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From Kingdom Come (Def Jam; 2006)
That’s the horn from “Rump Shaker” by Wreckxx-N-Effect. Some of you will be like, “Well, really, Newell, it’s the horn from PE’s ‘Show Em What You Got.’” But it’s not. It’s the “Rump Shaker” horn, and no spliced up Public Enemy interlude with a mere chronological advantage is ever going to change that.
So, where hip hop songs at their best are exercises in point-making dot-connecting, Jay takes the title from the PE song that uses the same attention-grope horn as his new song, which is also the same horn from a song by three new jack swing dudes with geometric hair cuts and a song about jiggly bums, and leads us towards: “Political rap song that we can shake our butts to”? Except the only political element is how many synonyms for “girl” that he can spring in the chorus.
So, really, there’s no good reason for hitting us with that overused horn (a back-of-the-crate cheap-beat relegate, which Pete Rock used on a vinyl-only One Be Lo remix last year, of all things) with that overused Flav snippet, the Paris of publishing, aside from the fact that it sounds good. Which, you know, it sounds “good.” And will, for a whole week or so.
The question, then, is how Funky Drummer is going to factor into the comeback record, whether “Super Freak” can be chopped under which Slick Rick snips from “Lodi Dodi,” and on how many tracks Mary will sing on the hook. I dunno -- sometimes sounding “effortless” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know?
