session and so it was a completely different take and did not sound the same lyrically/vocally.After a couple years, the Geto Boys had released more albums and gained in considerable popularity. The record company decided to re-release this album, but with an altered backing track for Gangster of Love. The altered version utilized a sample of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama and a “Gangsta Boogie” sample for the chorus. For those who purchased the re-release of the Geto Boys self-titled album, they got this new version of the song which if you think about it, doesn’t make as much sense as the original version which samples Steve Miller saying “call me…call me…yeah, call me the gangster of love.” Anyhow, it seems that everyone who has ripped this album and put it online, has put the re-release version online. Well I have come to save the day and give you all the original out-of-print version that came out in 1990.
