Nas' "NY State of Mind"

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And the beat on this track is by one of hip-hop's greatest all-time producers, DJ Premier. Not the first time we've talked about him on the show probably won't be the last. And the sample itself is hypnotic for reasons we're going to delve into. But in part, it's because it contains a note that you rarely heard in music and popular music I should say. At the time, this song came out. Also, this song is a large part why the album got five mics in a magazine called The Source. And for those of you who don't know, you're going to find out a little bit about The Source. And even for those who do know, you're going to find out the story behind him getting five mics in The Source. We've got so much to unpack. We're talking one song and that song is "New York State of Mind" by Nas. Hey, one song listeners. If you love our show, you should check out "Trap it all." The podcast where technology meets culture. Each episode, "Trap it all hosts," and founder Dan Runsie, dicks into the strategy behind the media and technology that drives our attention. You'll hear "Trap it all," explore topics like YouTube's growing influence in music and entertainment. The never-ending saga about TikTok's future and how AI is shaping the future. India is one of the first industries to get disrupted by the tech. It's Travels job to keep you ahead of the latest trends. You can listen to "Trap it all," wherever you get your podcast. That's "Trap it all," T-R-A-P-I-T-A-L. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, D-A-L-A-Rittle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, luxury, AKA the guy who whispers, "Interpolation." And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres, telling you why they deserve one more listen. You'll hear these songs like you've never heard them before, and you can watch one song on YouTube while you're there, please like and subscribe. All right, now I want to set up this episode a little bit differently here. We've been doing this show for a couple of years, and for those of you who've been watching, you might remember this, but for newcomers, check this out. This is a clip from one of our earlier shows where we were discussing a certain song. Our favorite songs that we discovered in 2023, what you got for us? This is an old song. Yeah. These are old songs, but I discovered them this year. I'm going to sort of, again, reveal something somewhat vulnerably. These are a couple songs that a lot of people will know and be like, "You didn't know these songs, but I'm okay with that." Is that your impression of me? I'm so afraid to say it. Say it. Here it comes. Just play it. Oh, God. And then, wait your judges. I'm leaning this show. Yeah. Come on, man. I forgot to put all the songs. I forgot to put the show. You forgot to put the show. Who are those guys, by the way? We look so different already. I can't know all the songs. Listen, I stand by the message, which is that you can't know all the music and to be vulnerable about it is to be open to learning. So here I am. A couple years later, I now know the song for a couple of years, at least I can say. It's not new to me this year, but yeah, I was new at the time. It was under my radar. How do you feel watching that clip? Do you feel as though you were fair to me? I just can't believe that I wore that shirt. So, look at how did you first come across New York State of mind? Honestly, when we were preparing to launch the show, I was reading some really great books to kind of color in gaps in my knowledge. And one of them was can't stop, won't stop. Great book about the early days of my Jeff Chang. I just really wanted to get there as all sorts of names and artists who I'd been aware of in culture, but I didn't know where to place them in my mind chronologically. I hadn't heard all the records. So in the book, they talk about, no, as they talk about this record, I went out and listened to it. And I was like, oh my God, this is an incredible song. Now I understand the sort of mythos behind, you know, Elmatic is the greatest of all time. And maybe this song is the greatest song on Elmatic. So that was the moment. That was the year. That was two years ago. That three years ago now, technically I've known the song for three whole years. You've noted a little bit longer. Is that right, y'all? Maybe 30 years ago. Maybe 30 years ago. When did you first hear the song? Man, I bought this Elmatic day. It came out. I'd heard all the buzz about knives. I was familiar with a song that we're going to talk about a little bit live at the barbecue. And so this was like, this was a big debut album that was coming out. I'd even heard the song half time on the zebrahead soundtrack. I had no idea how much I was going to love it. How long this album is going to stay with me. I was just literally driving out. So I said, well, not too long ago, blasting it like it was brand new, just because it aged so well. The rhymes, the production. We're going to get all that. But I just do remember that when I pressed play on the CD, I heard what would quickly become one of my favorite intros of all time. It's got an Elmatic intro. Let's hear a bit of that intro. This is the Genesis. There ain't nothing else here for you. I want a pretty toned shit, verbal assassin. Yes, for it. Yes. When I was 12, I went. Yeah. Don't pull out and say, man, let's count this one and then that track is so my jam. There's so everything. There's so much going on there. So great. First off, in the background while you hear the snippet from wild style, you know, you hear the trains. I think I like songs that just start with trains like, you know, I want to be adored by the stone roses. Starts with trains. Yeah. You know, and then, and then you also hear in the background a young Nas rapping his, you know, infamous verse, infamous verse from live at the barbecue before it then segues into Nas and AZ and, you know, so his crew talking over subway thing from the movie wild style, which we're going to get into. I mean, like for those of you who don't know, wild styles of film from 1982, the catchers, the essence of those early days of hip hop in the Bronx, so many classic lines. You probably associate with rap albums. You've heard our literally just music samples, I should say movie samples taken from that movie. And Nas talks about how his dad took him to see this movie when he's a kid and it just had a big influence on him. Yeah. Well, I saw a great movie about like hip hop culture, like literally like the four pillars of hip hop at the graffiti, the break dancing, everything. The stick up kids. Stick up kids. He's famously grabbed one of the lines that you're referring to playing three of those murals with some of that ass. Man, I saw your female with them too. What's up with her? I've been hearing that she's been giving that stuff out to all of them graffiti guys. You shut the fuck up, Chico, man, who paint three of those moves with some of that ass. One of my favorite lines is by some guys who they said were actual stick up kids who wanted to be in the film. And they basically made up some slang on the spot. You heard it on the radio, you seen it on a TV show, A to the K, A to the motherfucking scene. You know that they know that they would be spread widely throughout the culture and become a thing. Absolutely. And also part of that track, what's so cool about it is like the music you hear in it, like this sort of this like almost a wonky, funky, like there's something kind of post punk about it. I know about this is that these are kind of iconic early hip-hop breaks, but they're not like breakbeats in the traditional sense that are famously known to be like, yeah, that's a bar from Incredible Bongo band, Apache, et cetera. These were breaks that were created, they were actual, they were, a