steelydan  

Steely Dan
The Fez
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Album: The Royal Scam (1976)

bizzieboys  

Bizzie Boys
For Those Who Slept
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Album: Droppin’ It! (1989)

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This time out on Musical Cousins, a minor Steely Dan hit begets an even more obscure hip hop track.

“The Fez” was included on The Royal Scam and though it doesn’t have quite the lyrical depth as most of Steely Dan’s hits (“I wanna be your holy man”?), the track’s driving rhythm has kept it in fans’ memories some 30+ years after its release.

One of the earlier hip hop acts to come out of the south, North Carolina’s Bizzie Boyz didn’t make a huge mark, but their album Droppin’ It! had heads nodding throughout the underground in the late 80s. The producer/rapper, Willski (who went on to become Ski Beatz, producer of Camp Lo’s awesome Uptown Saturday Night LP), doesn’t diverge too far from the Steely Dan original: he sped up and looped the intro, added a respectable DJ Premier-inspired scratched “chorus”, and a bouncy rap.

 

 
The W  

Wu-Tang Clan
Hollow Bones
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Album: The W (2000)

Is It Because I'm Black  

Syl Johnson
Is It Because I’m Black
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Album: Is It Because I’m Black (1969)

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Introducing Musical Cousins, where I take two or more tracks that relate to each other in some way. The most obvious application — including this one — will be to pair a modern-ish song with the original beat it samples. But I may latch on to other, more esoteric pairings as well.

For the inaugural edition, I’ve chosen a joint from the uneven Wu-Tang Clan record, The W. Verses from Raekwon, Inspectah Deck and Ghostface flow beautifully in a track that is made for headphones (but not for the dancefloor).

Contrast it to Syl Johnson’s original and witness RZA’s minimal, yet effective, sampling methodologies. He doesn’t utilize any sounds that aren’t part of the original song. He just increased the tempo, looped a few bits, and sprinkled on a few effects.

Though lyrically, the two tracks are markedly different — Johnson is wailing on the dehumanizing effects of racism while the Wu deliver intricate, crime-themed wordplay — they share an underlying despair and a driving force to persevere regardless of the bleak circumstances.

 

 
gsimpsons2   Da Ish
Hip Hop
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Heavy Vibes
Eclectic
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Liquefy
Mellow
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A few mixes I’ve made over the years, back when I had time to DJ

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