Rihanna's "Umbrella"

One Song Nation, today we're bringing back one of our favorite episodes of the show to talk about the song that turned Robin, Rihanna Fenty, into one of Earth's biggest superstars. Today she has 14 Billboard No. 1s and massively successful beauty and lingerie lines, but before she was a billionaire, she built her first smash hit on top of a garage band drum loop. So today we're going to break down her hit song, Umbrella. Listen to all of its isolated layers, from the drums and synths to Rihanna's gorgeous vocals. You may have heard this song many times before, but never, never quite like this. We're talking one song, and that song is Rihanna's Umbrella. Ella, Ella, Ella. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen, snacks, a stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with Purchase Protection. With protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See paypal.com slash protection terms. Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade Electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes. Luxury, on this show we talk about songs that have a huge cultural impact. We do. But this time, we're talking about a record that had a huge meteorological impact. I have no idea where this is going, but I'm intrigued. Please explain. Luxury, what if I told you that in 2007, when today's song reached number one in the UK, it coincided with, or perhaps triggered, dramatic floods all over Britain? I would say that's definitely not a coincidence, but you know, please explain further. No, that's true, it's true. The days before the release of this song, clear skies, sunshine, after it hit number one, the UK had some of the most dramatic rainfall ever since recorded records began. Okay, that's super crazy. I kid you not. And that's what I'm saying. I mean, like, the British get a lot of rain. They do. Wait, just to clarify, how do we know that this wasn't just a coincidence? You're sure they're connected? Because it wasn't just the UK. The song's rain, you see what I did there? The song's rain at number one in New Zealand also coincided with extreme weather. There was flooding, there was a tornado, and that's not all. Romania also had extreme rainfall and terrible weather while this song topped the chart. They are, I say all this to say, this song had everyone reaching for their umbrella. Nicely tied together there, Diallo. I'm impressed. Well done. That's right. On today's one song, a record that forged a new global pop star and literally changed the weather. It's Rihanna and it's Umbrella, Ella, Ella, eh. All right, I'm actor, writer, director, and amateur meteorologist. Umbrellologist, Diallo Riddle. I think after today, you're a professional. I think you just made the jump. If you can say the word, you are that. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who talks about interpolation on the internet. You didn't have the keyboard today. You know what? I took a cue from your reaction last time. Oh, gosh, no. Oh, now you miss it. Now you miss it. Now I kind of miss it. Okay, well, next time. Stockholm syndrome. Be careful what you wish for. So, Diallo, I think we can both agree that Umbrella is the song that announces Rihanna as a true global pop star. Yeah. But it wasn't her first song. It wasn't her first album. No. But tell us a little bit about her earlier years, those first two albums, and maybe even how you first heard about her. Absolutely. I first heard about Rihanna, because this is during the time when I'm DJing twice a week at Boulevard 3 in Los Angeles. Big nightclub, sometimes 1,500 people through the door, super packed. And when you're DJing that kind of room, you got to hit people with the big hits. Thankfully, the aughts kind of threw out the aughts. Everything. Everything was sort of like a major hit. Like, you always sort of knew, oh, that's a song that's going to hit at midnight. It's going to, you know, everybody's going to hit to the dance floor. And, you know, along comes this song, Ponda Replay, which was by an artist that we hadn't heard of. This was around 2005. And that summer, I want to say, it was pretty much the unexpected hit of the summer. Nice. Like, it definitely ruled the charts, but also the club charts. Come Mr. DJ, it's all about your replay. Come Mr. DJ, won't you turn to me? Come Mr. DJ, won't you turn the music up? Come Mr. So catchy. So catchy, yeah. I love the, like, the dance hall stuff and the early stuff. Okay, so let's talk about that. It had a dance hall vibe. Right. The video had, like, some amazing dancing, which also caught people's eye. And you could hear her patois. And I was like, where is this patois from? So let's back up a little bit and talk about where Rihanna's from. She's from Barbados. Right. Which I think makes her Barbados. Barbadian? Well, I mean, I admit, I just learned this word recently. So I love that you don't call someone from Barbados a Barbadian. What? You do, actually, technically. But if, with the patois, it becomes Bajan. Oh, wow. Because Barbadian, the D becomes Barbajan. And they just, they're called Bajans. And I found this really cool clip where Rihanna has her, like, Barbadian or Bajan patois. And she talks about her pride. Check this out. This is Rihanna speaking at a graduation. I'm not sure if it's good afternoon yet. The world is going to know. But we Bajan to the bone. No matter if it's the accent, the constant. We Bajan to the bone. That's Rihanna at National Independence Honors Day. I love that. Oh, that's so cool. She's so cute. It's so fun to hear her voice, you know, when it's not singing. Right. You know, she's just got charm in those vocal chords. By the way, I think you have an interesting story about why she goes by the name Rihanna. Well, I understand that when she was signed, very young, by the way, she's a teenager, like 15, 16-ish aged teenager. You know, her name is really Robin Rihanna Fenty, as all the big fans know already. But her middle name is Rihanna. Her first name is Robin with a Y. And at the time she was signed, there was already a Robin. That's right. The Dancing on My Own Robin, who we all know and love from Sweden. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, because it's got the Y in there. It's got the Y. There's also Robinette. There's Robinette, but there's no Y in there. There were too many Robins, basically. So she goes by Robin to her friends, apparently. And just to make one of those wonderful connections that we do on the show, T.I. had the same problem because he was known as Tip. Oh, really? And when he got signed, they were like, there's already a Q-Tip. So that's when he went by T.I. A lot of second choices out there. I think Paul McCartney didn't want to play bass either, but I think John beat him to guitar. So he's like, all right, I'll play bass. Happens if you get there second. So Ponda Replay comes out. And the reason Ponda Replay releases a single is when she gets over to the States, there are a lot of people who want to meet with her. And one of those people that she auditions for is Jay-Z. Jay-Z. Brings her into his office. She auditions for him. He's immediately blown away. He tells L.A. Reid, we have to sign her. In fact, he told the employees at Def Jam, do not let her leave the building until we have a contract. And so apparently, she's sitting there for hours. I think I read somewhere where the contract got signed at like 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning. Okay. But this was like a new artist. By the way, just like Beyonce, when she was originally getting sort of shopped, they had two backup singers. Not even. They were sort of like a girl group. Oh, right. They were like Missy Elliott. They were doing like three-part harmony stuff. You're right. Yeah. And I guess people immediately saw like, no, that's the one. This girl's special. This is the one that's really special. So Ponda Replay, really big hit that summer. Really big hit in the clubs where I was playing it. And the second single comes out. Doesn't do as much, but that's fine. It's her first album. And it has that very Bayesian feel, if you want to call it that. Right, right. Next album, she's still playing with that sort of tropical, you know, sound. And the second album has a huge hit on it. And that song is S.O.S. Now, when S.O.S. comes out, this is like 2006. We're in the heart of the decade. And, you know, 80s retro was so big. Like everything from like, I think it started with like The Wedding Singer, but like all the- Oh, you're right. Yeah. Yeah, like all the millennials. Like they're going back to the music of their childhood, the way that like Gen X had gone back to disco. Yeah. So all these 80s songs are coming back. For those who don't hear it, S.O.S. contains a very prominent sample by this group. I feel like those claps are like Pafloffian. Every time I hear it, I feel like I got to- It's a real special clap sound. And that's actually just to be super like musicologically accurate. It's both a sample and an interpolation. Oh, I believe it. Yeah. There's a sample of the loop, of the beat and the bass line at the top. And then the synth is actually replaying the dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. It sounds like throatier. What is that? It feels- It's a little grittier. A little more gritty. Yeah. It's got some more