drummer was playing the beats. So a guy called Lenny Ferraro, who is part of the New York No Wave scene. He was just a drummer and a bunch of like underground bands, Fab5 Freddie and DJ Grand Wizard Theatre gave a bunch of breakbeats or a bunch of songs that they liked the beats of, set him up with a microphone and recorded him playing drums, empty, like to, to nothing at all. That's crazy. He just came up with beats that were inspired by these other songs and then they recorded the rest of the music on top, Kristine from Blondy. Kristine from Blondy, what a cool, so cool and David Harper on bass. All the music in this iconic, seminal, like wild style soundtrack came out of those three dudes, just kind of jamming. I always wonder who does the finger snaps because those finger snaps are so delayed. It's a weird way it drives me nuts, but it's also, like, for person to do a lot. Yeah, they're super wonky and off. Yeah, the claps are a little wonky and off. Dude, I'm sorry, those snaps are like, it's like, wow. And Kristine from Blondy, he's not playing the synthesizer, he's playing his guitar through a synth, like basically, like, pre-mitted, midded is to a synth sound. So he's playing guitar, but you're hearing synth sounds. About 20 years ago, I saw Krist talking in some interview about how excited he was that he got to be a part of this hip hop history. So cool. They didn't know how huge it would be. Yeah. These are now iconic too. I mean, nobody knew how big hip hop was going to be. It's so thought it was going to be a fact. Let's face it. What do you think the significance of calling the song "The Genesis" is? I think they're kind of saying it's the genesis of hip hop, but it's also the genesis of not. as the rapper and I think it's just perfect. - That's so important to point out too, because with sampling and hip hop, like a lot of times the choices, and we're gonna hear that a lot in this song when we get into the stems, the choices of what the samples are, are coming from something that's very personal and has a message in meaning, and a connection for the rapper, the hip hop, or the producer, there's a connection between what they're using and what it means to them. It's significant to them is very meaningful. So there's like a lineage that is connecting the dots between what sampled in the new music. - And by the way, you mentioned lineage, I think that's exactly the effect that ill-matic this album had on everybody. Because if you think about it, notorious B.I.G. is album rated die, kind of starts a very similar way. It talks about like, oh, this one I was born, this one I was a stick up kid, and this is when I decided to get, you know, with this record label and released my album, very similar to Noz's Genesis. - This is my story, and here we go. I'm gonna tell you my story, sit back and listen. - Speaking of the Genesis of Noz, Noz's recording debut was on the main source of song, live at the barbecue, 1991. He was only 18 at the time and got on the track through his connection with large professor who is sort of like this, you know, great producer and also the leader of a group called main source. And large professor produced the track. Large professor was one of Noz's early champions, but after this feature, he wouldn't be the only one. Everyone would be asking about the kid who went by nasty Noz. Let's hear a little bit of Noz's verse from live at the barbecue. ♪ Man, p the stage, I need the microphone split ♪ ♪ Play Mr. Tuffy while I'm on some pretty told shit ♪ ♪ Purple a sass and more architect pleases ♪ ♪ When I was 12, I went to help with nothing Jesus ♪ ♪ Nasty Noz is a man ♪ - That verse so big when it came out. I remember cats trying to break down every single line. Like this is a time I feel like maybe it was the Howard Stern Effect in radio, but like the idea of shock jocks and like being shocking and just trying to like, you know, shock people was like really big. I know it sounds weird to say, but like that was like a thing. And the idea that he would say, when I was 12, I went to help with nothing Jesus. Like it scared people off. Like, you know, like people were like, "Yo, can you believe he said that?" Like I remember as a person who would like rap rhymes. Like I was even scared to rap that stuff. I would be like, "When I was 12, I went to help with. " You know, like I didn't say that shit. - How was it? I mean, explain to me why at the time in 1991, right? This is 1991. Why did it jump out of the speakers? What about it was so different from what you heard before? - Sorry, but I need to be blunt. It's the black community, man. Like, you know, good portion of us concern themselves Christian. I mean, like, you know, I told my friends one time I was agnostic. You would think I said I was a Satanist. You know what I mean? Like that's how, I mean, like it's understood that Jesus is your friend. And I think that in his effort to be shocking, when he said, I'm stuffin' Jesus, like I'm telling you, people heard that line. In fact, I think I mentioned that. - It sounded blasphemous, too. - Oh, by far. - Sacrillage. - By far. Okay. In some ways, like, you know, hip hop is a rebellious form of music. We always thought, oh, those white kids, they listen to rock music. They're Satan worshipers. You know, that was the way to be rebellious in the white community. Being rebellious against Jesus and God was not necessarily a thing in the black community in the same way. It was enough to just be like, yeah, forget these, you know, forget the government, forget the cops, forget the, you know, like that was the rebellion. The rebellion wasn't in the church. - That is such a helpful answer because in 1991, I'm hearing nothing but Satan. But I'm hearing nothing but nothing but Satan. - So is true. The rumors were true. - I, you know, the Aussies. - You know, those white kids were worshipers. - It's so interesting that a line like that did not jump out of the speakers to me for being so transgressive, like you're saying. It wasn't subversive, transgressive. It was something that was like pedestrian to my heavy metal, you know, rattled ears at this thing. Yeah, that's interesting. - By the way, I don't think DJ Premier, the person who ends up working with us famously for the last 30 years, reacted to you differently than the rest of us. I think I saw where he's from Houston, you know, originally. And like, he was just like, we couldn't believe he said that. - You know, so really interesting. - The mission was accomplished. Nas wanted to let everybody know he had arrived on the scene by saying, I mean, like if you go back and listen to the song, there's a lot he says in this verse that is quite edgy. There's also like a weird dichotomy at work here. On one line, he says, kidnap the president's wife without a plan. So like he's clearly like anti the government and establishment. Very next line, he says, and hang more, you know, black eyes than the Ku Klux Klan, which like who side are you on here? Like, you know, you got to realize in 1991, public enemy and Keras won and all the like the very pro black, you know, rappers are still very much in vote. And yet here he seems to be jumping all across, you know, but what it almost heralds is this future, this sort of 90s thing where like, there's gonna be a lot of championing of street culture where there is a lot of black on black crime and he doesn't turn a blind eye to that. Okay. But he's also not like pro Bush administration. You know, so he's carving out a lane that's like a little bit of what came before but a little bit rebelling against him. I don't even know if he's carving out a lane. I'd actually say he's turning a mirror to the sort of mentality, the sort of street mentality that, you know, is a part of where he's being raised. He's being raised in Queens, Bridge, New York, and he's seeing things every