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Lords of the Underground - Chief Rocka
Growing up in Jersey in the early 90's, the Lords of the Underground album Here Come the Lords became an essential part of the soundtrack to my early years. The standout track on the album was undoubtedly Chief Rocka, and I'd estimate that I've heard the song literally thousands of times during my lifetime. On the final verse of the song (at the 2:53 mark in the above video), DoItAll drops the line:
If you got beef you can live with Jimmy Hoffa / Like, 'What goes up, must come down' (but not me clown!)
The way he delivered the line, singing it as much as rapping it, it was clear that it was a reference to some other song. For years, I never knew what song was being referenced, however. Earlier today, I was going through a list of records that had been suggested by the low-bee crowd to use for b-boy breaks, and one of them was a record by Peggy Lee, a Jazz singer who was popular during the '40s and '50s. The song was called Spinning Wheel, and the opening line of the song seemed rather familiar. Check it out:
Spinning Wheel - Peggy Lee (alternate Youtube link if imeem doesn't work for you)
I suspect many of you already know about this record, but it's the first time I heard it. And yes, I realize this is a minor bit of trivia at best, but it's something that's been bugging me since the first time I heard Chief Rocka.
Peggy Lee's had several of her other songs sampled in hip hop, including Dock of the Bay, which was sampled for the Beastie Boys' Ch-Check It Out (though I prefer the Otis Redding version of Dock of the Bay, if only for the fact that it was used in one of my favorite beats of all time, De La's Eye Know).
8/7/2007 08:35:01 PM posted by Fresh