texture. J.R. Rodham is the producer. Co-wrote it with Evan Bogart, who is the son of- I didn't know J.R. Rodham did that. J.R. Rodham had a- A run. He had a run. And it was his choice to pick up that sample. And one thing, I heard Evan Bogart, who, by the way, is the son of Casablanca Records. I didn't know that. How many Bogarts in this business could there be? There's two that are related, at least. I heard him give a talk about this song. And one thing I was going to ask you about, actually, is he mentions that at the time this song came out, there was something, the BPM was much faster than hip-hop days were used to. I was going to ask you about your experience, because he mentioned this is much faster than people were used to. This is 137. Okay. This is like a no-man's land in some ways. in some ways, in hip-hop. - 'Cause even halftime, that's like super slow at 69 or whatever that would be. probably around like uh 69 yeah it's like 68.5 you can go half time at 69 you can always go half time that's like reggae tempo and by the way by 2010 i'd say once drake and me goes on a bunch of there are a lot of songs at 65 you know that you could blend with at this time you gotta realize missy elliott ludicrous ti like this is a time when everybody's having fun i would say between 98 bpm and maybe topping out about 120 right so like this you can't get this song is in a weird yeah you can't get it by going half time to 69 and you're speeding everything up if you're going to 130 how ironic that we were talking just this morning just to get really nerdy about the math of it if you play a song that is three quarters the time of another song they actually can line up in a weird time but you gotta do the math in your head you gotta line it up really gotta be feeling it and yeah there were times when i literally had to stop the music and then go to sos because sos was a big hit in the clubs but it was one or the other but yeah but it was it was a really it was it was a really big hit in the clubs it was a really big hit in the clubs but it was a really big hit in the clubs but it was a really big hit in the clubs but it was a really big hit in the clubs send something into a reverb cloud for a minute and then bring something in there's all ways you can do it but that's that's a dj challenge that's how i say d d you know drummers and people who are really good at math make great djs you know and i don't think the two are mutually self-exclusive obviously by the way uh one of the reasons we even do this podcast was you did a tiktok where you talked about tainted love yeah and i was just like i wonder if he's gonna bring up gloria jones you know i was like prepared to get in your comments and hate and then of course you did not let me down i'm a northern soul fan and a mark boland fan oh by the way we've got to do a northern soul episode and we got to do a t-rex episode oh my gosh absolutely yeah uh tainted love by soft cell is a cover of this song by gloria jones i mean give it up to soft cell they threw in the claps you know they did they kept it it was always like like gloria jones does not have claps there yeah soft cell does they slow the tempo down a little bit though the gloria jones is much faster oh absolutely i mean like you you feel the ennui uh in soft cells tainted love and then yeah yeah where did my where did our love go you know when it comes in with that part at the end of their version uh it's just transcendent gloria jones is a wonderful singer um she as i mentioned before she she was married to mark boland from t-rex unfortunately was driving the car that crashed when he when he died a very tragic story but um the gloria jones version is from 1965 it was not a hit at the time it was actually a flop the reason why mark allman knows about this track is because there's this movement in the early 70s in england called northern soul where a small group of djs picked up these obscure american mid-60s r&b and soul records these 45s is actually um kind of an accident of history that just this one british dj goes to america and buys a bunch of records from someone who died and um it these are records that were never hits but they sound like they could have been hit yeah like if they had been signed to motown they might have been these would be in the canon yeah so it turns out that mark almond by the way different mark with the same spelling with the c is a coat check boy at one of these northern soul nights in england in the late 70s which is where he hears the original gloria jones version oh wow that's so cool yeah pretty cool i love that i love that you know i did not to not to bring it always back to you know some of my jobs but some of the best djs i hired while i was working at the standard hotels were not people who came into the standard hotel as as djs they were like the people who worked at the front desk that's interesting they were the sometimes the models who were in the boxed installments of their night tonight they're kind of picking up on what works they were picking up and they're like hey you know could i ever audition to be a dj here and sometimes they would have amazing taste in music and sort of like the coat check guy so interesting they ended up creating uh amazing careers in music well that's kind of a thread on this show that i really love is like the fact of like you can be in your bedroom and kind of make music and sort of guess what people's tastes will be or if you're a dj you see firsthand what people's people are responding to the reaction so it's a really it can be a different way of music making and i saw the reaction firsthand i mean rihanna she was killing it like her songs once sos was out and like a whole new generation of people were dancing to it i was like oh she's she's one of the challengers to the beyonce throne and there were a lot of people uh who were going for that throne in this period you got to realize like beyonce is huge but not so huge that there aren't like imitators and other people who want you know that kind of pop success the same way like the beatles spawned a lot of people who were kind of like the beatles but a little bit different invasion sure during this time beyonce uh you know during this part of beyonce's reign you've got rihanna coming up and there's some who like you know people forget that they were almost at that level there was uh amory who had the song just one thing because i'm loving this sample let it go let it go by the way one thing fun fact produced by rich harrison the same guy who produced oh my god crazy in love because that's what i was hearing in my head i'm like oh that's a rich harrison i feel like in the mid odds he could do no wrong he did crazy in love yeah he did amory one thing he did the jennifer lopez song get right okay and all these songs notably had like that live drummer right feel to them but there's a specific type of break that he's going for too because he's playing on the ride cymbal and it's kind of like an almost like afro cuban beat it's not like a straight eighth beat yeah and that is that's a by the way we've talked about the meters on the show bunch that is a zigaboo modalista beat so he's sampling on that track we just heard the sample of oh calcutta from the first meters record 1969 this episode is brought to you by paypal you know how a mom's bag has everything sunscreen snacks a stapler the new paypal app is like that but for your money shop pay manage your account and earn rewards all in one place and with purchase protection on eligible items biometric security and pass keys you're protected at every step download the new paypal app to get started see paypal.com protection terms propel fitness water with gatorade electrolytes zero sugar and vitamins propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self what propels you propel with gatorade electrolytes i you know my dream i have some stems that i don't have and on the dream category i would love stems from the meters one day so we can do a proper meter dude every time we do this show i think of at least one song i'm like oh luxury please find me those stems yeah because i realize i really want the dream stem list is a very long one gotta get some abba gotta get some elo and don't forget about sierra she had a lot of hits and we all thought that maybe she was gonna take the throne so you can see that like there are a lot of people who are trying to be the rmb diva with the major major pop hits but at the end of the day rihanna is going to do all of that and so much more it's i was shocked when we were researching for this episode rihanna is the number two number two number two female artists of all time in terms of record sales and streams that is number two surprising yeah number one uh apparently according to our research it's actually still madonna but taylor yeah and mariah and beyonce are all right there you know nipping at her heels but rihanna's number two i would not have guessed that that's incredible i would have guessed maybe taylor or beyonce neck and neck for number one me too yeah so luxury we're so excited to have the stems and all the elas and the a's but this is gonna be a lot of fun and we're gonna have a lot of fun and we're gonna have a lot of fun but this song has a really fascinating genesis that might surprise some people talk to us about how