day that are by their nature contradictory. You know, you see the people who wear the African medallions and are speaking about black empowerment alongside, you know, for the lack of better terms to stick up kids who are, you know, selling drugs at night on the same bitches in front of his apartment. So he's sort of like trying to show all of it. - Okay. - And I think only Nons could ever be able to say, how did I at that time justify the line about the president and also the line about the Ku Klux Klan? It might be something that, you know, he can address on a future episode of this show. So after this, an A&R by the name of Faith Newman took notice of really one to sign Nons, literally based on this one verse off of the main source album. She's been a year looking for him. I mean, like this is before the internet. - No, never happened to him. - I was serious. - She's been 10 minutes looking for him. - She has to drive around. She has to go like, hey, do you know nasty Nons? Like she has to go places and ask questions. Yes, a whole year goes by. Finally, MC Search. I'll say what are the best white guys in hip hop history? MC Search of the group third base was able to actually introduce her to Nons. So she made some in a 1991 beginning of '92, maybe. And it did not come out until April, 1994. To me, this is what makes this a uniquely 90 story because the record labels aren't waiting for artists to produce their debut masterpiece. - Baguette. - They're given time. - Is this idea that like we're gonna find talent and we're gonna nurture it and then once it's ready, once the incubation period is over, then we're gonna release it. So I will give it to Faith. She's definitely an unsung hero for having the patience to let Nons grow before releasing him onto them. - And what was Nons doing during this time? Is he recording a bunch of. - He's recording other songs. - He released the song Half Time on the Zebra Head soundtrack. And I think part of the delay is in the fact that Nons really wanted to work with large professor. One of my favorite producers of all time, I try to bring him up every episode somehow. But you know, large professor at the time was getting more into production and also at the same time, the main source was in the process of breaking up. So you didn't really have the time to devote to Nons' album. What's interesting about this, and I think we both read an article by New ID this week, which says it's like, oh, this is one of the first albums with multiple producers. It may not have worked out that way. If large professor just sat down and done what the bombs flood did with public enemy or what Pete Rock did with CL Smooth and just produced the whole album. No, large professor was kind of tied up. So Nons is essentially compiling like an album of all the best producers in hip hop. And this is exceedingly rare at the time. I think you and I did some research at some talking. We could only really find the comeback album from "Rundi MC" down with "The King" as being an example of an album with A-list pedigree producers all through the best one. - Yeah, it was more standard. - Prior to this moment that you do a producer, like with one either group of producers, like the bomb squad. - Sure. - Or with just a single producer, but it was sort of an otor vision. It was sort of across the record, there'd be a uniformity or rather a consistency of style that came from the fact that the same team is doing all of it. And I don't know if that was ever a conscious thing that people didn't go against, but the idea of actually expanding your colors and your options and the palette of what the album sounded like. And by the way, doing it more quickly 'cause you're working in parallel was kind of a relatively new idea at the time. - And by the way, I just wanna say, I don't know how conscious it actually was because if you think about it, usually the producer, whether it's MC Search or it's Dr. Dre or it's DJ Premier. - Yeah, why not? - Yeah, that's usually a member of your group. So it would have seemed almost disloyal to be like, hey, you know, Dr. Dre, we think you're great, but we really wanna go get this beat from this other guy over here. The producer was usually a member of the group. So that was almost like-- - The separation of the functions was starting to happen. Now that we take for granted, that producers work with lots of artists and artists work with lots of producers was relatively new in this moment. - Absolutely. Even at the time I remember in the hip-hop community, it was always understood that rappers would occasionally have a cipher. Getting a circle and everybody would spit their best freestyle. Well, this always felt like a producer cipher. I remember people were calling it at that time. They were saying like, yo, he's got a beat from DJ Premier. He's got a large professor beat. He's got LES, who I definitely love. I LES produced one of my favorite songs on this entire album. ♪ The cinematic keeps static like Wolf Fabric ♪ ♪ Pack a formatting to crack your whole cap ♪ ♪ Life's a bitch and then you die ♪ ♪ That's why we get hot ♪ - But also Pete Rock and Q-tip, all giving some of their best material to this artist who they're not technically in the group with. It definitely set off a new thing in hip-hop. One of the tracks that large professor produced for Nas is in Ain't Hard to Tell. It was actually the first single off of the album and it dropped in 1994. It samples Michael Jackson's human nature. Check this out. (upbeat music) - Ain't Ain't Hard to Tell. ♪ I ain't sell, temp the bell ♪ - But Michael's current. - I contacted, I had track client sale. ♪ My mic check is right for depth ♪ - Can I just say one of my favorite elements in that song is to say able to go, "Hi!" And it's been in so many hip-hop. I mean, literally, I think it's in thousands of hip-hop songs. For those who know what I'm talking about, it's this part. (upbeat music) That is taken from a group called Mountain and the name of the song is Long Red. And here's where it comes in. (upbeat music) - It's been sampled so many times. - Yeah, it's one of the classic hip-hop break beats. And what I love is when you're chopping a beat, you know, it's not always gonna fit exactly within the bar, boom, two, three, four. And sometimes you get something that's coming in early on the other side, but when that loops, it becomes this hypnotic kind of unexpected, happy accident. And that's a big part of sampling. What sampling does that, quote unquote, regular musicianship or pre-hip-hop era or pre-sampling musicianship wouldn't have chosen to do is to put something that was accidentally there and leave it. - That's easy. - And then it becomes this hypnotic, again, I keep saying happy accident. But that's part of what makes sampling so cool is when you have these artifacts that weren't intentional, they weren't part of what you were needing. You were needing the kick and the snare and I had. But you had this, that sound. And then it makes it super hypnotic, ultra hypnotic. - I also love the fact that I sit that thing one time and yet now it's been said millions of times. - It's been heard millions of times. Leslie West, I'll bet that was from Mountain, the guitar player. - There you go. - Yeah. - Also, there is an early demo that ain't hard to tell that's out there. It still contains the Michael Jackson sample. Let's hear it, quick. - My God. ♪ It ain't hard to tell ♪ ♪ I yourself don't feel ♪ ♪ The mic comes to contact ♪ ♪ With the doorbell ♪ ♪ Perhaps the end ♪ ♪ Will you tap the wax ♪ - Wow. So many different choices there. Different lyrics. The horn saxophone is doing a lot as opposed to in the version that we love. Holy, it's a very different song. - And just to build on what we were just talking about with the mountain sample, how right? At the end of the drum loop, which is what was required, there