The New Lupe Single
Bsides
4,244 Posts
Yes, its a remake of T.R.O.Y, .... Yes, I did it. Me and my production partner DJ Simonsayz produced it.
It was something he wanted to do, and I thought his lyrics were cool. We did it with no samples, as per instruction, and it was pretty damn tough to pull off. I think we did a pretty good job. I did not know that Pete Rock would be so pissed..... Truth be told, I thought he was in the loop with it.. but no matter.
I certainly didn't intend to come out and shit on pete rock in any way. He's always been one of my biggest influences, and he's a hip hop legend. It feels kind of bad to have one of your idols come out and diss you. But I understand his perspective. I will say that the vast majority of kids I talk to have never heard the original, and maybe this will get them to go back and pay attention to the first record.
The legal issues with using the original made it pretty impossible from a modern major label perspective, My intent was to pay tribute in the best way I could and maybe make something cool and new, with an obvious homage to the original version.
I have tons of original beats, people that know me on here know that. Its not even the first time I've been asked to remake this track for someone. All in all I thought it came out pretty dope.
Maybe I shouldnt even be speaking on this, but there it is. Redoing it gave me a new appreciation for Pete's original production and how intricate and complicated it was. I dont blog and I'm not active on twitter, so I figured Id put this here.
Anyways, you can hate me now. I'm just trying to get over like the rest of yall though.
Peace,
B
It was something he wanted to do, and I thought his lyrics were cool. We did it with no samples, as per instruction, and it was pretty damn tough to pull off. I think we did a pretty good job. I did not know that Pete Rock would be so pissed..... Truth be told, I thought he was in the loop with it.. but no matter.
I certainly didn't intend to come out and shit on pete rock in any way. He's always been one of my biggest influences, and he's a hip hop legend. It feels kind of bad to have one of your idols come out and diss you. But I understand his perspective. I will say that the vast majority of kids I talk to have never heard the original, and maybe this will get them to go back and pay attention to the first record.
The legal issues with using the original made it pretty impossible from a modern major label perspective, My intent was to pay tribute in the best way I could and maybe make something cool and new, with an obvious homage to the original version.
I have tons of original beats, people that know me on here know that. Its not even the first time I've been asked to remake this track for someone. All in all I thought it came out pretty dope.
Maybe I shouldnt even be speaking on this, but there it is. Redoing it gave me a new appreciation for Pete's original production and how intricate and complicated it was. I dont blog and I'm not active on twitter, so I figured Id put this here.
Anyways, you can hate me now. I'm just trying to get over like the rest of yall though.
Peace,
B
Comments
No diss to you, but it's weird to me how even the drum programming, like the rolls, is the same.
Has Lupe ever listened to Mecca and the Soul Brother in its entirety?
Good job. You seem like a nice guy. This will be no news in no time. The Internet moves fast.
From Petes twitter: "It's so hard for folks to make original music, I possess that, but these dudes are scared of that and this is supposed to be HIP HOP?"
This is really weird, as if Pete has forgotten himself what Hip Hop is supposed to be. It has always been an appropriative artform. This is so weak.
I can't really blame anyone who knows the original for not being excited for the remake, but theres a lot of kids out there that have never heard the original before.
For what its worth, Tom Scott gave his blessing. Technically Im not even sure we needed to clear things that far as its an interpolation of a cover song.
I've got a couple other joints with dude that will hopefully make the album that are much more original. In the meantime, its cool to say I have a single for a major artist. I've been doing this shit a long time without that. No one can say I havent paid my dues.
Just wanted to come back to the strut to talk about it. Cause if it weren't for this place, I probably wouldn't have known the original in the first place. I hope that it helps to know I worshipped at the alter of mecca and the soul brother, and have tracked my own copy of honeysuckle breeze out of the dollar bins years ago.
I did my best to keep things as funky as tom scott's Birkenstocks, and I hope Pete will see this as the honest tribute it was meant to be eventually.
Oh well, hopefully y'all enjoy it and hear something more original from me next!
Hopefully Pete Rock will come around. I think his emotional response has alot to do with the fact that the original song was made to mark the passing of a close friend. I totally get that. My hope is that younger fans will listen to this version and seek out the original in the same way that I did with the sample all those years ago.
I'd still like to meet the dude someday as I've always thought he was a genius.
I get that too. Still, as an artist you have to accept that you putting things into the world that develop their own dynamics. Once it is out you can't control what people make of it. If it's too close to your heart and you can't accept other people messing with it, you better keep it to yourself.
