B.I.G. To Rihanna & Jay-Z - "Who Y'all Talking To?"

If it wasn't credited on the liner notes for Talk That Talk , Rihanna's new album, you would probably doubt that the title song contained a sample of The Notorious B.I.G's I Got a Story To Tell.

After giving both songs a listen it doesn't seem like it at all but the sample is there.

It's a vocal sample taken right from the intro of ...Story To Tell of Biggie saying "Who y'all talking to?".

So where can you find the sample in the Rihanna song?

Right in between where Jay-Z says "Everything I do is BIG", you can hear the sample before he continues with the "I talk big money" line (around 0:44 in the Talk That Talk clip above).

Prodigy Talks about Sampling 2Pac and Rap Beef

Remember the days of the East Coast vs West Coast beefs? When Pac was going at Biggie, Mobb Deep, Jay-Z and everybody else?

In 2007, Prodigy released his album Return of the Mac and the title track sampled 2Pac on the hook. 

The song sampled is from 2Pac's verse from the 1993 freestyle in Madison Square Garden that also featured The Notorious B.I.G. and Shyheim and Big Daddy Kane.

2Pac re-used his verse on a song called Nothing To Lose that was post-humously released on 1997's R U Still Down? (Remember Me) .

Here's an interview of Prodigy talking about sampling 2Pac and the talk about his previous beefs also come up.

The Firm's Desperados Sample - Dune by Wasis Diop

Save for a couple of tracks, The Firm's "The Album" was a pretty solid album. I never could understand why people said 'the firm flopped' according to Dr. Dre.

Maybe it was the whole "mobster concept" of the album but I found it was pretty banging. Standout tracks included the singles Firm Biz and Phone Tap as well as Five Minutes to Flush, Untouchable and the Canibus featured Desperados.

The beats were banging and you can't go wrong with lyrical giants like Nas, AZ and Nature. Foxy Brown is much better than Nicki Minaj in my opinion but...

Anyway, today's sample of the day is Desperados which samples a song called Dune by Senegalese musician, Wasis Diop. Dune is a 1993 song from the soundtrack to a Senegalese movie called Hyenes.

Desperados



Dune

I'm at WhoSampled.com

When I first created this blog, I did it because I loved listening to songs and finding connections to other songs. I wanted to put them on a blog so that others could find these same connections and we could probably discuss them.

Then I found WhoSampled.com, which I think is the best website out of the many that have sample databases. WhoSampled links the connections in much the same way I wanted to have them, allowing for discussions and also allowing you to see other connections such as covers and remixes.

I've been on WhoSampled for over a year now and it's become kind of addicting. I'm one of the top 10 contributors over there and have submitted and discovered lots of great connections.

This is the reason why Sample *Licious has been so quiet lately. You can see my submissions at WhoSampled by checking out my profile. Maybe join up as well.

The Coolie Dance Riddim Inspired by Only the Strong

When I saw Only the Strong back in the early 90s, it introduced me to the Brazilian martial arts culture and music. It was a very enjoyable movie as well as memorable.

The song Paranue as performed in the movie was one of the highlights of the film and although I didn't notice until the other day, was also the inspiration for the 2003 Coolie Dance dancehall riddim produced by "Scatta" Burrell.



The drums, the handclaps, the rhythm...all used on Scatta's instrumental. But the use of Paranue is probably most evident on TOK's Unknown Language where they interpolated the song.

Scarface's Influence on Hip Hop - The World is Yours.

Wow. I just watched  Scarface last night and all I can say is that movie influenced a lot of hip hop.

A lot of the songs in the movie were samples by different hip hop artists including the very familiar opening theme.

Here are some of the gems from Scarface.

The Intro - (at 1:05)



Sampled on Mobb Deep and Nas' It's Mine



The other song I caught right away was Push it to the Limit.



Any hip hop fan would know Rick Ross sampled this on his song with the same title.



Here's one you might not know about. The music that plays when Tony goes to Bolivia the first time.



It was sampled by Immortal Technique on his song Peruvian Cocaine.



There are a lot of other notable influences in the movie. Off the top I can think of:

Jay Z's Reasonable Doubt album

Nas - The World is Yours - Scarface's mantra plus there's a scene in the video where Nas is in the bathtub watching tv.

Belly - the DMX, Nas movie - the scene where Ox was killed in his house.

Vibe cover with 50 cent as Scarface.

...and countless others. Great movie. Great music.

If you love Scarface and love the music inspired by it you're going to love Music Inspired by Scarface which contains music from Mobb Deep, Notorious BIG, Jay Z, Ice Cube and even Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. 

I Wanna Know What Love is - Sampled and Covered

Mariah Carey recently did her version of Foreigner's '80s power ballad I Wanna Know What Love Is. Good cover of a great song. The song can be found on her latest album Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel.





I love the original by Foreigner and even have it in a playlist somewhere. I don't think any cover of this song comes close to the original.



Know what I love most though?

When genres cross. Check under the radar reggae/dancehall artist Terro 3000 sample called In My Life as he remembers a fallen soldier.



Speaking of crossing genres, reggae and fallen soldiers, slain South African artist Lucky Dube also recorded a version of the song in 1997 for his album Taxman.



R.I.P Lucky Dube.

And for the reason I did this post...The Chipmunks covered the song on the soundtrack to their new movie The Squeakquel.

Check out the trailer featuring the original version by Foreigner.