was a little thing that they wanted to not use probably, but they kept it in and they're like, oh wait, that's dope. Keep that in. It's in that bar that we're looping. Let's just leave it there. So too, with this combination of samples in there, like I actually would want to sit with that to break down how the sounds relate to each other, like what scales and what notes are being used, 'cause in theory, like literally in music theory theory, you'd probably find some cacophonous moments, but as a listener, you're experiencing something that sounds really interesting and it sounds really different and it sounds unusual and that's what really matters is that you connect with a listener, not get bogged down on, am I allowed to use this note? And if so, must it comport with the harmony in this next section? It's that listening to that just now, both of those samples, I was like, man, that horn doesn't really fit with the baseline, and yet it sounds so cool. - It does so cool. I will say that I think there's something about sampling, whether it's, you know, compromising musically, like, hey, we're gonna leave in that little musical artifact or compromising with the artist. As the story goes, Michael Jackson was only, he only cleared the sample because Nas promised not to curse. We're gonna continue to try and find the source of this, you know, story that's been going around for years. But yeah, I mean, it's very believable because, you know, Michael Jackson being a devoutly religious to hope his witness, I believe. Yeah, he was probably like, hey, you can use this sample, but just keep it clean. I want to play one more track from this album before we get to our star attraction. This is the song The World Is Yours. This one it was produced by Pete Rock, and it's actually the first beat Pete ever played for Nas. Right there on the spot, Nas comes up with a hook. Who's world is this? It tells Pete, I want you to sing it. And man, I think we all benefited from that. Pete was hesitant at first, but Nas was so confident about it that he finally said, all right, imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Jaldemist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Maybe it's Mabelie. Let's hear a snippet of one of my favorite Nas songs The World of Shores. [MUSIC] Can I just say Pete has a way of both producing and rapping and singing off the beat. So the fact that he's a little bit slow on the who's world is like who's world is this? Like it just makes it that much cooler. Also singing on a hip-hop track. Just still wasn't that common, you know what I mean? Like we're still dealing with the fallout for Mimsy Hammer and people say that like what he was making was pop and it wasn't hip-hop. When his bone thugs, when are they around? They come out the, actually they dropped their first single in '94. They came out. Right around now then, it's starting now. And by the way, they're not New Yorkers. I mean, again, this guy and it goes to the fact that like the East Coast felt like they had a really high bar for what hip-hop was being the home of hip-hop. And some could say that they were exclusionary a little bit, but it was not a thing to necessarily come onto a track and say, so it kind of worked for Pete Rock that he sounds like, yeah, I guess I'll say who's world is this? You know, like he's not like anxious. He's not like trying to sell you on the idea. But it's also a little bit Bismarkey, like, you know, if you go further in that direction. [MUSIC] Yeah, Bismarkey's saying because he was in on the joke. One of the reasons why this is one of my favorite nonsense of all times is literally my favorite jazz sample of the '90s, like, you know, you always get on these lists and you always see people, you know, debating music like it's sports, which is stupid. But if you have to rank, and if put on the spot, I always say that this is just by far one of my most mind-blowing samples of the '90s. This is a, let's put a little bit of the song in samples. This is the Ahmad Jamal Trio's "I Love Music." [MUSIC] Whoa. [MUSIC] I mean, genius, yeah. It's not a pure loop. Like, who hears that song and things? Oh, yeah, I'm going to take this and I'm going to take that. It's just so smart. Can I just say, whoever mixed this record, I just love how that piano sounds. Like, there's something so pure in how those notes come off the keys. That's why I was like, "Well, don't cut it off yet. Don't cut it off yet." If you don't know this song, just go out today and find it. Ahmad Jamal Trio's "I Love Music." All right, we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we're going to get into Nas' street poetry. It's peak hip-hop. It's peak production and it's peak sampling. This is peak, this is a peak episode. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. 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And Monarch has been super helpful as I get my money ducks in a row, so to speak. Monarch shows me exactly where my money is going. It helps me redirect it toward what matters most. So I can see myself actually hitting that savings milestone. Instead of just hoping it happens, so set yourself up for financial success in 2026 with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long. Use Code 1 song at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.com with Code 1 song, O-N-E-S-O-N-G. All right, welcome back to one song. Let's get into the stems, Luxury. Let's do it. I think one of the best things about this song is the beat, and you got the drums. All right, what I love about this song is that it's super simple. There's a two-bar loop of the drums. Let's listen to it. That's it. Back to the A, B. Just a little variation in the syncopation. Syncopated snare, a couple syncopated kicks. Boom, boom. Yeah. Boom, cat. Like that to me feels like so 90s boom, back to back. It's so good. Yeah. 85 BPM. It's all you need. You don't need more complexity than that. Yeah. It's beautiful stuff. So let's talk a little bit about where that beat comes from. So the sample source is this song from Cool and the Gains. First live record. Their second record. They did a regular record, like a studio record. two live records in a row. This is the first one, "Live at P.J.'s, 1971, and the song is called "N.T." (audience applauding) Break P, and then listen right here. - Hey, Mama. - You just heard it. - Yeah. I love that sample. It's been using so many samples. I immediately heard "Gangsta Gangsta" by a W.A. (upbeat music) - Mm-hmm, just like we were saying. That becomes a part of what makes it special. We just wanted to beat, oh no, should we take that, oh, no, leave it, it's cool. Especially when it gets repeated because it's like mantra. - For those really paying attention, here's another song that uses that sample. (upbeat music) - So that break beat, we're gonna talk about it in a second, how DJ Premiere used it differently from all the songs he just named. But first, let's give the drummer some, this guy's a sample phantom. We're hearing him throughout this entire song. He's not in the credits. - Is he one of the gang? - He's one of the founding members of "Cool in the Gang". It's George Funky Brown. - There you go, George Funky Brown, salute sir. - That's right, that's right. But the songwriters on "The Cool in the Gang" song do not, he's not listed as a published songwriter of the song, but that is who you're hearing in the beat and in the recording itself. So George Funky Brown, unsung hero, sample phantom, all in one. Now let's talk a little bit about how the transformation went down. So here's the section. Once again, I'll play for you. So you can get your ears ready to listen for just the kick in the snare. I'll start a little early and then I'll point it out. (upbeat music) Kick, snare, and listen for the high hats as I play that section one more time. (upbeat music) Okay, so