Toppa Top 10: Reggae Samples In Rap Songs

Words by Jesse Serwer

Hip-hop’s been borrowing from reggae since Jamaican-born Kool Herc updated the soundsystem throwdown for his new home in the Bronx. But the reggae references, both sonic and otherwise, that inform so many of rap’s biggest tunes have a way of flying under many hip-hop listeners’ radars. Here’s a cheat sheet: 10 (well, 14) classic rap tracks that get their sound from both classic and obscure yard productions.

10. Afu-Ra ft Cocoa Brovaz & Jahdan, “D&D Soundclash” = Barrington Levy, “Minibus (On the Telephone)”

One of Barrington’s most gangster tunes got a Brooklyn re-lick on this Beatminerz production.

9. Reflection Eternal feat. Mos Def and Mr. Man (of Da Bush Babeez), “Fortified Live” = U-Roy and Hopeton Lewis, “Tom Drunk”

Here we have two collaborative tracks that really embody the essence of the record labels that put them out: the classic singer/deejay combo of “Tom Drunk” on Duke Reid/Trojan, and the O.G. Mos/Kweli/Hi-Tek (and Mr. Man) collabo “Fortfied Live,” from Rawkus’s first Soundbombing.

8. Jay-Z, “Lucifer”= Max Romeo, “Chase The Devil” + “Encore” = John Holt, “I Will”

Kanye helped not one but two reggae elder statesmen get some publishing checks offa Hov’s platinum The Black Album.

See also: The Prodigy’s “Out of Space” (re: Max Romeo).

7. LL Cool J, “Doin It” = Grace Jones, “My Jamaican Guy”/Shyne feat. Barrington Levy, “Bad Boyz” = Grace Jones, “Nightclubbing”

The funky reggae Grace Jones cooked up with Sly and Robbie (at Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point studio in Nassau, Bahamas) in the early/mid ’80s can never be replicated, but it has been sampled quite a bit. Hurby Luvbug and his Invincibles squad were the first to to borrow the ethereal intro from ’82’s “My Jamaican Guy,” for Kid N Play (feat. The Real Roxanne)’s “Undercover” in ’88, but it wasn’t until Cool J and Leshaun’s “Doin’ It” eight years later that producer Rashad Smith truly did it justice, capturing the raw sexual immediacy of the original. Four years later, “Get Money” beatmaker EZ Elpee turned Grace’s Iggy Pop cover “Nightclubbing” into Shyne and Barrington’s cross-cultural Y2K classic, “Bad Boyz.”

See also: the many re-interpretations of Grace’s “Pull Up To The Bumper” that have turned up over the years.

6. Foxy Brown ft Spragga Benz, “Oh Yeah” = Toots and The Maytals, “54-46 Was My Number”

Little-known producer Eddie Scoresazy flipped the Toots classic into the best of Foxy’s many reggae-flavored tracks. Crucial assist from long-time Fox Boogie love interest Spragga Benz.

5. Smif N’ Wessun, “Soundbwoy Bureill” = Unknown dubplate (Fuzzy Jones? Joe Lickshot?)

Wish we could tell you exactly where the intro to this most classic slice of soundclash-inspired rap comes from, but even we don’t know for sure. What we can tell you is that it is not Super Beagle’s “Dust A Sound Bwoy,” inaccurately ID’d as such on this comp of Dah Shinin’ samples and other sources. While that track features a very similar monologue from O.G. dubplate intro guy Fuzzy Jones and clearly inspired the overall direction of “Sound Bwoy Bureill,” listen closely and he’s saying completely different things. According to LargeUp fam Jahdan, who appeared on the remix of “Sound Bwoy Bureill,” it’s actually not Fuzzy Jones but his dubplate intro rival, Joe Lickshot. Know the deal?

4. Boogie Down Productions, “Jack of Spades” + Ghostface Killah, “Cher Chez La Ghost” =  Brentford All-Stars “Greedy G”

You’re forgiven if you thought that was “Get on the Good Foot” — the bass on Brentford All-Stars’ JB-inspired “Greedy G” is just so funky.

See also: Original Concept “Charlie Sez” and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s “New Kids On The Block.”

3. Special Ed, “I’m The Magnificent” = Desmond Dekker, “007 (Shanty Town)” + Dave & Ansel Collins, “Double Barrel”

Along with KRS and Just-Ice, Jamaican-American Special Ed was one one of the most explicitly dancehall-friendly MCs of rap’s Golden Era. Fellow Flatbush native Hitman Howie Tee cooked up the beat using Desmond’s classic and an early appearance of the ubiquitous “I…amthemagnificent” line from Dave & Ansel Collins’s “Double Barrel.”

See Also: Biz Markie “Biz is Goin’ Off” and Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five “The New Adventures of Grandmaster”

2. Boogie Down Productions, “(Remix for) P is Free” + Black Star, “Definition” = Henry “Junjo” Lawes’ Diseases riddim

This one might have been no. 1 but there is some confusion over whether the source of this sample is, as most seem to think, Yellowman’s “Zungguzungguguzungguzeng” or, as KRS-One indicated in Brian Coleman’s classic rap tome Check the Technique, Michigan & Smiley’s “Diseases.” And we wouldn’t want to confuse you. Both contain the twangy guitar notes of producer Henry “Junjo” Lawes Diseases riddim (See the above Youtube clip for a rundown that includes Cocoa Tea’s classic “Lost My Sonia”), a variation on Lawes’s own Golden Hen riddim. “P is Free” is arguably the yard-iest track on the heavily dancehall-informed Criminal Minded and quite possibly the first proper rap song to properly sample a reggae song. On “Definition,” Mos Def and Talib Kweli of course reference not only “P is Free” and “Zungguzung…” but various other Caribbean elements… “Lawwwwwd, lawdhavemercy.” The classic video, filmed in a dollar van on Flatbush Avenue, brings it all together. (Read this for a far more profound reading than we can offer here).

See Also: KRS-One “P Is Still Free”

1. Diplomats, “Dipset Anthem” = Sanchez, “One In A Million”

It’s only appropriate that, on the first day of Sanchez’s first U.S. tour in several years, we pay homage to this flip, courtesy of Harlem producers the Heatmakerz, of what is perhaps his best-known original song, “One In A Million.” Dip Set=Harlem, but this track RAN Central Brooklyn in the summer of ’03.

Honorebel Mention
Lil Wayne, “A Milli” = A Tribe Called Quest, “I Left My Wallet In Segundo (Norman Cook Remix)

Huh? A Tribe Called Quest, Norman Cook? Not exactly reggae artists but…on the 1991 Tribe remixes LP, Revised Quest for the Seasoned Traveller, a young Fatboy Slim turned “El Segundo” into a straight dancehall tune complete with toasts from an uncredited deejay. See 0:36 for the “a milli” snippet screwed down by Bangladesh on Weezy’s 2008 ubiqui-hit.

Not convinced? Let this guy demonstrate: