Metal Lungies

Welcome to week 2 of the D’Angelo Remix Month. Every Tuesday in July, I’ll be covering a different D’Angelo song and an accompanying remix.

“Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyes Of Mine” was the 4th and final single released in 1996 in support of D’Angelo’s album, Brown Sugar. It’s self produced, riding a funky, organ-driven groove accompanied by light percussion that sounds like it was generated with drum brushes. Strings play in the chorus, but they aren’t overbearing and serve D’s voice well. Its jazz club performance video is very fitting.

A remix was produced by Erick Sermon for the 12′ release of the single, billed as the “Def Squad Remix”. The remix starts with Redman fucking around on the mic before the Erick Sermon beat kicks in with stiff, stuttered drums. The opening organ swells from the original are retained and Sermon adds spacey keyboards, turning in a spare, hard-hitting beat for Red to rip shit. Redman delivers a quick and typically hilarious verse then returns to do adlibs on D’Angelo’s chorus. After that, the Green Eyed Bandit himself does typically awkward adlibs over D’s vocals. Red closes the remix with a few quick bars over D’Angelo’s cooing, amusingly threatening:

“Hey yo dreamy eyes/you better run it”

I like the original the best, but the remix is still dope for having a Redman verse over Erick Sermon production when both were in their prime as rapper and producer, respectively.

Remixes of “Me…” were done by Jay Dee and DJ Premier as well, but I can’t find those anywhere. If anyone reading this has either, please send them to me and I’ll do a quick write-up of them. Just check the contact info on the homepage.

Download:

D’Angelo – Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyes Of Mine (Brown Sugar, 1995)

D’Angelo – Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyes Of Mine (Def Squad Remix ft.Redman) (Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyes Of Mine 12′, 1996)

I’m doing something special this month, ML readers! Each Tuesday for the rest of the month, I’m tackling a different D’Angelo remix. I’ve been covering strictly hip-hop remixes for the last 20 installments (with some guest writeups from Buhizzle), so I’m giving y’all a little R&B flavor for a few weeks.

I’m starting with D’Angelo’s 1995 debut single, “Brown Sugar”. The original “Brown Sugar” is produced by A Tribe Called Quest producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Muhammad uses sleigh bells, organ, guitar and a lazy, grooving bass line on the track and gives it a more hip-hop feel than the rest of the album’s tracks. “Brown Sugar” is one of the best songs on a perfect R&B record. It also had a video, which I’m including because of the conversation at the beginning.

Da Beatminerz remixed “Brown Sugar” for the “Cruisin'” 12′ and got Kool G Rap to drop several off-topic yet ill bars just before D sings his 3rd verse.

Here’s a sampling of the Kool Genius’s verse (you really have to hear him spit it):

Well it’s that street flavor neighbor that I smack upon this track
So throw that tobacco outta that Philly, dump in the illy and sit back
And get with bubonic chronic, the pond green bionic
My brown eyes get Chinese, high frequencies like Panasonic
I gets dumb when I hits one, for when you splits one and twists one
If you ain’t with getting blitzed son then straight up you missed one
I be high ’til I die, blowing lye smoke up in the sky
Getting bumbed from the trum and hella else from chocolate thai
So fly the friendly get highs, we wise guys with red eyes
Bigger than life sized, for the big pies we terrorize
While getting blunted enemies get hunted, we don’t front it
Son if you want it, it’ll be a murder mystery like Whodunit
Steady, get ready to step to that next level
Fear this like a daredevil, bounce this and pass a sack to the ear level
So come get with the program as I slam
He run that old flim flam then you can catch a blam blam/ and I don’t give a damn

The Beatminerz track samples a beautiful piano loop (also sampled on M.O.P.’s “New York Salute”) and uses harder, but not invasive drums. Some warm vibes come in occasionally as well.

The remix is a dope revision of the original that I might actually prefer on occasion to the OG. What do you think?

Download:

D’Angelo – Brown Sugar

D’Angelo – Brown Sugar (Da Beatminerz Remix ft.Kool G Rap)

Got this in the e-mail, straight hilarity.  Back this weekend, I’m clearing out my e-mail box so expect maybe like 32732 entries, tell the family.

The baby diapers is sitting in the back.

So all it takes to take Kim Kardashian home is to grab her arm and say “Come Here Girl!”. I am so trying this next time I’m in Hollywood.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings comin straight out of the glory days of soul.

Video for “Sirens” off Dizzee’s recent album Maths + English. One of my favorite videos in a long time, disturbing imagery.

It looks like T-pain enjoyed that video.

MTV has new show premiering tonight dubbed Rock The Cradle, which features the offspring of various musicians competing to see who has the most talent. 

The cast is:

Landon Brown (son of Bobby Brown),                                                                    A’keiba Burrell-Hammer (daughter of MC Hammer),                                             Lara Johnston (daughter of Tom Johnston /The Doobie Brothers),                Chloe Rose Lattanzi (daughter of Olivia Newton John),                                 Crosby Loggins (son of Kenny Loggins),                                                                      Jesse Money (daughter of Eddie Money),                                                                 Jesse Blaze Snider (son of Dee Snider),                                                                      Lil Al B Sure (son of Al B Sure),                                                                                Lucy Walsh (daughter of Joe Walsh/The Eagles).

You already know we are pulling for Lil Al B. Show premiers tonight at 10pm EST on MTV.

Some videos after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

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”

This is ill. If you’re well-versed in your sample history, you’ll recognize a lot of these breaks. 45 King=one of the most underrated producers ever.

There’s another video of him spinning classic breaks here.

When I got this I was confused. I didn’t think people did this anymore. Initially I gave it a quick pass, and blew it off as a set of good, obscure dance tracks. That is not the purpose of a break tape though. So, last night, I took some of the tracks and threw them onto my Virtual DJ program. As I moved through the collection I began to notice that instead of looping up single parts of tracks I was looping damn near every section of each song. I made soulful beats. I made fast beats. I made scary beats. But more than that, I Made Beats!!!! The entire night I was thinking that this must be the feeling that great producers have when they find the perfect part of the perfect song. And those suckers have to dig for their breaks. I guess that kind of explains the subtitle on the CD, “Breaks For Modern Living.” After all, some of us aren’t paid to look through stacks of wax all day, and who has the free time? So for all you “modern” people, this is the answer to your production fantasies. Mr. Thing has done the work. So you don’t have to. Now, I’m off to look for an MC. It’s time for a block party.

Favorite Tracks: Lloyd Charmer – I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More, Blackbuster – ShackUp

To preview the compilation go here. My copy didn’t have this, but the retail version will also have a Mixed CD made by Mr. Thing. It comes out February 11th. Very Limited Vinyl, but who cares? Everyone has Serato or something digital anyway.