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.