the chops he made were to take that kick, slow it down from 100 to about 85 BPM and to reduce it in pitch about two whole steps, four half steps, and that sounds like this. So here's before, and here's after. Did the same thing with the snare, again, 100 to 85, and pitched it down two whole steps. So here's the original version in "The Cool in the Gang". And here's the snare. It gives it this heaviness, right? And kind of you long gates it. So I'm pretty sure that he used his NPC to play, but in his own words quote, this is DJ Permere explaining that sometimes he plays it and sometimes he programs it. I tend to program my drums, but a lot of the time I'll turn off the quantization and play it live so it sounds like live drumming. To my ears, throughout the song, this beat is so exact all the way through. Pretty sure he programmed this, but in any case, he definitely changed the pattern of the beat and it sounds like this. And if he did actually perform it, which he may have done, I'm not saying he didn't do it. He might have done it like this. And I'm doing it imperfectly so you can tell that I'm, you know, I'm definitely making the six on purpose. And to appreciate what DJ Permere did that much more. There's so much expert layering and sampling of the song. I'm always in awe of how Vermeer's able to like put these collages. Yeah, these audio collages together. Tell us about the Donald Bird sample. You're absolutely right. It's a Donald Bird sample. The song is called Flight Time from 1973 and let's listen to a little bit before and a little bit after the part that got used. And then again, I'll show you the transformation. I just saw like '70s Copso coated, right? It almost sounds like Broadway by a George Benson. It is George Benson. Little Papa was a Rolling Stone in there too. I can hear that too. Definitely. It feels very 1973, which it was. What you're hearing, I'm pretty sure is Freddie Perrin on synthesizer. I'm pretty sure that's what that high-pitched, very urgent sounding, insistent single note stab. It could be a guitar played by Dean Parks or David Walker. Pretty sure it's the synth though. Freddie Perrin would be the sample Phantom here. So some of the artifacts of the sample are the sound of that kind of airplane noise, that sort of big white noise. Totally. Oh, sound. So listen to that in the beeps. Yeah. You may not have noticed that before, but that remains in Naz's song. [MUSIC PLAYING] That's one of my favorite parts of the song. But now do you hear that white noise? The jet ends and the noise? I thought it was a train. I thought they had taken that train that we heard in the-- you know, the Genesis Subway theme part. Totally. And they just brought it over into this. I thought it was brilliant. This song segues right into that one, right? That train-- that ain't no train. That's a plane. All right, planes and trains. Maybe automobiles come up. We get the whole thing. Every mode of transportation is in theomatic if you just know it all. Absolutely. Here's that loop again, and then I'll show you how it was transformed. This is the Donald Bird FlightTime 1973. [MUSIC PLAYING] So just those first few beeps. And again, this is my speculation. I'm not sure how many of the beeps he used, because there's a few ways you can do this. You can take that loop for an arrow wholesale, and lay it out as it were in his MPC. He might have done that as a loop. Or he might have done what I did a moment ago, which is to chop just one of them. Chop them. Can I pitch to this definitely a chop? Because what I hear is a for on the floor. Beep, beep, beep, beep. And then on the song, it's got a beep, beep, beep, beep. That's exactly right. In the song, it's a clave rhythm. It's beep, or it's virtually in the clave. It's close to being a clave. But there's syncopation in that fourth note. Duh, duh, duh, duh. I think the clave is a freaking-- People don't know they love the clave, but they love it in the clave. It's one of the most important rhythms. You'll find it across the board once you know it's syncopation. Syncopated rhythm. Yeah, we've talked-- the word clave and has come up in like 30 of these episodes, not for no reason, because-- We haven't even done a Calvin Harris episode. I feel like he used the clave all the time, which is-- EDM dance music is all the clave rhythm, totally. Or tracio, as if you will. All this to say that that was transformed, because in the original, it's just d-d-d-d-d-d-d. - Formal form. - The assistant, it's like more it's code or something like that. Yeah. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's literally quarter notes, one, two, three, bar. OK, so that gets transformed into this. [MUSIC PLAYING] Yeah, yeah. You're black as time. That's definitely a clave. Totally. Definitely a clave. And I think he might have played it. [MUSIC PLAYING] Except he took more time to have it not end like mine did. He just time stretched it and did more processing to it. Apologies that the recreations are perfect, but that's the basic idea so you get. [MUSIC PLAYING] Your black is time. I can't even hear that sound without thinking about the lyrics. Coming in. Your black is time, word. It's time, man. Hi, man. I am not going to try and do what Nas did. Straight up the fucking dumbass. That's a wrap. We're trying-- we're both-- I'm trying to be a premiere, you're trying to be Nas. It's key. Hopefully, it's coming across a charting. They're ashamed of themselves right now. They're like, oh, man, they should think of this out. We seem very charming. It's a cherry-mode. The all of them are Nas. Sweet. They think they are and they're not quite getting it. Missed it. Faith Newman, you need to find us in 1993. All right. All right, I didn't see that on the screen. Nailed it. I'm really good at this. One of my favorite details about New York State of mind is how it even came together. Nas said he and premiere didn't start out with a plan. They just got together one afternoon. They dug through some records, vibing together, waiting for something to hit. And in that pile of records, they came across a song by Joe Chambers called "Mine Rain." I just want to say in a time before YouTube being a source of music, so to speak, I searched for years for this song. But this is not an easy record to find. But it's Joe Chambers, "Mine Rain." Let's hear a little bit of that. [MUSIC PLAYING] Right here. That's it. You know what I love? This kind of goes back to Pete Rock's work on the World of Shores. Like, this isn't the beginning of the song. You know, I'm not saying that that's wrong when your sample is at the very beginning of the song. But there's always just something so impressive. When you're like, you're like into the song a little bit. And then there's just this little sneaky part kind of comes out. And then somebody hears that. And they're like, oh, I can go to a whole other thing around that. That gives me chills. That's like, I love hearing the sample when the sample comes in. Sort of like, a person through the door you didn't expect. That was very cinematic. The song and that part of the song, in particular. And to your point, there's as many ways to sample records and to dig through the crates as there are producers. But to your point, it is relatively common, just if you've got a whole stack of records and you're listening through it. You might do some random needle drops. You might start from the beginning. But the fact that they found that portion of the song, with that particular little splash of a piano, because that's part of the loop, whether or not that's an artifact may be lost to time. I know. I think to give them credit, I think that that is absolutely intentional. And they're like, that's the loop. That's the sweet spot. I gotta say, this is one of those times where the sample sounds largely in touch to my untrained ear. It sounds largely in