this song gets made all right let's talk about how the song happened this is one of those songs which is just almost a magical story of like it came together so quickly that i think the songwriters themselves were surprised that they had just done this right in front of their very eyes and ears it happens in atlanta this is a group of everything good happens in atlanta let's be clear the the producer team of tricky in the dream that's christopher stewart aka tricky terry snatch aka the dream and also their third member together they comprise red zone the production team and that's kook harrell and he's an important part of this story too he's tricky's cousin by the way um they are in business they are making a lot of commercial music and jingles and the occasional pop song they have not had any hits and they have the dream he hasn't gone solo so to speak yet i take it i take it back together they have not had any hits as a production team separately um the dream had co-written me again and they have not had any hits as a production team yet they have not had any hits as a production team yet they have not had any hits as a production team yet they have not had any hits as a production team yet they have not had any hits as a production team So Cooke Harrell starts playing around in Logic, and he finds this loop. So that is just an out-of-the-box loop. And it's so recognizable. And I have a question, as somebody who doesn't know this stuff as well as you. Is there an actual drummer who records that, and then what he records gets put into Logic? Most, likely. That sounds very much like a live drummer who probably made. So sample CDs we've talked about on this show. Before there was Splice, there's always been this kind of alternative to sampling from records because in the early 80s or so, there was this phenomenon of sampling arises out of cutting records and the phenomenon of being sued for it also arises. So at some point in the late 80s, early 90s. Now, I want to give a shout out to Breakbeat Lou. I know he watches this show. He puts together some of the early Breakbeat records where as a producer, you can use the illegal samples, but there's a legal form that starts to come, which is sample CDs. These are pre-cleared. Very cheap to clear. Yeah. It's usually a drummer will go in maybe for the day and just make a whole bunch of beats and then sell them to the company or is part of the company. And then anyone can use these beats like the one we just heard, royalty free. It's free to release music using it. And all you had to do is pay for it. Oh, wow. Pay for that sample CD. That's what this is. And in the 2000s, when Apple comes out with the Logic program and GarageBand, these are the two. If you have an Apple computer, you probably have GarageBand, which is basically. One of the first things you delete when you have not enough memory. It's like four gigs. It's too big. Part of why it's so big is because these samples are in it. You buy it and it comes with a sample library. So you can just get started right away. He was playing around as the story goes with his new copy of Logic. Some people have said it's GarageBand is, I think, available in GarageBand. For the record, Kukurel himself says, no, I was playing around in Logic and I heard this beat. And from the other room, Tricky apparently goes, wait, what's that? He's like, hey, what's up, cousin? What you playing? Yeah, he stops in his tracks and he sits down and starts playing some chords. And he starts playing a bass line. And then in the other room, the Dream comes in and he hears what the two guys are doing. And he's like, wait a second. And he has an idea pop in his head. He's like, turn on the mic. Turn on the mic. So the Dream, and this would actually. The Dream is more of like the guy who writes the lyrics and writes the song part of it. In this production team, from my understanding, Tricky is more of what we would call the track guy. In songwriting circles, it's usually one person who's focusing on the music. The other person is focusing on the lyrics and melody. In practice, there's a lot of mixing and matching. Someone will have an idea for a chorus, like melody that may technically not be the singer. For all we know, Tricky was like, hey, man, come grab your umbrella. We don't know what was said. It could be. That could be. Because it rains a lot in Atlanta. It could have been a rainy day. I grew up there. It was wintertime. It was January-ish. There you go. So he runs into the studio. He says, in his telling, that umbrella popped in his head. In about 25 minutes, they had just pieced together what is the demo, which I'll play for you in a minute. It came together that quickly. And it's just because they were all just early to the studio and listening to each other almost accidentally play these things, just sort of experimenting. So the Dream goes to the vocal booth. Apparently, he freestyles under my umbrella, including the Ella's part. From, quote unquote, from beginning to end, exactly as you hear it today. Here's a couple more quotes from how it came together like a dream. Because this is clearly like a moment you never forget in your life when your first career-making hit just happens out of the blue. It began like a rap freestyle, and it just never stopped pouring, metaphor after metaphor. I was in a zone and in a feeling that wasn't going to end until I finished what I had to say. The first verse was written in 60 seconds. Then we had to grow to the hook. Tricky would put the next chord on there, and I love slowing it down and just picturing the scene. So he had that first verse. The Dream had that first verse in the first minute. It just umbrella, metaphor, metaphor. And then they sort of stepped back and thought, okay, what's the hook? Where are we going to take this in the chorus? So Tricky put the next chords there. He put some new stuff on the phantom, I think was the keyboard he's playing. And that prompted the Dream to have the idea to sing, when the sun shines, we'll shine together. I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. I was getting goosebumps. And with that, let's listen to the demo. Let's hear this demo. I've never heard this in life. I can't wait to hear it. Dude, you heard it here first. The demo for Umbrella featuring The Dream. Man, that sounds so good. And by the way, so complete. So complete. That's an important thing about this song is what that demo we just heard that came together so quickly. Not only is the vocal and the lyrics and the Ella and all the melodies. And by the way, the A. I mean, you forget that when Rihanna first comes out, her going, eh. She's going to use that on a couple of songs. It's very distinctively her. It's the same way the Beatles used to always do, whoo, at the end. It was like a signature thing. In addition to all the vocal stuff, as you pointed out, being right there in the demo, the music you just heard is essentially the same on the final version. When we get into the stems, you'll recognize from the song. And that's what we've been hearing for 15 years. And also that demo we just heard, they didn't really change very much. No, I heard the whole song. The keys sound a little bit different, but it's the song. They mixed it differently, obviously. I mean, it got a little tighter. They chopped it down so it's a little shorter. But essentially, they had the song in two hours, which is insane. So what's clear from that story is that this song was not written for Rihanna, even though it's got so many signature things that we associate with Rihanna. Yeah, they were not thinking of Rihanna. She wasn't a huge star. They were aiming high, right? They wanted to get it to the biggest. Tell us who they had in mind for this song. Tell us some of the people that they pitched it to. Let's hear about this song's path to Rihanna. Absolutely. Well, just backing up a second, I'll just remind our longtime listeners may remember me talking about how my first job in Hollywood when I came to LA was I was one of the people like these guys trying to write songs that would be eventually used by a pop star. Absolutely. That was the job. The job description is you go in every day and you write songs and you pitch it. And you hope that at the time it would have been. Katy Perry. Katy Perry, that's right. We'll use it. We'll use it on their. And that's how you make your money. That's how you make your living. So they're aiming high on day one. Between the three of them, their big music industry success so far is Me Against the Music, which The Dream co-wrote for Britney Spears a few years earlier. Yeah, totally. So their first thought is, let's get this to Britney right away. That can be our meal ticket because we know this song is special. Britney, this could have been big. Could have been big. Not the first time, not the last time she'll turn down a huge hit. So it's the biggest artist they knew because they'd worked on Me Against the Music, together. What they said at the time was Britney was starting work on her new album and her personal life was a little out of control. I'll just leave that there. We thought, let's save our friend. Let's give her a record. So in their mind, they were like, we've got this huge song. She's a huge star. She needs a huge hit. Yeah, this was a tumultuous time in her career. So they're