![]() The year 1991 was one of astonishing riches in hip-hop, landing (depending somewhat on your definition) somewhere in the middle of the genre’s “golden age”. “Brothers are amused by others brother’s reps / But the thing they know best is where the gun is kept”. In “Just to Get a Rep”, Premier bounces around a loop from Jean-Jacques Perry’s kitsch organ LP Moog Indigo, while Guru is chillingly casual as he describes a stick-up kid’s pursuit of a victim. Guru was full-on and braggy in “Step in the Arena”, Premier stripped-back and dusty. At their best, the contrast between their styles was there if you were listening for it but disappeared into the pure strut of their sound. Guru’s lyrics remained clear, open, and effortlessly confident. But songs like “The Meaning of a Name” and “Beyond Comprehension”, with its reversed opening - a brilliant transformation of a fragment from Soul II Soul’s “Keep on Movin'” - show the kind of textural experimentation that kept Premier in the front ranks of producers, alongside the crowd-pleasing loops of “What You Want This Time?” and “Love Sick”. Using only the bassline, the Chocolate Boy Wonder crafts his own synth line it all comes together for another relaxing song.A wall of textbook DJ Premier productions - tight, perfectly focused, impulsively looped creations–Gang Starr’s second album, Step in the Arena, was modestly reviewed upon release. The most recent sampling I've come across is by Pete Rock for a song called Midnight And You that's shown up on Pete's second instrumental album, The Surviving Elements. Even though I've never been there, this song feels like NYC traffic at night. I don't even DJ and I'm playing air DJ, scratching and hitting the fader when this song comes on. I've heard DJ tracks, and this is still the most amazing to me. My personal favorite song that samples Summer Madness is DJ Premier in Deep Concentration. Curiously enough, this song wasn't produced by DJ Jazzy Jeff I bet he wishes he did it, though. Speeding up the bassline and chopping up the synth wail make the song danceable, and still everytime the synth line moves up an octave the air gets colder. Most people might recognize that it's sampled in Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. This isn't a comprehensive list of the songs that have sampled it, just a few notables. Other people realized this long before me, and so Summer Madness has been sampled a few times. That's what Summer Madness by Kool and the Gang is. And then a cool breeze hits, sending shivers down your spine, the ultimate refreshment. The action around you in the city just makes the environment all that more unbearable. The sun is blazing and it's hot enough that you're starting to sweat. "Chilled out" might not be a description that would satisfy an academic, but in this case the term applies. If you ever happen to get into an argument with someone about what the most chilled out song of all time is, this is your trump card. ![]()
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