touch to my ears as well. So what you're hearing is literally the piano, I'm calling it a splash, 'cause it feels a little bit like, a little bit of a bring. And then you add the needs of that. I just want to say one more thing about that last note on the piano. It doesn't sound like evil in the original jazz sample, but in the nonse version. Maybe it's just because I know what he's rabbit about. It sounds dark. It sounds like. Totally. The evil's not really what I'm looking for, but it sounds like you're watching a movie. And like, there's like some bad stuff. No, it's a dark sounding note. Let's talk about this. This is an important note. This might be one of the most important notes in the entire song. Okay. So let's talk about it. This note, why does this bass line, first of all, sound like you said dark, maybe exotic? Sinister. Sinister is the word I'm looking for. 100%. It's a great word for it. This is a flat two. I'll play it for you. This is the bass line. And it contains a flat two, which is a note you don't hear very often in popular music. In this moment in 1994, in particular, you hear that sometimes, but not that often. I would say maybe 95% of Western popular music would be using either the major or the minor scales. Maybe one of the varieties, like a mixolydian or adorian, but for the most part, outside of classical music and metal, it's really, it's relatively uncommon. The flat second that I'm referring to is this note, which you're hearing here. And when I say flat second, I mean that we are playing with basically a mode, called the Frigian mode, which means that the second scale degree is a half step up from the first scale degree. So the scale would sound like this. Here's a major scale. And a minor scale would be, but this is Frigian, which is, which we don't hear very often in the canon of popular music. The Frigian mode contains the flat two. It's the scale I displayed for you. And it contains a tritone. And that's important, because what I just played for you with the riff, that's a tritone. No, no, no, right? We've heard tritones on this show several times last year from Lady Gaga to Don Pen, Jimmy Hendrix, Purple Hayes episode. So it's been coming up a lot. It's also in this song because it's part of the scale. So that top part of the riff, we hear a tritone basically throughout this song. So we're getting this devil's inner hole throughout the entirety of the song, because that loop is going through the entire song. Some other examples of songs that are Frigian, just so you'll start to hear like, "Oh, that's what that is." Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit. Okay. Kalice Milk Shade. Montel Jordans, this is how we do it. That's a half step up. That's going from F to F. That's right. So it's F Frigian, because you have that half step, that first, that flat second, Don is the root, flat second, back to the root. And it really, your ears like, "Please take me back home to the root." This is uncomfortable. It's tense for a moment when you go, "Don, don, don." Like that's home base and we're cool. We can chill here for a while. Yeah. Don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don. That's so funny that you bring up. This is how we do it. It famously samples Slick Rick's "A Children's Story." Yeah. And one of the things I always liked about New York State of mind was that it told a story kind of similar, you know, in terms of what happens in the story to a children story, except that Slick Rick's version tells a very sort of like funny silly version of what happens to the kid. Nause is like the 1990s David Fincher version of what happens. You know, like is it much more dark, much more dark, not played for any kind of laughs? And so let's talk about the lyrics of the song because I think that Nause is one of the great storytellers of hip-hop. A lot of rappers have had great moments in storytelling. Obviously, notorious B.I.G. with "I Got a Story to Tell," "Ice Cube," "My Summer Vacation," you know, there's some that always stuck out to me. But this is definitely one where he painted so much imagery and he's so described as positive. Nause said that he wrote this song wanting to give listeners the feeling of New York at nighttime. I actually wore today's sweatshirt. It's John Garloas, "Bizino's Character," from "Do the Right Thing," because New York was coming out of a dark time. You had the crack epidemic that had ravaged their communities. There was so much violence. You see it in movies like "New Jack City" and some of the other films that come out at this time. And this is the New York that I feel like Nause describes. So well, even though he uses the first person, it says "I" and "me" and all this kind of stuff, you never got the sense that it was actually him selling drugs or shooting people in the back. Like, you always got the sense that he is a street poet describing what he has seen. And you really get a sense of that right from the get-go. Let's hear a little bit of his first verse. So now I'm jetting to the building lobby and there was full of children probably couldn't see as high as I be. What you saying? What you saying? What you saying? What you saying? The game ain't the same. Got young and pulling the triggers, bringing fan to the name. Like, there's so much just going on there. You know, like something. I'll never forget the first time we all heard. So I'm jetting through the building lobby and it was full of children probably couldn't see as high as I be. You know, like, you have to have a New York accent at first, you know, first of all, to even pull off that line. But is the line high as I be? As high as I be. As high as I be. Yeah, but to make it rhyme with lobby, you doesn't have to go very far because New Yorkers just do that with their, with their, with their vowels. But like, you can just sort of see, like, how committed he was to telling this story about him on the run, you know, being chased. Let's come to the chorus because I will say as a person who was absolutely into this, like, from day one, the chorus didn't do what I expected the chorus to do. There's no like, the world is yours as a chorus. This song doesn't have a traditional chorus. Yeah, you're right. There's only two verses in the whole song. Verse one is a minute 52. Yeah. Verse two is a minute 30. Two long verses. No features. You got, you got AZ and like, you know, so what you're saying, like you got people joining and things, but like just him, painting these long pictures and yet you're never bored. It's like an amazing movie. But you come to this chorus and there's not a traditional chorus. Can you play us a little bit of the chorus? You want to call your attention to the knocking in the sample? Do you notice that? No, I didn't notice that. And there's a little bit of sort of the horn sound at the end. Right here. I never noticed. All I heard was rock him saying, you are state of mind, but what is that? This is the sample artifact episode. Let's listen to the original song that it is being sampled from, which itself has an embedded sample, which is what you're hearing. So that's a third layer. Here's Mahogany from Eric Ian Rock him 1990. This is where the New York State of mind comes from. It as they were grabbing this sample, they grabbed what was also in the sample. So listen to in that New York state of mind moment, there's two sidesticks, like snare, side sticks, but there's also a horn at the end. Listen again. Right. Those are embedded in the sample. Now what I can take out of the sample with EQ is all the bass stuff. So you hear it like this, but all that high-end stuff, you can't EQ out. And in 1994, the technology was relatively limited, how deeply you could clean up a sample. So now listen back to New York State of mind, the Nas song. And you'll hear that knocking thing in a little bit of the horn. Right here, here's