But I do want to say - and apologies if he's your boy, B-Sides, but I'm going in - motherfuck Lupe Fiasco. To me, dude is the biggest fucking jackass in hip-hop. Time and again he tries to align his bogus dilettante bullshit with things that are way bigger than he could ever be, in the hope of grabbing some shine by association in the process, whether that's via a remake of T.R.O.Y., or acting like he can invoke the spirit of Gil Scott Heron on that Robert Glasper album. Something like that Ab-Soul album pretty much renders him redundant in any event. CB4, MC Gusto-ass mufucka.
B-Sides why don't you go back to flipping those ill samples that is definitely what the fans want to hear.
Personally I don't like Lupe Fiasco at all, but I was HOPING that he would use the ORIGINAL beat. I never mind hearing TROY because it is a CLASSIC.
I can see why the Chocolate Boy Wonder would be mad.
I've heard cases of beats being recycled that I've liked, such as Mac Dre lifting Just Ice or Z-Ro lifting Ahmad, but TROY is simply too monumental a song for that.
I'd call it untouchable.
So yeah, y'all committed a no-no.
So this "remake" is for "Kids Out There" to reconnect with Pete Rock & CL Smooth or for Tom Scott?
What did T.R.O.Y. do for Tom Scott? I dont recall a Tom Scott revisit by kids in '92 or afterwards.
And Im all for Beat/Break jackin'. Take whatever flip that shit. But REMAKES is Biting.
Number 2 would've been to make sure the MC is adding or doing something so significant, that its really worthwhile, sensible or even necessary to remake TROY.
Number 3 would've been to flip the beat / sample in a way that truly adds to or departs from the OG in some significant way, speaking to the fans and or the makers of the OG.
I think the Elzhi project sonically kinda did justice with some of the Nas remakes (lyrically not so much) because they really added to the sound if you go back and forth and compare the old and remade beats.
With this I dont see any marked improvement - not feeling the argument that kids today dont know TROY - let them get familiar with the Og.
I can see how Pete would be especially salty since troy is a personal memorial to a deceased loved one for LF to come along and just run with it without his cosign. Even more so since its on a major label.
Since you as a producer are a relatively unknown gun for hire, just looking to get paid and get some exposure, more power to you I guess.
Did Pete ever comment on this? Not a bad reworking of the beat imo. breezy.
B-sides, I don't blame you for doing what you were asked to do - I blame Lupe. Song is bullshit and in the bigger picture of hip hop is in extremely poor taste IMO. What's the point of trading on this classic? Why not just make a new song, Lupe isn't saying shit anyways. What a jackass. If he really wanted to do this he could have rapped over the instrumental and put it on a mixtape.
oh and Lupe's pete-esque delayed overdubs at the end>? oof.
B-Sides...as you anticipated there is no doubt you will feel some heat for this.
All I can say is I hope the controversy just gets your name some more attention cause you are a sick producer and I've been feeling your work since you started posting it up here.
Not that I know first-hand, but my guess is that the music biz does not necessarily work that way.
Yeah cause all of our favorite producers ONLY made it through with a shady business move.
Secondly, I fully understand why you'd take this project on. I'm not familiar with your work, but i'm guessing you've been working hard on your craft for a long time, and from the comments it sounds like you've got a nice style. If it were me I'd have taken it on, you don't know whether you'd have another chance to work with someone of Lupe's status again.
Not heard the tune yet, but it sounds like Lupe dropped a bollock with this one though.
Still, hope this gets your name into people's minds for next time they hear something by you.
There are great cover versions of great songs and awful cover versions of great songs and even great cover versions of awful songs. Every Beatles or Dylan or whatever fan can live with that. Why can't Hip Hop devotees?
Co-sign. I think Pete's acting like a bit of a baby about this but that's not a defense of Lupe either.
And no shots at B-Sides but as far as beats go, this feels hella anemic, like one of those tepid "hip-hop instrumental remakes" that pop up every so often.
All the Free Willy shit is cool, but Hip Hop wasnt built that way.
Covers dont work. Just because Rock and Jazz do it doesnt mean Hip Hop has to. We have our own rules too.
Can u really sit there and tell me there are 20 great Hip Hop Covers since 1975?
as much as hip-hop is built on borrowing/appropriation, one of the fundamental principles has always been originality.
What B-Sides did - as a beat - is a cover though.
As Batmon suggests, the reason why cover songs don't work in hip-hop is because more than any other American pop form, hip-hop's "no biting allowed" ethos has pretty much strangled the possibility of doing cover songs with a few, slim exceptions (Snoop covering Slick Rick for example). And I think for any of us who've watched the "tribute performances" on VH1's "Hip Hop Awards", there's likely been that feeling of, "this is just kind of weird." That's probably b/c we're simply not used to it but regardless it is what it is.
I don't think there's anything wrong with doing hip-hop cover songs but it'll be slow to catch on.