Every week as part of our Saturday night hip hop show The Breaks, hosts Confucius and Fresh present facts about the culture of hip hop and R&B that you might not have known.
Check out the full episode and the podcast.
Disclaimer: None of these facts have been fact-checked so might in fact be false. Read at your own risk.
#1 – Originally, Prince did not want to clear the sample on Kanye West’s “Big Brother.”
- After Prince turned him down, DJ Toomp reproduced the sample from scratch to avoid copyright.
- Prince told Toomp that he still owned the composition, but he was so impressed by the reproduction that he allowed the sample.
# 2 Kanye West’s “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” was originally a Jeezy song.
- Kanye liked the track so much that he asked Jeezy to connect him with the producer, DJ Toomp.
- Jeezy gave Kanye permission to use the song but second-guessed his decision after witnessing a crowd lose their minds to his beat at a Kanye West show.
- “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” is a certified triple platinum single today.
# 3 Joe Budden took an unconventional to route to get Jay-Z on the “Pump It Up” remix.
- Jay-Z refused Budden’s request, but Jay nonetheless took the “Pump It Up” beat and dissed Budden on it.
- Budden took Jay-Z’s verse and added it to his original, thus was born “Pump It Up (Remix).”
# 4 – 50 Cent was on tour supporting Master P when Get Rich or Die Tryin’ released.
- Get Rich or Die Tryin’ sold nearly a million copies in the first week.
- One of the shows with Master P was here in Austin at the Delco center!
# 5 – The first person to bring 50 Cent on a national tour was Nas.
- This fact was revealed after 50 Cent dissed Nas on “Piggy Bank” many years later.
# 6 – DJ Jazzy Jeff produced The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme.
- DJ Jazzy Jeff leveraged the royalties to begin A Touch of Jazz production company in his native Philadelphia. Among the artists Jazzy Jeff would help develop: Jill Scott, the Roots, Talib Kweli, Darius Rucker, and many more.
