Back in the day, you know, when Al Gore invented the Internet, I spent a hell of a lot of time on the Hieroglyphics message board. Peeps were trading tapes, mixes, CDs, records, you name it. You see, kids, this is how they did it before mp3 blogs. Mix tapes were meticulously recorded then sent out through real, actual mail.
Well, I still have a shit ton (heh, “shit ton”; that’s for Chris) of those mixes – yes, you might say I have tapes ‘n tapes. I’ve not taken the time to sort through and digitize them, though there are some gems in there. Like this track, Golden Brown by Kaleef. This was one of the greatest tracks I received on any mix, and I had (and still have) no clue who this Kaleef character is.
So I was quite thrilled to see the great Analog Giant drop a post with the original track from which Kaleef sampled. The song – also called Golden Brown – was composed by the Stranglers, yet another artist about which I admittedly know nothing.
No matter because this is one of my favorite exercises in listening to music, hip-hop especially: samples, how they’re used and finding the original source material from which the sample derived. I imagine if you’re a DJ or producer, the vast potential of sampling material must be overwhelming. This relatively unknown Kaleef track is probably indicative of the thousands of creative sample uses that go unnoticed.
Kaleef | Golden Brown
The Stranglers | Golden Brown (@ Analog Giant)
Here’s a few pics from Thursday night’s People Under the Stairs show with Psalm One and Time Machine. That was my first time seeing PUtS, and those guys bring serious energy with the good-time vibes.
Thes One and Double K are People Under the Stairs.
Double K rocks his T: “Hip-hop … is not on the radio.”
T
hes One ripped off some kid’s hat for this rap.
Thanks for posting the Kaleef track – I’d never heard that, although Golden Brown is a track that could have been made for sampling.
The Stranglers’ original is very familiar to me – and probably to anyone who grew up in Britain around that time. It was all over the pop charts, tho I’m a bit shocked to find that was 25 years ago. Yeah I feel old now…
Strangler’s track is on the Snatch soundtrack, that’s the first place I heard it. Thanks for the Kaleef track, it’s good to hear!
Dope thanks for sharing Kev.
Hi, i’m looking for Golden brown by Kaleef, it’s really hard to find it. Can you help me please
Kaleef is a 5 piece rap outfit from Manchester, UK. They had a couple o albums out in the early 90’s. Very political stuff in some cases.
When I lived in Manchester learning bass my teacher played guitar on the kaleef version of golden brown. He explained the kaleef version was in 4/4 time and the original stranglers version was in 6/8. He said it was quite hard to transcribe into 4/4. Good track though