My last post on sample usage seemed to create some buzz, and my web stats tell me that people were searching for the original track used in Kanye’s Gold Digger. Today’s before and after sample usage comes courtesy of Organized Konfusion’s massively underrated album, Stress: The Extinction Agenda.
The title track Stress takes a fairly high-pitched horn loop from Charles Mingus’ Mingus Fingus No. 2. The loop is the centerpiece of the chorus: “Crush, kill, destroy stress.” Man, this album HAS to be one of the best of the ’90s. If you slept, you need to rewind and pick this up.
My knowledge of Mingus, a bassist, is limited, although I own two CDs, including Mingus Ah Um, which is name-dropped in the Digable Planets song Pacifics: “Checkin’ out some Fromme, some Sartre, Camus/ Mingus’ Ah Um / damn Roach can drum.” Read up on Mingus here.
I think one of the best things about the ’90s era of hip-hop was the sampling of jazz greats. I religiously read liner notes, and it always piqued my curiosity to see who some of my favorite artists were sampling. It inspired me to dig into the music that was inspiring them.
Organized Konfusion | Stress
Charles Mingus | Mingus Fingus No. 2
Yo Kevin — stellar post man — keep that sample theme postage comin’! Great Organized Konfusion track and Mingus — sampled or straight up — is always good in my book.
I agree ’bout early 90’s hip hop & “pullin’ from the jazz stacks” for samples. Also fun to “name that sample” — espec. for those brief spurts of noise that aren’t even credited/cleared. The “Mingus’ Ah Um” reference has always been one of my favorite planets’ lines.
p.s. anyone interested in a good Mingus 101 primer — check hal wilner’s “Weird Nightmare.” It has Chuck D doin’ a great cover of “Gunslingin’ Bird (or, if Charlie Parker was a gunslinger, there’d be a whole lotta dead mf copycats)”