Context of Steve Reich sample used in "America's Most Blunted"

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There's this Steve Reich piece that Madlib samples early in Madvillain's "America's Most Blunted." In the Steve Reich piece, a ghostly voice mutters "I had to like open the bruise up and let some of the bruise blood come out to show them." It turns out that the voice Reich used in his piece came from Daniel Hamm, a young Harlem boy who was falsely accused of murder by Harlem police in the 60's. I wonder-- did Madlib know the context of this quote when he put it in the song? If so, why is he using a voice describing the bleak reality of police oppression in a song about gettin blunted? And if Madlib didn't know the context, did he just put the sample in there because he found the record while crate digging and he liked the loop?

A larger related question is, how often do hip hop artists use samples connected directly to civil rights struggles of the past? And how often are those samples used in a meaningful context? I'm just wondering how much meaning gets lost when something is inserted into a song, and if this bothers me, and if so why.

― mutabaruka, Monday, 21 March 2005 07:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Hm. I don't have that much to offer, but I will say that whatever power or significance the phrase, "The revolution will not be televised," had at one point is now completely diminished. I can't even remember who originally said it these days... Gil-Scott Heron? The Last Poets? Malcolm X?

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Monday, 21 March 2005 08:06 (twenty-one years ago)

KRS-One

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Monday, 21 March 2005 08:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Urm, no, it's Gil Scott Heron. That Reich piece is the bomb, and of course one of the things that's so cool about it is that it makes you want to go find out the context of the original quote.

― Michigan J, Monday, 21 March 2005 13:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Course, it's a bit harsh to criticise madlib for decontextualising that specific spoken word sample, when that's pretty much what Reich was doing in the first place too. There's more here, but essentially, while Reich was aware of the origin of these recordings and did want their resonance to have an effect on his final work, he was still ultimately just using them as examples of spoken word cadence, so was arguably more interested in the sound than the meaning.

― JimD (JimD), Monday, 21 March 2005 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

this sample has been recontextualized by other people as well:

captain beefheart (come out to show dem)
unkle remixing tortoise (bruise blood mix)

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 21 March 2005 15:24 (twenty-one years ago)

that tortoise remix was for "djed" btw.

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 21 March 2005 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

also, i think madlib may have thought he was being original by sampling it?

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 21 March 2005 15:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I always wanted somebody to put a huge beat under "Come Out."

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Monday, 21 March 2005 17:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I've definitely heard this sample elsewhere. Spooky cuts it up on the Reich Remix record as well.

― Dr. Eldon Tyrell (ex machina), Monday, 21 March 2005 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I wonder if anyone's ever sampled from the other spoken-word-tape-loop piece on Early Music, "It's Gonna Rain" (the one with the hollering preacher named Brother Walter who yells "It's gonna rain" over and over again, and which Brian Eno said was the most important piece of music he ever heard)? I think it's even spookier than "Come Out."

Does anyone know?

― ffirehorse, Monday, 21 March 2005 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Can anyone identify a sample for me? Its of a young woman singing the "Snickers satisifies you" jingle and then there's some other stuff and "AMERICA EATS ITS YOUNG"

― Dr. Eldon Tyrell (ex machina), Monday, 21 March 2005 21:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I think people give Madlib a little too much credit for his beat-digging. Sure, guy knows good records, but the more obvious sampling of certain things (Electric Prunes, Melvin Van Peebles) just seems to me to be giving the semblence of obscurity, rather than looking for quality that could possibly work better...

― pher (pher), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 06:42 (twenty-one years ago)

In regards to 'its gonna rain', i could swear that Christian Marclay might have done some kind of manipulation piece with it, but I could also be completely off base.

And, 'Family Guy' had the weatherman...

― pher (pher), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 06:43 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

I answered this recently on a thread specifically releated to that song. It's by Nick Holder, titled America Eats its Young on NRK Recordings.

http://www.discogs.com/release/72493

Great track with a great mix by Terry Farley. Both of his mixes actually blend into one another on the 12".

― biz, Wednesday, 1 June 2005 00:02 (twenty-one years ago)

of course that is in response to Dr. Eldon Tyrell's question.

― biz, Wednesday, 1 June 2005 00:04 (twenty-one years ago)

who's gonna do the dance mix of Lucier's I Am Sitting in a Room?

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 1 June 2005 02:10 (twenty-one years ago)

FYI..."Come Out" can be downloaded from this page:
http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/impact/f01/Focus/Media-arts/glitch/tape.htm

And a version of "I Am Sitting in a Room" from 1969 is on Ubu, here:
http://www.ubu.com/sound/lucier.html

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Wednesday, 1 June 2005 03:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Camper Van Bethoven also uses the bruise blood sample on a track on New Roman Times and then make "come out to show them" into a mantra.

― Dennis, Wednesday, 1 June 2005 12:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I always wanted somebody to put a huge beat under "Come Out."

Jeez, it already has one!

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Wednesday, 1 June 2005 13:40 (twenty-one years ago)

three weeks pass...

I think MadLib samples "come out" in the song about weed because of that track's--"come out"--hypnotic quality. I can easily imagine MadLib, spliff in hand, settling down for a nice evening with Steve Reich. So much of Reich's music is trippy in an almost hallucinogenic way.

― ForceTenGale, Saturday, 25 June 2005 00:50 (twenty years ago)

ISHAMEL: THE JAMES DEAN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

― Ultragrill (ex machina), Saturday, 25 June 2005 00:59 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

why is he using a voice describing the bleak reality of police oppression in a song about gettin blunted

because it's illegal in california??

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

*_*

― lfam, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 20:38 (nineteen years ago)

hahaha, doesn't vahid live in santa cruz or something.

― Steve Shasta, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 20:50 (nineteen years ago)

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