the horn. You hear that? It's really very deep, but definitely those knocks. I would not have noticed those knocks. Isn't that cool? And here's where it comes from. This is embedded from the Al Green sample. I'm glad your mind, 1972, drums by Howard Grimes or Charles Hodges, and now you'll hear them. That's the beat right there. And by the way, this is another one of those classic samples that you've heard in so many and you have songs for the Tori's B.I.G.D.M.C.Light, love that. Yeah, massive attack uses that beat. Yeah, and now you're going to notice that side stick, that little snare tick that they couldn't get out from EQing it in New York State of mind by Nas. Like I said, such a unique song, two verses, painting pictures of life in Queen's Bridge at this time. Let's play the second verse, because this is probably, I think Nas is descriptive best. It also shows how he uses words and the actual vowel sounds to play off one another. Let's start about halfway through verse two. The smooth criminal on beat breaks. Never put me in your box, sip your shit, eat your tapes, the city never sleeps, full of villains that creeps. That's where I learned to do my hustle, had to score for what freaks. He's sampling Rockham, thereby tying a direct link from probably the most revered M.C. Before him, in addition to a Chuck D or K.R.S.1. But on top of that, there's so many lines in here that give me chills. He says, don't put me in your box at the city's tapes. He's talking about, don't put me in your boom box if it eats cassettes. There was a time when we were in the middle of the city. you put a cassette in a boom box and if you push the wrong button, it would spit out all the, it would spit out all the cassette tape. Yeah. What is that tape? Yeah. You know, there's so much. He's got references to beepers. He's an addict for sneakers. Like he's encompassing so much of what hip hop culture was in 94, but he's like flipping it in words. I remember the line. My ramen is a vitamin hell without a capsule. Like he's flipping it in such a unique way. Yeah. And such a good way that like we knew from that start that like he was going to be a force in hip hop and everybody wanted to do music with nods. Well, I don't sleep on and sleep is the, I don't sleep because sleep is the cousin of the cousin of death. He says twice in the song. So it's kind of a frame. It's almost like a pre-chorus. Yeah. Yeah. It's something consistent or a rough frame. And it's such a great line. And it's like I think it comes from something. I mean, it certainly goes back to like Greek mythology or something like that. But I think in the popular parlance, like nods kind of owns that line. Like I think people think of that as being a nods line and a cousin of death. Yeah. I heard the nods did this in one take. He was like, feel a little bit shy about it. I was like, was that good? And Primo's like, bruh. No notes. Imagine setting your makeup. Then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day comfy grip. No tightness. No stickiness. No residue. Just plum. Do we hydrate its skin? That still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Maybelline New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. By the way, at the very end of the song after the rock hymn sample. Yeah. We come to what a lot of its hip-hop hits at the time. Thought should have been the chorus for the whole song. It was like, oh wait, you saved that to the end? I think you know what I'm talking about. Can you play a little bit about it? I guess we'd have to call it the coda of the song. I love it when you know the exact record record track. I know it inside out. Oh, Vince, you knew exactly the motions that match to the sound of the DJ. It couldn't be wrong. That's nasty noise on one of his previous songs. It's from live at the barbie. Let's listen to the origin. What the hell, what's up in Jesus? Nasty noises, a rebel to a miracle cup. Yeah, man, it's just a, it's just an amazing song. Yeah, the record he records scratched it. I don't know if premiere did that. He probably did. Oh, yeah, premiere. On our last episode, we had that quote from him where he's like, actually like being a DJ, more than a producer. That's why he's DJ premiere. Yeah. So he certainly would have scratched that himself. Premiere is one of the great scratch scratching producers. Like, he doesn't, you know, like, he's got the NPC and he's got his turntables. No, just to manny fresh, but it's always funny when people like do like, your girl is my baby mama. Like it's like the same exactly scratch. And by the way, it should be we're talking about lineages in hip hop. It's not just samples, right? It's also references and uses of the phrase such as the title of the song itself, which of course is a Billy Joel song, right? New York State of mind from 1976. And then it goes on to be, I think, alluded to in the chain when Jay-Z and Alicia Keys to Empire State of mind, which always confuses me a little bit. Well, first of all, New York State of mind is spelled out, but this song is N. Y. State of mind. And then we have Empire State of mind. And I definitely can flake the three constantly. Absolutely. All right, Alex, you're now that we've heard the song, tell us how the splits break down. Well, the splits are pretty interesting because we have Nassier Jones at 50%. There you go. Chris E. Martin, aka DJ premiere gets 25%. Do you care to hazard to guess knowing as you know now, all of the different sample sources in the song, who gets the last 25% or how it's allocated? Joe Chambers. Final answer. Final answer. 25% is Eric Barrier and William Griffin, aka Eric and Rock him. Wow, just for the New York State of mind. Just for the New York State of mind. Once again, as we just mentioned, is a Billy Joel, like lyric, right? But it's sampled, so it's their vocals. It's from that recording. But 25% of the publishing to that and then at the other samples, we believe we're all certainly paid just on, you know, as a one-time fee as was for pretty common at the time. So there was no kind of effort to obfuscate anything. But nothing in the publishing. You know what's funny is that they agreed that it was important enough to have Rock him virtually co-signed on Nass as like the next, you know, the next great rapper that they were like, okay, it's worth it. I think it's very intentional. As we were saying before, I can be very intentional the use of samples and interpolations and references for the artist. It's a connection to what they're using. It's an effort to say, hey, this is something that meant something to me. I want to be a part of the lineage and sort of carry it on and bring it to the attention, by the way, of people that may not have known about it. One last thing I want to say about the publishing splits, it does occur to me that in 1994, Eric B. and Rock him would have been pretty hip to how sampling works with regards to publishing. It was still new enough in hip hop that sampling rates and percentages were pretty wild west. Well, a few years out from the Bismarkey decision. And it's quite possible that the jazz cats were happy with the, you know, one time payout of maybe a few grand, which frankly, I think ought to be how things go in general. I think the world would be a better place if sampling were less expensive and more along those lines. Yeah. But I think Eric B and Rock him had obviously had situations where they were forced to pay out. Yeah. So now they sort of create the situation of like, well, look, I've had to pay out. So you're going to be able to. Yeah. Listen, when this album came out, it got a rare five mic rating in the source. I always thought the source was always like a panel of guys in hip hop, who were like, you know, sitting around a table and they were like, gentlemen, we're about to give this album five. Yeah. Yeah. Come to find out