Let me get on my soapbox AGAIN (like you REALLY want to hear this):
I noticed that a lot of people (particularly non-rap fans) have been getting bent out of shape over Annie's "It's a Hard Knock Life". No, not that they hate the play (although I do, let me tell you. BOORRRIIING!!) but that they hate what rapper Jay Z has done with a sample.
For those of you who don't know, Jay Z sampled the chorus of the little girls sitting in a circle singing "It's a Hard Knock Life for us, it's a hard knock life for us, steadi-tree (steadily?) that we get kicked, Statically says we get kicked" or something like that. And a lot of people are reacting as if he crossed some sacred line that says show tunes are off limits for ghetto sampling.
Some of the various reactions include:
WHY THE FU-K NOT?!?!?!?!?
I've had to put up with white remakes of black music all of my life. Sometimes, I admit, they don't sound bad. But most of the time the soul is GONE!! And don't tell me I'm just being biased and thinking that white musicians can't groove. I've jammed with enough white players to know better. And, don't you all remember the Average White Band?!? Or how about Mariah Carey, or Tina Marie. Those mainstreamized remakes are hideous, and I wish these hacks would just GIVE IT UP!
Now the brothers and sisters are getting on the bandwagon and jacking white people for there music. Most of these remakes I like, with the exception of
Now, I do like Tupac's remake of "That's Just The Way It Is" by John Cougar Melloncamp. That's funky.
Now that it's being done the other way around, I hear some static, from blacks and whites, because people want to find yet another excuse to criticize Hip-Hop. Never mind the fact that it's probably the most creative genre going, people want to find a way to slam it because it's oriented to youth in general and ghetto youth in particular. It's being slammed just like Rock, Jazz, and Blues were back in the day. This time, it doesn't look like the slamming is working. If anything, the negative slings is making Rap more popular.
Remember your history folks: white performers stole TONS of songs by black performers in the 1950's and 1960's. In fact, if it were not for Black American musicians, Lord knows WHAT in the hell we would be listening to? (Clog Dancing with fiddles??). If it were not for the Black American there would be no
At least today, the creator gets some ROYALTIES!!!!
So I think that America can part with one little old show tune, don't you?
The Creative Brother.
P.S. I'm have a music minor, have taken graduate level coursework in music, and have studied undergraduate, graduate and doctorial level books about music theory, counterpoint, atonal harmony, jazz harmony, blues harmony, and have also played music by Duke Ellington, Count Basie and others, and have studied the scales that John Coltrane and Yusef Lateef use, and have been a big fan of Hip Hop forever, and I'm an MC. I also made the Tri-County Honors Band in High School. So, I know of which I speak!!!!
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