Sunflower
It turned out that Sunflower was there, and it bloomed beyond initial DJ Honda/Common connections.
Before we get into ballet, the drug game, gangstas, or beef, we should know a little about Milt Jackson. I didn’t until last week, so don’t feel judged. He played the vibes, aka the vibraphone.
Here he is with another jazz great, Art Blakey.
The third track on Sunflower, “People Make the World Go Round,” provided fruitful fodder, leading to fond memories of conscious hip hop (and ballet), and recollections of poor CD choices (and gangsta-ism). But the song also solidified the notion that one source can inspire vastly different responses. Most overwhelmingly, though, this thought journey confirmed that all things are connected, often ironically.
The track opens with Ron Carter’s bass line. Duhh duhh, duhh duhh.
The bass notes were instantly familiar, and then the trumpet came in, which happens to be played by my favourite shaper of Red Clay, Freddie Hubbard! Hubbard's trumpet lines were uncanny - I'd been here before. I knew these notes, but from where?
After a few moments I had it, Blackalicious’ “Swan Lake.”
“Manipulated minds need to make an escape, and the name of this song is ‘Swan Lake.’” I wondered why Gift of Gab chose to allude to Swan Lake, and read that the heroine of the famous ballet, who has been transformed into a swan, can only return to her human form through the power of love. A manipulated mind in need of escape, indeed.
My brain kept turning Milt's song over, though, as not only was there the clear Blackalicious horn sample, but there were the opening bass notes, which certainly smacked of something.
Then, inexplicably, from the depths of my consciousness, floated Jay-Z’s “Coming of Age”:
But I wasn't convinced, so I returned to Milt Jackson and heard slight differences. The bass notes in “Coming of Age” were faster, and also prominent in the Jay-Z track were the slick, shimmery cymbals, notably absent from Milt's song. This led to a momentary dead end.
I wondered about the title of the song, “People Make the World Go Round,” which seemed lyrical. Then my grade 10 self whispered, “Gangstas…make the….world…go round!”
Yes, I did own the Bow Down CD. Congratulations to Ice Cube on his recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Something tells me Westside Connection won’t make it in though. No congratulations to Gene Simmons!
But, wait. The Westside Connection dud shared its opening bass notes with Jay-Z's "Coming of Age," and the "gangsta" hook followed Milt Jackson’s melody? They had clearly flipped "people" for "gangstas," but there was no way WC, Mack 10, and Ice Cube came up with the idea to phrase a vocal line that followed Milt's instrumental melody! Another momentary dead end, until I found The Stylistics,
who seamlessly collected my scattered thoughts and pieced them into cohesion.
So how does this time line pan out?
1971 – The Stylistics record “People Make the World Go Round.”
1973 – Milt Jackson, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, etc. record a jazz cover of “People Make the World Go Round,” which appears on Sunflower.
1995 – Blackalicious sample Milt Jackson and allude to Swan Lake, while trumpeting the power of autonomous, free thought.
1996 – Jay-Z's "Coming of Age" samples The Stylistics, while he raps about rising to prominence in the drug game, stressing the importance of defending his corner.
1996 – Westside Connection sample The Stylistics, and proclaim the central role of gangstas in the human drama.
Further down the rabbit hole....
DJ Honda also used Milt Jackson's Sunflower (the opening track, “For Someone I Love”) to create the Common “Interlude.” And this was in 1996. The irony is Common and Ice Cube had a public beef at the time, which culminated in Common’s release of “The Bitch in Yoo” (also in 1996).
To further the irony, on Bow Down’s “Cross ‘em out and put a K,” Ice Cube states, “I once knew this bitch by the name of Q-Tip, who claimed he had a problem with this gangsta shit”!
Yet, Q-Tip was collaborating with Ron Carter in 1991 and sampling Freddie Hubbard in 1993. Did Cube not know that people make the world go round?
It seems similar taste in samples doesn’t lead to similar artistic expression, nor even amicable relationships.