that sometimes those ratings were a single person on staff. And sometimes not even an editor. I never knew this. The reviewer of Elmatic for the source, the person who gave it five mics and said hip hop on a new trajectory was a Korean American intern at the Fame magazine. And not just any intern. It was Korean American now journalist, then intern Min-ya-oh, aka Miss Info. Yeah. She was an intern at the source. They thought that she had, she's great, by the way, she and by the way, she and not hosted an incredibly good podcast a number of years ago. Absolutely. I binge listened to every single episode. It was called The Bridge. The Bridge. And it's interviews with like, seminal hip hop, like they were there. But it does blow my mind. I mean, like, she's from Chicago. Okay. So by this point, she's actually a student at Columbia. But I mean, like, the anonymity of who gave that album five mics, I think kind of helped because like hip hop was overwhelmingly male as she's female. Overwhelmingly, I would say the gatekeepers at that time were overwhelmingly black. She's Korean American. And she wasn't even an editor. She was an intern. So it just, it kind of blew my mind to know that she was savvy enough to know that this is special. And it's going to get the, you know, the five mics. That blew my mind. It's proud to Miss Info. Then I guess it's also surprising to me because this is not like some, you know, low level album coming out. And like, oh, let's just give it to the intern. See what she thinks. We know she's got good today. No, this was ill-matic. This was like a huge album that everybody was waiting for. And the fact that they interested it with her kind of, I kind of want to ask them why I'm glad they did. I bet you she had like passion. And maybe the fact of her being younger, these the rest of the board at the source might have been like, man, maybe we're getting out of touch here because we're not necessarily hearing what's coming up on the street. It's like me with my 14 going on 15 year olds. If you like something that I'm like, I'm not sure what this is. I'm going to like. Absolutely. Because he's hearing something that I'm not hearing. By the way, my 16 year olds, one of his favorite rap songs of all time. New York state of mind. So, Deala, what do you think the legacy of NY state of mind is? Like we said, Rock him had been the ultimate MC gold standard up to then along with Harris one. Chuck D. Big daddy came. So many others that I just don't have the time to name right now. And to a degree, Nas is flow represented the best of all of them. You know, he had some of the politics of Chuck D. He obviously had the Rock him in his treat poetry. You know, there's just their elements of everything that came before Nas that Nas presented in a very 90s kind of win. I feel like the history of 90s hip-hop can't be written without mentioning Nas. It's just he's so important, I think, to where where hip-hop went after 1994. What about you Luxury? What do you think the legacy is? I think it's interesting contextually in 1994 to consider that in this moment, to do a whole record with multiple producers. That being a new phenomenon, really kind of I'd forgotten about that. That was like a new choice. And now we take it for granted. Not only do we take it for granted, it is the norm. When you hear Olivia Rodrigo and Dan Nigro work together on the whole record, you're like, wow, that's unusual. Or like when Kanye did a whole album with Pusha T. It's it is it is reversed what it used to be. It used to be unusual for there to be multiple plays. Now that's the producers. It's interesting to think about that and how and then getting down to the song level, just specifically New York State of mind, like we had two greats working together. Like the production, not only is the vocal and the lyrical and the delivery, not only is everything Nas on the top line incredible and legendary and still 32 years later has resonance, but the production is next level and 32 years later. This is not only peak MCing, but it's also peak sampling and producing and all of it coming together in this one. Going back and forth because I, you know, now that we know that it was, you know, Nas was there when they chose that song. Yeah. You can sort of see why he actually is the cohesive part of the album. And let's not forget last but at least the flat two that that note that we that at the time was so strange and jumped out of the record that they chose to sample in that moment. You between, you know, perhaps gin and juice at the same time, but the frigian mode, becoming kind of common in popular music in the next 30 years, a little bit begins around this time. Now, there are examples that people will find of the flat second in the frigian, but not as prominently as it is in this song. And I think it starts to change the listener's ear when it's used this bigly, right? You start to get used to a new mode, a new note. And just for like the really deep music theory and musicology nerds out there, there's a great paper by Aaron Smith at Oberlin. It's actually a video. It's called, quote, "The flat two as hotness in Post-Molennial Pop." When you hear it used in a song, it's often correlating to lyrics and videos for that matter that are about confidence, sexuality, or the intersection of those two things. And so as bunch of examples, Justin Timberlake, "Sexy Back," which I think might be the upper example of that, I'm bringing sexy back and down, down, down, down, down. ♪ I don't know how to act, yeah, I think it's my show ♪ So you hear how it keeps on going that half step up. - Yeah. - And I think this-- - It doesn't resolve. - It doesn't resolve. It does temporarily and then you're right back to it in the next part of the loop. But Beyonce, Rihanna, Shakira, Miley Cyrus, if you seek Amy by Britney Spears, there's a whole bunch of songs that starting around in the early 2000s start to use this previously unusual interval. I think it's in no small part because hip-hop had started to do it a little earlier with this song with Nas, New York State of mind. But also don't forget Snoop Dogg's "Gene and Juice," from also from 1994, is in "Fridgian." ♪ And I'm a sheet, smoke in, smoke in, smoke in, ♪ ♪ Seven, I'm dead and killed ♪ ♪ Layed back with my mind, don't my mind ♪ And then it starts to become really kind of normalized in hip-hop. I get your freak on Tyler, New Magic Wand, Kendrick's Humble, Kendrick's DNA. These are all songs in "Fridgian." It's part of the hip-hop vernacular now, 30 years later. It'll have a flat second and door for it to be in "Fridgian." - This album blazes a lot of trails. As always, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram @Diolo, D-I-A, L-O-L, and on TikTok @DioloRiddle. - And you can find me on Instagram @LUXXURY and on TikTok @LuxuryXX. - And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok @OneSongPodcast for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube. Just search for One Song podcast. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. - Also be sure to check out the One Song Spotify playlist. For all the songs we discuss in our episodes, you can find the link in our episode description. - And if you've made it this far, you're officially a part of the One Song Nation. Show us some love, give us five stars, leave a review, and send this episode to a fellow music fan. It really helps keep the show thriving. Luxury helped me in this thing. - I'm producer DJ, songwriter, musicologist, and every Friday night from 10 p.m. till midnight, KCRW DJ, luxury. - I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ D'Alo Riddle. - And this is One Song. We will see you next time. - This episode was produced by Melissa Dwayneas, our video editor, is Kasey Simonson. Mixing and engineering by Michael Hartman. 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