Dante’s Hifi – Miami – April 20 Breakbeat Tuesday – A Stoned Alliance
I was speaking to my friends about my baby brother the other who is like the best dude ever. He lives literally on the other side of the world (Japan) and I never see him, which sucks, but I know he’s there and he knows I here and no amount of physical space can erase that cause we’re brothers and I got his back forever.
I had been doing this thing with records for a while and he kind of fell into it after me on some old brother emulation schitt, but he also kind of owned it in his own way. For instance, he was the dude who put me up on Stone Alliance. You might know that from the Beastie Boys line “I like Sweetie-Pie from the Stone Alliance, everybody knows that I be dropping science.” Trust me when I tell you that the song he’s referring to is smooth as butter, unlike that rap lyric. Stone Alliance was a Afro-Cuban jazz fusion group who’s nucleus consisted of established Jazz heavyweights Gene Perla, Don Alias and Steve Grossman. They got together in the early 70s and only put out a few records, but during that run they laced us with this saxophone-driven funk monster “Sweetie-Pie.” Simple, effective, to the point, and absolutely on fire…
Stone Alliance “Sweetie-Pie” (Happy Bird, 1976)
Here are two really great usages of this sample, both used in completely different ways but both kind of incredible. The first is a 7″ by the mysterious Chopp Master Flopp, better known to must as Brooklyn’s own DJ Spinna. The illustrious Spinna does a masterful job with “Peetie Swei” where he basically just takes the original and chops it to all hell , completely re envisioning the original. He didn’t need anything except the original record and the MPC.
Chopp Master Flopp “Peetie Swei” (Sure Shot, 2006)
The second usage here is the Large Professor Remix of Leader’s Of The New School’s “What’s Next.” This was the lead single off of the second LONS album and, while the original is okay, Extra P propels it into a completely different ballpark with his take on it. Based mainly off the 24-Carat Black “Brown Baggin'” sample, he uses the horns from “Sweetie-Pie” to complete the chorus and bridge. This is a great example of an era when rap used multiple samples in one song and yet somehow it worked and didn’t sound cacophonous.
Leaders Of The New School “What’s Next (Large Professor Remix)” (Elektra, 1993)
The summer of 1999 was a hot one in Philly. It was the first summer that I had spent after being in a pretty horrific car accident, one where I almost didn’t live, and had to learn to walk again, and basically put the pieces of my life together after having it shattered in a thousand tiny bits. It also was the first time ever in my life that I owned a car. It was sold to me by the boyfriend of a friend of my mother. He was moving out of the country and had no use for it so the offer was made to me. Growing up in Philly, one never really needed a car. It was walk, skate, bike or SEPTA anywhere and everywhere. But, because my legs were still weak, and I also thought that it was that time in my life where I stepped up my game, I bought the little gold 1987 Jetta from the guy. Unfortunately, I gave him half the money and he gave me the car, but before I could give him the remainder of the balance he moved to Eastern Europe. The unfortunate thing for me was that he left without giving me the papers, registration, all of that stuff. So here I was with this car that was technically mine but was actually illegal as all hell. Of course with no registration or pink slip I couldn’t get the car insured. Oh, did I mention that I didn’t have a drivers license yet either? That’s just a minor detail that’s in there too.
So here I was driving this little Gold Bug around the city riding so dirty that it’s incredible, but I loved that little car and I didn’t really care. It didn’t have air conditioning, and it sometimes wouldn’t start when it rained. Also, there wasn’t any tape deck so I was forced to listen to Philly radio. Around this time I had really started to have my fill of commercial rap music, which was probably more a change in me as much as it was within the music itself, so I found myself tuned into 
Billy was kind of a wunderkind, starting his singing career at the age of 12 with his brothers singing gospel tunes on local Washington DC radio. During his teenage years he sung with another musical legend and DC native, Marvin Gaye, and like so many artists of his time, Billy gained great popularity when he made the transition from spirituals to singing secular music. He signed to Chess records and that’s where he put out most of the records in his tragically short career. All his records have a distinct sound to it which may be attributed to being on the Chess imprint but I really think that the key ingredient to the magic of his music is the way that he attacked the song vocally with such a radical and unique approach. His version of “Summertime” is such a departure from any rendition of it before and is so hardbody, he owns that song from now until forever. I said yesterday that his version is more punk rock than most punk rock songs.