like, hey, let's get her back on track. This could be a win-win-win for everybody. So apparently they send it over and according to legend, either Jive passes right away or she never really hears it to begin with. But they get the word back that it's not going. So they're like, what are we going to do? Meanwhile, over in the corner at Red Zone, apparently, was this gentleman called Teo Cruz, who himself had a hit, Dynamite. Oh, trust me. That was another big club hit. He's like, I love this song, guys. Can I do it? To this day, it gets spun at wedding receptions. It is a huge hit. Shout out to my friend, Bonnie McKee, who helped co-write that song. Oh, there you go. Yeah. And he does a demo, which I don't have a copy of. And his record company didn't think it was a hit and they didn't put it out either. So that's two passes already. They said no to Teo? Mm-mm. Two no's. Not in 2007, they don't. Two no's. And we're not done with the no's. We got one more no. It's Grammy season. So they're like, let's get it to Mary. Mary J. Blige in this moment in 2007 is. Now that I can see. I mean, there's definitely a sort of like a Britney Spears version of Umbrella that I could envision. Oh, you can envision it? Yeah, yeah. But Mary J., like, I could see Mary killing this song. What happened with Mary? They tried to. So it's Grammy season. She's nominated for eight awards. So she is definitely a get. She's like, if they can get her to sing it, it's a smash. Oh, my gosh. But the same day, they also sent the demo to L.A. Reid at Def Jam, who had two albums in, but still kind of up-and-coming artists in Rihanna. Uh-huh. The same day, it's sent to both places. And L.A. Reid kind of gets back to them first, saying, I want this for Rihanna. And meanwhile, they're like, Rihanna, we know about those two records. She's not that big of a star. We still want Mary J. They're in a position of like, oh, damn, what do we do? Yeah. And there's a bidding war that starts to heat up. Really? And L.A. Reid's people are calling them constantly. There's this two or three day period where they're back and forth. And L.A. Reid just really wants this. But they really want Mary J. Because Mary J. is the proven, she's up for eight Grammys. Yeah. She's the proven hit maker. So they, at the last minute, L.A. makes them an offer they can't refuse. Sounds a little bit like Jay-Z making Rihanna wrong. Yeah, I was going to say, L.A. Reid clearly, I mean, like, you know, without getting into the man's whole history, you got to give it up for his creative instincts in terms of artists and songs. He's right. He matched the right song with the right artist. It goes out to Rihanna. She's stoked. She records it within a couple of days. And that's what you hear on the final version. Wow. It all came together that quickly. That's an incredible story how this song ends up being a Rihanna song. I love those stories. Like, I think we call them what ifs. Like, they're like these pop stories about songs getting passed around. And then eventually somebody gets in. You're like, oh, what can I mean? Like, I immediately think of from this era, Paris Hilton was actually supposed to have the song, Don't Ya. You know, don't you wish your girl was hot like me. Paris Hilton was hot at the time. Right. So that's why that word is in there. No, it actually leads to some certain lyrics being sort of like remnants of who it was meant for. Right. Just recently found out on Instagram. I don't remember who posted about this, but Notorious B.I.G., they wanted Notorious B.I.G. to do doing it, doing it, and doing it, and doing it well. And eventually it ended up being the big hit for LL Cool J. But that is the reason, because they were shopping it to B.I.G., that's the reason you hear, go Brooklyn, go Brooklyn. I mean, LL Cool J is not from Brooklyn. And I remember when the song came out, they were like, why does it say go Brooklyn on an LL Cool J? LL song he's from Queens he even had to address it in the chorus he's like you know I'm representing Queens she was raised out in Brooklyn you know like it's funny to see how certain songs maybe one that's a good adjustment that's a good adjustment okay this I just gotta say that reminds me you know the story of Rapper's Delight how like okay so Sylvia Robinson finds three guys at like a pizza parlor they're like hey you guys want to rap you could be rappers one of them is this guy's name he goes by Big Bang Hank on the song yeah and he didn't have any raps so he asked his buddy Grandmaster Kaz he's like I'm gonna go rap on a song by the way don't forget in 1979 there are no songs with raps on them no no no so no one has any thought about what this means to go rap on a song so Grandmaster Kaz is like yeah take my lyric book so it goes in the studio Big Bang Hank if you listen to Rapper's Delight you'll hear him say he'll spell out he says check it out out of the C-A-S yeah like he spells out Casanova Fly which is Grandmaster Kaz's full like name he doesn't even change it no he just literally lifted that lyric and then Grandmaster Kaz is like what was you know next day it's on the radio he's like what the hell was I thinking this other guy is saying they're me and not even so not even realizing that he should have done a Brooklyn Queens transition like LL Cool J did this is a little bit of a weird story but in the first season of Miami Vice there's a character played by the late actor Charles Barnett he's supposed to be like this street informant okay and at the end of the episode when he's driving off in a car he starts rapping Rapper's Delight and he gets out a full bar of Rapper's Delight while Crockett and Tubbs are waving bye to him okay and I think the only reason that stayed in there was because nobody at NBC I think they thought he was making that stuff up on the fly it's a really it's like a season one I think they thought he was making it up and nobody knew about Rapper's Delight nobody paid Sylvia Robinson yeah I'm sure her enforcers are on that one now oh shoot oh you know like if we just snitched on Miami Vice I apologize and Sylvia Robinson NBC Universal don't hate me by the way there are a couple of these that I think are really missed opportunities I heard that Meatloaf was originally supposed to sing uh Total Eclipse of the Heart oh my god that makes so much sense it's such a Meatloaf song that's a Jim Steinman rock opera and uh and we're all poor for that not having happened but it kind of works perfectly you know turn around bright eyes absolutely after the break shifts in the barometric pressure precipitation and a downpour of stems yeah we're gonna just keep this analogy going when we come back you will hear the stems of Rihanna's umbrella this episode is brought to you by PayPal you know how a mom's bag has everything sunscreen snacks a stapler the new PayPal app is like that but for your money shop pay manage your account and earn rewards all in one place and with purchase protection on eligible items biometric security and pass keys you're protected at every step download the new PayPal app to get started see paypal.com slash protection terms propel fitness water with Gatorade electrolytes zero sugar and vitamins propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self what propels you propel with Gatorade electrolytes welcome back to one song all right luxury time for the stems where do you want to start all right let's start with the drums and by the way this is a song that comes out March 29th 2007 just two and a half months after what we're about to hear got made so we already played for you that drum loop in addition to the apple vintage funk kit 03 which is the name of that loop which I'll play for you again they added just a little bit more on the kick and clap and hat side I'll play that for you now here's just the regular beat that comes when you buy a mac you get this beat and then I'll add in the extra kicks and claps so you can hear how they come in starting with just the beat these kicks and some claps hear that little high-end thing I'll just play that clap for you by itself you can hear what it sounds like here's the kicks and claps they added and with the beat it sounds like this and then there's a little open hi-hat that's really light in the mix you can barely make it out but it sounds like this just quarter notes and then when you put it all together and that is the entire duration of the song you're just hearing that pretty much the entire song it's so good it's so good you don't need to mess with it you know the fact that it went from demo to the radio as fast as it did speaks to the music you can end up overthinking this stuff guys like sometimes sometimes that first thing is good where it is and that's the value of having you know some other objective ears in the room yeah that three-person team to be able to say hey no no don't mess with it this is great that's when you need somebody with the creative taste of an LA re to just say you know what this is good let's just give this to Rihanna and let's record it yeah and you know what when we get into the synths which is coming up next you'll hear all kinds of little imperfections and glitches to my ears and I'll play it for you in a second to my ears as a maker of music and a maker of many demos um I can hear how this might have been literally the first pass because