Musical synergy works best when you least expect it, offering a sense of surprise and inspiration all at once.
I knew the guys in Vampire Weekend were fans of hip-hop from past interviews, but I’d barely listened to the new album, let alone read the countless articles about it, before digging into Modern Vampires of the City on a vacation last week that required some road-trip material.
And that’s when “Step” stopped me dead in my tracks. The album’s third song stirred my subconscious, gently reminding me of a Souls of Mischief demo from long ago called “Step to My Girl.” The title was an obvious link, not to mention the familiar melody and chorus (you have no idea how much time I spent on the Hieroglyphics message boards back in the day). It all clicked – in one beautiful, mind-blowing moment in the car with my wife somewhere between Louisville and Cincinnati. Did Vampire Weekend really dig into Souls of Mischief demos to construct this ode 20 years after the fact? Was I really this excited about it? Yes and yes.
A Google search turned up my answer (and confirmed that I need to stay on top of music news more often). Singer Ezra Koenig told NPR in May:
“Souls Of Mischief I’ve always loved. I kind of associate them with the first time that I really started become a music fan as a young teenager. This song apparently was recorded around the time of their first album, which was called 93 ’til Infinity, but it never made the record and it floated around as a bootleg for awhile. I only discovered it five or six years ago but it always really stuck with me, especially the chorus. I didn’t know where it came from but they’re kind of like scratching somebody saying, “Every time I see you in the world, you always step to my girl.” Slowly as I listened to this song, I found myself kind of writing this alternate song based on that phrase. Later we found out that that in of itself is a sample from a rapper called YZ. We didn’t know that at the time. This was kind of the inspiration to write this other song that became ‘Step.'”
Even two months before that, in March, Koenig referred to the Souls influence on Twitter: “Who’s gonna draw out the Step family tree? Souls of Mischief (shoutout 2 those legends), of course, but then it gets a lil more complicated.”
Who's gonna draw out the Step family tree? Souls of Mischief (shoutout 2 those legends), of course, but then it gets a lil more complicated
— Ezra Koenig (@arzE) March 19, 2013
Adding to the story line is the fact that Souls of Mischief have embarked on the “Still Infinity” tour (Aug. 14 at Club Red in Tempe) to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of 93 ’til Infinity, a favorite of mine and a downright classic. It’s clear I love when indie rock and hip-hop commingle, and twenty years later, it’s cool to see Souls’ influence at work in a most unexpected way.