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N.W.A. - 8 Ball Remix
The other day I was in an old school state of mind, listening to two classic albums from the 80's: N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton and Sweet Tee's It's Tee Time. After getting through N.W.A.'s gangsta rap masterpiece, I moved on to It's Tee Time and was surprised when I got to the sixth track on the album, It's My Beat. I had heard this song several times as a kid - it was the closest thing Sweet Tee had to a mainstream hit until she reappeared on the scene a decade later with What's Up Star under the name Suga T - but I never recognized it as the source of the "Cold Kickin' Ass" vocal sample from N.W.A.'s 8 Ball Remix (and it's original version, which appeared on NWA and the Posse). Admittedly, 8 Ball wasn't a particularly big hit itself, and I suspect this may be of marginal interest to most of you reading this, but I had always wondered where Dre found that sample. I actually thought he took it from a movie.
Here's the Sweet Tee track, the sample used for 8 Ball comes in at the 1:40 mark:
Sweet Tee and Jazzy Joyce - It's My Beat
(While we're on the subject of Sweet Tee: greatest female emcee ever? Quite possibly.)
While I was at it, I dug up Youtube links for the rest of the samples used in 8 Ball:
Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
Beastie Boys - The New Style
Beastie Boys - (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)
Pointer Sisters - Yes We Can Can (specifically Gaylord Birch's drum solo that comes towards the end)
I couldn't find videos for them on YouTube, but the song also sampled Public Enemy's Too Much Posse and Terminator X Speaks With His Hands. It's surprising to see how many samples Dre and Yella were able to fit onto one song. These days a producer's lucky to have a big enough budget to sample even one song.
For those of you interested, here's a list of all the samples used on the album Straight Outta Compton.
Finally, here's the original version of 8 Ball from NWA and the Posse.
2/03/2007 08:00:01 PM posted by Fresh