he's sort of playing with some ideas and then you don't hear them again but those are all in the final mix too it'll make sense when I play it for you in a second let's start with in the synths and this is just a little arpeggio that goes throughout the entire song it's a four bar loop and you'll hear it a lot in the song and it sounds like this they're just cycling through those two chords it's got a long delay on it I love it really simple stuff and if you like simple things you hear throughout the song you'll love this simple thing this is another just three note Loop that goes through the whole song and I'll play that with the other one foreign and with the beats sounds like this and we got a couple more synths in the mix because we need a little bass content uh the real bass itself doesn't really come in until like 30 seconds-ish in when you get this oh but by the way as a DJ I know exactly what you're about to bring in okay because you feel it like when the speakers are loud yeah you feel this extra bass coming let's hear it yeah there's two moments where it's like kind of a build up so you get a little preview of it at the end of the verse and it sounds like this just this little one note it's really dirty though nasty just that one bass note three four technically it's a whole note the entire bar and I'll play that for you now in the mix with the other synths and that plus the beat is all you're hearing when Rihanna comes in so minimal she's singing over this but then to your point in the chorus we get this technically sorry technically that's a whole note before that's a whole note that's a whole I was gonna say I think the other one was like a quarter note I misspoke it's the other was like was like maybe even an eighth note it just it's the only thing through the entire bar then you get the proper whole note in the chorus and that is mixed with another synth that enters in the chorus only which sounds like this including that little rare one together with all the synths together with the beats and here's the Ella part exactly yeah it's what you drop out that makes a big difference by the way who knew that the instrumental and basically the keys of umbrella could be so Gary Newman yeah like it sounds like all my friends electric which gets a lot of shout outs on this show but if you just hear those keys by themselves it kind of sounds like the guy who made I get in my car like it just sounds like that that's a great comparison I love that apparently that's a that's the Roland Phantom f6 according to what I've read and that's going right into logic um and a lot of what I'm hearing is a first time maybe a second time performance because there's lots of little moments that aren't quite perfect they're not quite they're not gridded they're not like being programmed they are performed by a person and um yeah they have little human touches that are imperfect I'll play a few more of those moments for you now all right here's one more synth this is called fuzz bass this is in the second verse it comes in and I'll add some more parts you can hear the context that little moment right there is what I was referring to it's like he just kind of played that in the moment and never does it again it's almost a mistake but it's just like no let's keep that I'll play it again this is there's something like very Atlanta does new wave music about this song that I think is very cool you you recognize you identify with it I do man because even though it sounds like new wave I can't help but sort of do my Atlanta dance to it. Not that this is an Atlanta dance, but I feel the groove. Yeah. It's funny you said that about Gary Neumann, too, because Gary Neumann tracks don't have drum machines. There's a live drummer. Oh, wow. And this beat sounds a little bit like what could have been a Gary Neumann beat. That's a really good call. Gary was sleeping. And then in the bridge, we have this beautiful little piano part, which I will play for you now, isolated. This sounds like an entirely different song. It is the classic bridge, which often sounds dropped in from another song. Oh, this is the – okay. Now I – until you said the bridge, I was like, what part of this – Out of context, it does sound like – you're right. It sounds like a totally different song. When you don't hear the vocal coming out of the chorus into this, and you're out of the context, you're like, what just happened? We're in a new section altogether. Like, you know, immediately my brain starts saying, like, ooh, we should write a song that sounds like this. But then you're like, oh, it's the bridge. And I'm like, oh, yeah, this is the bridge. Yeah, in classic songwriting, like when you're writing a song, the bridge is often the last thing you do because you start with whatever you start with, and then you've got to – if it was the hook, you've got to write the verse. If it was the verse, you've got to write the hook. Writing the second verse is always usually one of the hardest things to do. And then the bridge, which is the goal with the bridge, is to go somewhere different so you can come back from that place. What you're saying about the bridge makes sense to me. Why do you think the second verse is so important? It's so hard to write. Second verse is often hard. You mean, like, lyrically? Lyrically, you're trying to find the next part of the story. And it just so happens that you – this is, by the way, my own experience. Clearly, I don't speak for everybody. This is where we get in your head. Yeah, yeah. I think that the second verse sometimes you can get tripped up on. What we have is working perfectly. You almost don't want to break it. The story flow from the verse into the chorus is usually the genesis of the idea. And then you've got to decide where the story goes from there. And then the second verse, you know, is there some sort of conclusion? Also, are we getting into the bridge from the verse? Like, all of the pieces fit together like a puzzle. And it's the puzzle that you're determining in real time. What is it going to look like at the end of the day? I'll say right in the second verse for some of the Sherman songs was, like, how can we keep whatever sort of, like, joke – we didn't do jokey songs. I think we did songs really well. But, like, how do we keep the humor of this thing going without it starting to feel like an eight-minute sketch built around one, joke. There you go. And I think that that's, but also that's why story comes into play because I think about, for some reason, the first song that pops in my head is Copacabana. Like, no, third verse is when, you know, it's now a disco. Right. You know, and she lost her lover and she lost her mind. So if you have a story that you're telling, you know, that rule of three actually helps you write the verse. And also I'm coming from the perspective, I'm mostly a track maker and lyrics are secondary to me. I think if you're a pure, pure, in quotes, like lyricist first, then you probably are thinking storytelling as a core part of what your job is, along with the melodic delivery of that song. I myself struggle sometimes with what the storytelling is. Yeah. Because I do think musically first and lyrically secondly. So anyway, just sort of an interesting thing. That is interesting. Yeah. What's the next demo you have for us? There's like some little fun things. We're in the mood for little fun things. If you're in the mood for little fun things, after the bridge, there is a little section where it's slight variations on what you've been hearing. It's just a reversal of the chords. The verse chords, just to get musicological for a second, are four, five, three, six. And then the chorus, the chords are four, one, five, six. For a moment after the bridge, you have those verse chords in the chorus. And it sounds like this. But just for a moment. Just for a moment. Just for variation. Yeah. Five, three, minor three. Minor six. Lose. Lose. So that's happening. That's just a little variation. And then finally, little fun things on the synths. Again, this is tricky playing the track all the way through, like before there is a lyric, because this is happening in real time. They're all working together. And he's just having little fun bits at the end. And in the context, that's this. ♪ Rainin', rainin' ♪ ♪ Oh yeah, it's rainin', rainin' ♪ Woo! Wait, I like that note. What was that note that came in out of nowhere? What was that little note at the end? Little chord change that happens right there. Play that, just that very end again. A little variation right there. A little melody. I need a 2025 remix now. It's cool, right? I have never heard that little change in there. I love that. That's how they make the variation so that across the song, where it's so loopy and similar, it's just little changes to vary it up. Speaking of loopy, I feel like we're a little loopy. Yeah, a little loopy. But hey, can you play me that little fun bit again, just by itself? Sure. Oh, that's where you're hearing the beat. It proves our theory about BPM. Okay. Because drum and bass is about this temperature. It's about this tempo if you just double it up. So when I heard that part, I was like, I can hear the. Right. It's a 140. By the way, drum and bass is really hard to imitate with your. Yeah, exactly. That's about as good as you can do. You can do