Beat Drop: Isaac Hayes.

There’s “classic” rock. There’s “old school” hip hop. Cheesy pop music from the ’80s has pretty much classified itself as its own sub-genre. Basically, most every genre of popular music somehow reflects upon music from past generations, either by paying homage to the older music by borrowing notes, lyrics, sounds and the like, or — in hip hop’s case — by simply not being as good as the older music. Let me put it like this… think of any hip hop album from the ’90s that you consider to be a “classic”… is that album “classic” because of how it sounds when you hear it? Or is it “classic” because the majority of albums that have come out since just aren’t as good? In the least, it would have to be a combination of both.

When it comes to soul music, however, there’s no such hand-me-down props. In fact, calling soul music a “popular” genre is a bit of a stretch in itself. Simply put, people like (to name a few) Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, and Isaac Hayes — the topic of discussion here — are not being remembered by today’s generation because there’s no real artists in the present who are making the type of music that they made.

Hayes may be an exception, however, based on his work as Chef on South Park (before he bounced after his religion-of-choice, scientology, was put on blast), his brief hawking of Lay’s potato chips, and his buttery-smooth vocals blessing the theme from Shaft, the finest display of badassery known to man… not to mention the fact that Rick Ross is a dead ringer for him. But Hayes’ catalog extends far beyond blaxploitation and “Chocolate Salty Balls”, and, like many of the legends of soul music that we’ll be covering in the future, hip hop has kept Hayes’ music alive through the sampling of his records.

Read on for a brief glimpse into Black Moses’ career, as well as some of the finest hip hop records that have been built utilizing Hayes’ music as a foundation. And be sure to check out some of the great blogs out there that help to bridge the gap between soul music and hip hop music, like Souled On (a site I’ve happily contributed to in the past) and Oliver Wang’s Soul-Sides.

Download: Isaac Hayes – “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic”

… as sampled on …

• Public Enemy – “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos” (prod. by The Bomb Squad, off It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, 1988)
• DJ Quik – “Born And Raised In Compton” (prod. by DJ Quik, off Quik Is The Name, 1991)
• Soul Assassins – “Puppet Master” featuring Dr. Dre and B-Real (prod. by DJ Muggs, off Soul Assassins, Ch. 1, 1997)
• The Game – “Remedy” (prod. by Just Blaze, off Doctor’s Advocate, 2006)

If you would’ve told me that the funky bassline from Quik’s classic debut record and the dark, moody piano keys from PE’s “letter to the government” manifesto were birthed from the same song, I probably would’ve called you a liar on some “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno”-type shit, willing to wear a dress and everything (well, maybe not that far). It’s worth noting, though, that Hayes’ original record changes rather dramatically from the part that Quik sampled to the part that the Bomb Squad sampled. Kudos to Muggs for working both samples into “Puppet Master”, and further kudos to Just and Game for their updating of PE’s classic.

Download: Issac Hayes – “Walk On By”

… as sampled on …

• Compton’s Most Wanted – “Hood Took Me Under” (prod. by DJ Mike T, off Music To Driveby, 1992)
• Notorious B.I.G. – “Warning” (prod. by Easy Mo Bee, off Ready To Die, 1994)
• MF Doom – “Dead Bent” (prod. by MF Doom, off Operation: Doomsday, 1999)
• Wu-Tang Clan – “I Can’t Go To Sleep” featuring Isaac Hayes (prod. by RZA, off The W, 2000)
• Ludacris – “Southern Fried” (prod. by DJ Nasty & LVM, off Chicken ‘N’ Beer, 2003)
• Method Man – “Walk On” featuring Redman (prod. by Versatile, co-prod. by RZA and Erick Sermon, off 4:21… The Day After, 2006)

The Wu’s interpretation of “Walk On By” back in ’00 probably opened my eyes to hip hop’s dependency upon soul music to make beats. “What an incredible job by RZA,” I thought to myself upon first hearing it… it’s worth noting that, at this time, I wasn’t up on Isaac Hayes’ music, nor had I seen Dead Presidents. Being able to secure guest vocals from Hayes — and Ghost’s and RZA’s dynamic performances on the track — made up for RZA’s blatant beat-jacking. Though “Walk On By” has been performed by many musicians throughout the years (among them Dionne Warwick, who originally recorded the song as written by Burt Bacharach, and Aretha Franklin), there are so many elements to Hayes’ version that have been freaked by hip hop artists throughout the years — the female background vocals (the focus of Red and Meth’s track), the crispy guitar licks (which Luda impressively spit double-time over), the soothing violins (which Doom turned into something extra spacey).

Download: Isaac Hayes – “The Look Of Love”

… as sampled on …

• Snoop Dogg – “G’z Up, Hoes Down” (prod. by Dr. Dre, off Doggystyle, 1993)
• Jay-Z – “Can I Live” (prod. by Irv Gotti, off Reasonable Doubt, 1996)

Actually, if you tried to find “G’z Up, Hoes Down” on a copy of Doggystyle, you’ll probably be out of luck — it was included only on the first pressings of Snoop’s debut, but removed from subsequent pressings because of sample clearance issues. It’s worth noting that Jay-Z, while serving as a guest host on Shade 45 recently and counting down his top 10 tracks from his own catalog, picked “Can I Live” as his favorite Jay-Z song of all time. It’s not worth noting, though, that Ashanti also sampled this track for his single “Rain On Me” — oh, that Irv Gotti, willing to bite off of anybody… even himself!

… and now, to wrap things up, a few one shot deals…

“One Woman” –> Group Home – “Supa Star” (prod. by DJ Premier, off Livin’ Proof, 1995)

“Theme From Shaft” –> Jay-Z – “Reservoir Dogs” featuring The LOX, Beanie Sigel and Sauce Money (prod. by Erick Sermon, off Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, 1998)

“Joy” –> Inspectah Deck – “Trouble Man” (prod. by Pete Rock, off Uncontrolled Substance, 1999)

“Going In Circles” –> Ghostface – “Malcolm” (prod. by Choo The Specializt, off Supreme Clientele, 2000)

“Man’s Temptation” –> GZA – “Animal Planet” (prod. by Tyquan Walker, off Legend Of The Liquid Sword, 2002)