“Voyage To Atlantis” Appreciation.

If you’re a hip hop aficionado/casual soul music listener like myself, then it’s inevitable that your tastes in these respective genres have overlapped at some point. I, for one, can’t listen to the Isley Brothers’ “Between The Sheets” without subconsciously hearing “Big Poppa” (and, to a lesser extent, Jay-Z’s “Ignorant Shit”), nor can I listen to “Footsteps In The Dark” without subconsciously hearing Ice Cube’s “Today Was A Good Day” (and, to a lesser extent, J Dilla’s “Won’t Do”).

Though the aforementioned songs are no doubt classic, my favorite Isley Brothers song has to be “Voyage To Atlantis”. It’s just perfect in so many ways — the heart-felt lyrics, the tender delivery of Ron Isley (a.k.a. Mr. Biggs), his brother Ernie’s guitar (which I’d only be selling short if I were to attach it to a single adjective). “Voyage To Atlantis” is the type of song that you’d want to sign to the woman you plan to marry, no matter how terrible horrible godawful your singing voice may be. I was surprised that, despite the popularity of the Isleys’ catalog amongst so many sample-heavy hip hop producers, “Voyage To Atlantis” had never really been utilized (at least, not to my knowledge)… then, last week happened.

First, after finally getting around to checking out Snoop’s latest, Ego Trippin’ (I know, I know… I’ll have my late pass on your desk tomorrow morning), I was pleasantly surprised to hear the opener “Press Play”, produced by DJ Quik (who is underrated even when he gets props). I couldn’t have imagined “Voyage To Atlantis” being freaked so perfectly — the way Quik chops up Ron’s vocals would’ve made the late Dilla proud. It set quite a high bar that the rest of Ego Trippin’, unfortunately, only reached a couple of times. (Though, I must give credit where it’s due — Snoop may be the only rapper still putting out 20-song albums, even though the “quality over quantity” approach has been the norm in hip hop for several years now. Either Snoop’s the last of a dying breed, or just too stubborn to see that his albums could be that much better if only about 5 tracks shorter.)

Then, the new Outkast/Raekwon collabo came out (of nowhere), which also samples “Voyage To Atlantis”, though to a much smaller, and totally different, degree. You wouldn’t have expected to hear the snippet of Ron’s vocals until they actually pop up in the song, but, what would Outkast be if they weren’t doing something completely out of left-field, like, say, randomly throwing Ron Isley vocals in between verses? My point exactly.

Now that I’ve paid my appreciation to “Voyage To Atlantis”, it’s your turn to do the same…

Download: The Isley Brothers – “Voyage To Atlantis”

Download: Snoop Dogg – “Press Play”

Bonus Download: Snoop Dogg – “Buss’n Rocks” (also produced by DJ Quik)

Bonus Download: The Isley Brothers – “Between The Sheets”

Bonus Download: The Isley Brothers – “Footsteps In The Dark”