the. But if you try and hit every note with your hands, you just sound like you're messing stuff up. I'm playing it again with the drum and bass. Ready? Let's do the kick clap. Ready? That's the jungle remix. Check, check. Check, check, check, check, check, check. That's the Pink Panther ass. Shout out to Adam F. Pink Panther ass. Yeah, exactly. The Jay-Z section. This is actually a big part of the song's appeal, in my opinion. Jay-Z, when he would co-sign off on your song by giving you a verse, that was a big deal back then. Yeah, oh my God, huge. And by the way, as we said earlier, he didn't just co-sign off Rihanna. He signed Rihanna. He was a major reason why she got signed in the first place. A signer and a co-signer. When the song starts and you're hearing him, so right out of the gate, you're listening, oh, it's a Jay-Z song. I'm going to listen to whatever this is. Can you play a little bit of Jay-Z's vocals? I want to hear the no clouds in my stones. And here's Jay-Z's verse on Umbrella. No clouds in my stones. Let it rain. I hide your plane in the bank. Coming down like a Dow Jones. When the clouds come, we gone. We Rockefellers. We fly high in the weather. And she flies her better. A couple of things. One, if you're going to do Jay-Z at karaoke night, make sure, that you know, because he's weird. He's like Frank Sinatra. It comes out sounding easier than it was. I remember one time a friend of mine tried to do Empire State of Mind at karaoke night. His lines, his lyrics don't fall in the natural places. He's definitely doing some weird sort of play. You need to rehearse at home before you show up at karaoke night. Absolutely. He's doing verbal jujitsu on the beat. And that's one of the things that Jay probably doesn't get enough credit for. Another thing is that I think I hear an interpolation of, of UGK's, I got a pocket full of stones. When he says, no clouds in my stones, which is not like- It's just a reference. Yeah, it's just a reference. It's just a reference. Rappers do that all the time. It's for hip hop fans. It's for people like you to notice. It's for people like, oh yeah, he brought that in. He brought that in. That's right. This is one of those songs. This is one of those Jay-Z verses. Anybody who's heard it, it's so iconic. In the mid 2000s, if he came in on your song, like people learned it. And he has some of the best cameos and features, specifically on R&B diva songs of all time. We don't need to mention his verse on Crazy in Love. I think everybody at this point has heard it. If not, get up on it. Chinchilla. The best fur. What? The best fur. Chinchilla. I mean, exactly. I was going to say, if you haven't heard that one, do that on your own time. I want to play one of the first verses from his career where I realized, oh, this guy's amazing on the hook. This is Best of Me, him and Maya. Best of Me, part two, Jay-Z. I mean, like, she hasn't even started singing yet. Maya hasn't even started singing. But as a DJ that, you know, it comes in with that iconic drum break, that cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat, cat. And then it's, yes, y'all and Jigga man be balling. Like, he knows how to enter the track. And I mean, get your attention. Like, he's instantly roped you in. I just think that Jay's just, he's got that magic. And I love how he's interacting with Rihanna on the track and calling, you know, name-checking her literally and mentioning the album title. I know. Do we know that this was take three? He says, take three. Yeah. Well, I found a story about that, actually. Oh, my gosh. Why don't you share it with us? There were, oh, yeah. I don't mind if I do. There were, there was a different verse originally. And at the last minute, Jay-Z went in and replaced it. And he didn't even, he didn't ask permission. He didn't need to. But Tricky Stewart later- I think he's still the president of Def Jam at this time. He can change it even now if he wants to and change it on Spotify. He goes in and he alters his verse. I found this on Spotify. I found this quote from Tricky Stewart. There was actually another version before the one that ended up on the record, which in Tricky's words was perfect. And right before it was about to get pressed up, he went and changed it. Nobody even knew he changed it. And at the time, I didn't know he did it. But now when I go back every once in a while and I listen to the old rap, what he wrote instead makes so much more sense because it sounds like he added the metaphors about the weather and he sort of responded more to the lyrical concept of the song. We fly high in the weather and she flies the better. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's great. He made it fit in better. So he's also got literally her, her, intro sounds, I don't know what to call them, coos, are already entering. One thing I noticed on this listen, because we just listened to the demo, is that Wiki Wiki is from The Dream. It's from The Dream's demo. So we've got all three of them on that little moment. Can I just take a step back and just say that I think The Dream, along with T-Pain, they gave us so many. Just those two guys gave us so many wonderful sort of like, I want to say sugary sweet pop songs, pop rap songs, pop R&B songs in the mid-2000s. Like, I'm such a T-Pain fan, such a The Dream fan. I mean, like, if you look at the songs The Dream has written or collaborated on, it is so many songs that I think will stand the test of time. One song I feel like he does not get a whole lot of love, it's just because it's an album cut. It was actually sampled by Drake for one of his first remixes. But I just want to play a snippet of one of my favorite The Dream songs before we move on. This song is called Fancy. This is towards the end of what is, I think, an 11-minute song. Like, Fancy is a really good song. It's a really long song. Actually, it might only be about seven minutes. But, you know, in the world of R&B, that's a long time. This is just a little bit of the end of the song Fancy by The Dream. One of my favorite moments. Check this out. I mean, yeah, there's just so much going on there. I hear a lot of similarity with the keys there. So he's probably still working with his guys. So I really just, you know, big fan of The Dream. Maybe we can do an episode. Do one song, one career with The Dream. That'd be fun. That'd be fun. Let's hear Rihanna. By the way, Rihanna, one of the most identifiable voices in R&B and pop. Like, you know, between the patois, her ability to just really sound just so dang silky. Her tone is so specific and personal. Sexy. Like, she's fantastic. I want to hear some Rihanna vocals. Right. I mean, perfect segue because the song starts with her doing, like, the barest minimum of a sound. Which, in 2016. 2007 might have been new to a lot of ears. But now, all you need to do is hear. Eh, eh, eh. Just the sound, eh. Only Rihanna can make that sound, right? Distinctively. Let's get into the first verse. Here is Rihanna. This is Umbrella. Verse one. You have my heart And we'll never be worlds apart Maybe in magazines But you'll still be my star You can hear the dance hall influences there. You know, you can hear the island influences. Not just in her patois, but also, like, in how they master her sound. It's definitely got that dance hall, you know, dub going on. Yeah, you're right. I totally agree. That's well put. It sort of reminds me of that Sister Nancy sort of vocal sound, you know? It's when their voices are high. It's like, I always say, like, most of the greatest rappers of all time, with the exception of, like, you know. Almost all of them have high voices. Whether it's Jay-Z or Drake, like. Eazy-E. Because if you can go high, then that bass can go really low. And people like that sort of, like, high-low tension. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's well said. Well, let's continue. And I'm sorry to cut it off there, but I just. Oh, gosh, I feel like you can't do that to me next time. Give me warning. I just, I love the because as a songwriting thing. Because! Yeah, no, I. Because that's how you get from the verse to the chorus sometimes. I've never thought of it. Because! Yes. And then you do it. No, seriously. I was going to say the same thing. I had never thought of the because as, like, a link. Exactly. It's a segue into the chorus. It's such a segue. Because! As a result! Yes. Yes, we heard the same thing. You've probably been thinking about this for years. I heard it for the first time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, without further ado. Yeah, I'm still in limbo. Now I'm going to. Emotionally. Because. Why because? Why because? When the sunshine will shine together Told you I'll be here forever Said I'll always be your friend Took an oath I must stick it out to the end And before I play the next section, of course, there are backing vocals. I'll stack them so you can hear it with the full, beautiful harmonies that are there in the final mix. Now that it's raining more than ever Know that we'll still have each other You can stand under my umbrella You can stand under my umbrella I mean, that's so good. You played some backing vocals in there. Can we hear. Just the backing vocals? I'm so glad you asked. I wanted to hear those on stage, too. So I'll start. Here's the first backing vocal by itself. We'll shine together Be here forever And there's a second backing vocal with a harmony, and that sounds like this. Shine together Here forever And together. I like that lower one, yeah. The two of those together harmonize like this. We'll shine together Be here forever And then when you add the lead, we get the full stack. I will shine together Told you I'll be here forever Said I'll always be your friend It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. And, you know, admittedly, there's so much on the vocals so that when it's coming out of the speaker into, like, you know, a dark cavernous club like I used to do, it just, it bounces off the walls perfectly. Yeah, her voice just, like, cuts through everything. I'd love to hear the bridge. It's sort of like the part, if you're DJing, like, a busy nightclub, you don't always get to this bridge, but the bridge is pretty sweet. Can you play something off the bridge? Yeah, let's do that. And as I was saying before, from a songwriting perspective, think about this. The bridge is the opportunity to go somewhere different so that you can return and it'll sound fresh again to the chorus, which is what, after this section, takes us to the end of the song. Here is the bridge. Rihanna, isolated vocals, Umbrella. So gonna let the rain pour I'll be all you need and more Woo! Because! Because takes us out of the bridge. Because! Yeah, it's a good, it's a good, what would we call that? Just a segue or a transition, yeah? Segue, transition, it's so good. I mean, like, just epic. It's so epic. And I was feeling goosebumps even though we weren't hearing the music, but knowing what the music was doing in that section. I'll just play that part with a little bit of the music underneath it so you can hear, you can have the full satisfaction of what happens when she sings that long note. Pour, I'll be all you need and more Because, when the sun shines with So epic! I mean, that's amazing. I love that transition out of the bridge. It's just so epic. And speaking of transitions, saw what I did there, I just want to say a little bit, and I know you do too, about some of the songs that she sampled along the way, some of the interpolations that she sampled along the way. Yeah, let's talk about them. There's some really good ones. Some really fun ones. Let's talk about some Rihanna sampling and interpolation. All right, so let's get started with another track from Good Girl Gone Bad. Same record as Umbrella. This is Don't Stop the Music, which sounds a little bit like this. I just came here to party But now we're rockin' on the dance floor X and naughty Your hands are on my waist Just let the music play We're handin' And in the background, you're obviously hearing a sample of Yeah, is it a sample or is it an interpolation? In the background, I'm hearing a sample, and then later in the song, she's also interpolating it. Absolutely. And it's of this Michael Jackson song from Thriller. Who? It's this gentleman called Michael Jackson. Ah, wow, okay. Some people called him Mike. Okay, maybe related to Randy Jackson. Let's hear him. He could be one of Tito's brothers here. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' from Thriller, 1982. So that little loop there is sampled in the background so that this is one of those songs where there's a little bit of a loop. There's a sample and an interpolation of the same song. You know, from a songwriting, from a money perspective, maybe there's something because once you've sampled, you're already paying both the master and publishing sides. You might as well throw an interpolation in the mix. And here is where it happens in Don't Stop the Music by Rihanna. By the way, even the Michael Jackson is an interpolation. I was gonna say, the story doesn't end there. Right. 'Cause as we both know, as disco fans, one of the first technically disco songs, according to some, certainly was played at some of the loft and the earliest disco experiences, is the 1972 Mano de Bongo song, Sol Macosa. Which is technically not the same lyrics, and there's not a melody happening in that. He's just, it's monotone. Yeah. But it is. It was enough for there to be some court cases and some payment. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, which I can tell you very quickly about. So Michael Jackson basically put out "Wanna Be Startin' Something" just without clearing anything. He just put it out there. Because maybe in Quincy and Mike's mind, they're like, you know, this is influenced by, but we did something different. I'm the same, I'm a Sol Macosa. This is different phonemes. I was also thinking in the early 80s, let's just be real. Early 80s. That's true. Nobody was, especially, they really weren't thinking about sampling. Yeah. And I think people just liberally borrowed from one another in a way that would be unimaginable. There was a sense of musical language and building blocks. We're all sharing the same notes. We're all sharing similar ideas. So sometimes you use my chord change. Sometimes I use your melody. There is a little bit going on in this era, which, by the way, I think is healthy. I do, too. I don't mind that. However-- When Monodubongo found out. Yeah. In 2009, Dubongo did file a lawsuit against both of the songs. He waited some time. Yeah, he waited some time. He may not have known, or it may have just been too big of a hit to ignore. 2009, that's a weird year to go after the Jackson State, because that's the year he dies. So anyone looking at the credits might notice that Michael Jackson is credited as a writer on Don't Stop the Music, but Dubongo is not credited credited. What happened is that in 2009, Devongo filed a lawsuit in a French court against both songs. He said they both used his hook without permission. Jackson admitted that he did. He said, yeah, you're right. I did. And they settled out of court. And apparently, Rihanna had asked Jackson for permission. Jackson gave permission, but didn't mention the source of his interpolation. Apparently, he didn't make it all the way to the end of the line here with the publishers, which somebody should have done. Basically, the way this whole situation ends is that it turns out there's sort of a technicality. One French judge said that Devongo's claim was inadmissible against Rihanna because a year earlier, a different French judge had required the record label to actually add his name in the credits. I don't want to overly complicate things, but the bottom line is that because it sounds like Devongo was like, oh, yeah, you're putting my name in the credits. I'm done. I'm withdrawing any legal action. He couldn't do it again. He couldn't refile for it. There's a little bit in the weeds, but all this to say that Devongo's Sol Mocosa is the source for both want to be starting something by Michael Jackson's refrain, as well as don't stop the music, but he's only getting credit, and he only got paid for the Michael Jackson one. That's the world of publishing and royalties and clearance for you. It's crazy. It's all over the place. That's really fascinating, but now all I can think of is, please don't sue me, mano. Please don't sue me. Feel free to use that. I won't sue anybody over use of that. I got to say, it's very cool that Rihanna can call up MJ and just be like, hey, can I use that part of your song? I just think she's the coolest woman on the planet. I mean, I feel like she's caught up in just cool stuff. For example, back when I thought I was the only person who was really into Tame Impala, um, you know, she, made this song, and it still blows my mind. This is Same Old Mistakes. So that's Same Old Mistakes, and it samples this song from Tame Impala, New Person's Same Old Mistakes. Like, it's just a straight up, she's basically singing over his song. It's a cover, is what it is. Interesting. It's like, it's like a rhythm. It's literally like, she took the track from Tame Impala, and she used the rhythm and sang over it. So it's classic Caribbean form. She's Bayesian, not Jamaican, but you know, that's part of that culture. By the way, I think artists should do this more often. They should take some of these instrumental, you know, songs and electronic music and just sing them. Because, you know, I mean, like, they're basically like a producer. We're like, hey, why don't you sing over this? I think if, if good music, I think the idea of reusing it in other ways and extending the life of it and creating a musical dialogue, I mean, we talk about that a lot in the show. I love that phenomenon. I think you don't need to just start from scratch every time for it to be creatively, you know, authentic. I can't think of two more cooler people than Rihanna and Tame Impala. Pretty much the pinnacle of cool. That's the pinnacle. You have another song for us. I do. You might be familiar with this other hit from, Good Girl Gone Bad. This song is called Shut Up and Drive. You know this song, right? You know Shut Up and Drive. That's Blue Monday, right? It is definitely Blue Monday. And yeah, Blue Monday by New Order, which sounds like this. Right. So, New Order, Blue Monday. And it's the chord changes. It's not a sample. It's everyone all together. Everyone in podcast land. One, two, three. Interpolation. There you go. We got the chord changes and we got the melody from New Order's Blue Monday. And all four members. But it's not a sample because they're not taking from the master track. That's exactly right. It's not the recording. And all four members of New Order get co-writing credits on Shut Up and Drive from that reuse. Very cool. Very cool. Anytime you start playing Blue Monday, it just feels so wrong. We cut it short. It's such a good song. You gotta hear the whole thing. You hear all seven minutes of the entire thing. Exactly. So, do y'all, like we said, Umbrella was a massive global hit for Rihanna. Looking back, how do you think it changed Rihanna's career? I mean, after Umbrella, nothing was the same. Yes. Life changed for everyone. Absolutely. And after this, she's, you know, I mean, like, let's just talk about Fenty. It's important to remember that Rihanna is a billionaire. She's in the billionaire club. She's one of those brand, one name. Brand artists. And, you know, the Fenty fashion line, those outrageous, really, really cool, you know, fashion shows that, you know, come along and sort of like take over the screens in my house for about a month after they come out. You know, she embraced a level of superstardom. And also, she did it her way. Because if you look at how she has sort of stayed out of the public eye in a lot of ways, you know, she. I love it about that. That seems like a decision, like a smart decision. It's so clearly a decision. Saving her sanity and her family, protecting her life outside of the public eye. And now she's got kids. I mean, like, you know, so, you know, she. And by the way, props to her for doing the Super Bowl while pregnant. I feel like the same way that she's always been very particular with her sound and her music. She's been very particular about her public image and what she's willing to put out there. She's just not one of those people who puts it all out there for everyone to see. There's a lot of mystery. Yeah. There's a lot of time in between, you know, music being released. Will we get another record? I don't know. You know, maybe she's tired of doing music. I guess we'll have to see. All right. Now, earlier, we touched on the idea of how this song was originally meant for Britney Spears. And Mary J. Blige was also offered this song, which is just crazy. And they missed out. I don't even think either of them necessarily heard it. Yeah, we don't know that they actually heard it to reject it. But man, I mean, Mary J. Blige, Britney Spears. Yeah. We'll never know what those versions of Umbrella would have sounded like until today. Oh, boy. With the help of artificial intelligence and our producer, Matt. Yes, prior to this taping, Matt worked with the robots known as AI. A and I. We get very technical here. He worked with the robots to create a version of Umbrella with vocals by Britney Spears. Luxury and I have not heard this before. We're going to be hearing it for the first time when I hit play. We are so looking forward to hearing what I'm sure. Is an improvement on the Rihanna. Let's see. That's the Jay-Z. First off, I think the real life Britney could probably rap a little better than this. Well, it's hilarious because it's obviously trained on her like raspy voice. Her singing. Yeah, she's like, no clouds in my stones. It's the sexy. It's like trained on those moments. It's from her song. So it's like. I guess I can't wrap it around like not every person on the track is Britney Spears. So they're just like, make it all Britney. Let's hear some singing. She sounds like she's falling asleep. I mean, you can almost see you can almost hear a Britney song in there. Sure. I mean, it's funny. Again, this is just an AI thing, not a Britney thing. AI is trained on the songs, different algorithms, trained on other people's copywritten material. They found the sleepy parts of her material because this I feel like she's about to fall asleep. I was hoping in the chorus she'd wake up, but it was just like, when the sun shines. It was very sleepy, very low energy. That's really that was really interesting. It was very interesting, though. Oh, by the way, here's the Mary J. Blige version. Oh, by the way. Well, little miss, I shall be out of where you at. You are in the high and we'll never be worldwide. Maybe in magazines. Well, I'll say AI is probably going to seem like, yeah, no, it doesn't. It doesn't nail the personality of these singers. No, you know, you know, the uncanny valley, you know, that idea. It's so uncanny. Yeah, it's like so lifelike that it dips and is extremely not human sounding. And well, not just that. Yeah, technically it doesn't sound like people. Yeah, but also there's no person on that track. It's it's it's having something that's. It's supposed to sound like Mary J. Blige, but it's singing the song like Rihanna sang it right. Like, I would just imagine that Mary would have different riffs that she would go for. She would she would just do it differently. Yeah. The way she would phrase it or. Yeah, like all the choices would be different just normally. But that's just a human distinction between singers. But like the difference is super noticeable and strange. Yeah, because Mary wouldn't normally sound like that. No, those choices we're hearing. No, not at all. Mary J. Brittany, your jobs are safe. Yeah, you guys are fine. Your jobs are safe. OK. It's time for one more song. This is where we share a new song with you, the one song nation and with each other. For my one more song, I have selected Kingdom Hearts Key. That is by JPEG Mafia and Danny Brown. And it's featuring Red Veil. I'll say something about it on the other side. Here it is. Kingdom Hearts Key. Home and I'm trying to get the bread home. My brother is stunned. Cut off a sidewalk. Smell like in the job. Get it back to me. Come on, you don't know. I mean, first off, the sampling in this song is insane. I had no idea where that beat was going to drop. I loved being lost before it came in. Obviously, we can only play a certain amount of a song before. We can't play the whole song here. And check out this song. It's got so many time signature changes. Okay, so that was just one of many moments of time confusion. It's going all over the map. I love that. The samples, they're sampling video games. They're sampling, I'm probably going to butcher a name, but I think it's pronounced Maya Sakamoto. And this song called No Need for Promises. Yeah, they've got video game samples, obscure Japanese artists. Well, from the American point of view, obscure. To us. Yeah, and it's got so many different, like I said, time signature changes. But trust me, if you listen to this song, it will get stuck in your head. There are times I'm just walking about my day, and I'm just hearing that sample playing over and over in my head. So I felt like I had to choose it. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing it. Luxury, what's your pick? Well, this week is one of those, one more songs, which is one of my own songs, because I just dropped a new single. It's called Strangely Familiar. Part of the fun of this song for me is in tandem with our whole conversation about Jamaica and reusing rhythms. I had a project where I decided I wanted to have a song where the vocal, I would essentially remix my own song, but it would be a new song. So this is the same lyrics. Did you clear it with yourself? I have not cleared it, you know, I'm in trouble now. I am snitching on myself. I need to sign the paperwork. No, of course it's cleared with myself. I am an independent artist, and I decided that, yeah, Strangely Familiar is a brand new composition by Luxury, and it sounds like this. Are you ready? All right, you're driving a car very fast right now. You know what, I just realized I could play the whole thing, because I do have the right to clear that jam please. So the next five minutes, we're just going to play my entire song. There you go. But that track was inspired, obviously. I really like it. Thank you very much. That track is inspired, obviously, by Giorgio Moroder, one of my heroes, the king of 16th note pummeling synthesizers. Interesting thing about this track, by the way, is I completed this and put it out, you know, uploaded it to the internet a few months ago, and then the new Justice track came out, and it's doing a similar thing. Kind of going back to that Moroder 16th note pummeling thing. Their track is very different. It's very good. Go check it out. But it's just interesting. Maybe this Moroder vibe is in the air right now. The 16th note, boom, boom, boom. I love it. I always called it like a galloping bass. Totally. Yeah, I really like that song. Thank you so much, my friend. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram or TikTok. And if you made it this far into the show, I think that means you probably like the podcast. So please don't forget to give us a like. But we'll take hate listeners, too. Just listen. No matter what your emotional state is. Please don't forget to give us five stars on whatever platform you listened on. Leave a review and share it with someone you think would like it. It really helps keep the podcast going. Luxury helped me in this thing. I'm producer DJ, songwriter, and musicologist. Bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. And right now, enjoy $20 off your first online order of $75 or more. Restrictions apply. 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