De La Soul

By the time "Me Myself and I" came together, De La Soul had nearly finished 3 Feet High and Rising and their label was pushing for something less abstract — an introduction song a listener didn't have to work to enter. Producer Prince Paul and Maseo had already floated sampling one of George Clinton's Funkadelic records, and Posdnuos remembers how easily it came together: "We did that record like it was nothing. We were surprised how big it got. Sometimes the simplest thing is what people can relate to."

listen: upstream & heresource: Rolling Stone — 3 Feet High and Rising ↗share

1979

(Not Just) Knee DeepFunkadelic

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1989

Me Myself and IDe La Soul

listen forFunkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep" rides a synth bassline so deep and unhurried it barely needs the horns and vocal it carries; the groove does the work by itself for minutes at a stretch. De La Soul strip that bassline down to its bones for "Me Myself and I," looping it tighter and faster until a slow-funk float turns into a bright, insistent hook — the same bottom end, wearing a different mood. As producer Prince Paul put it: "I can't do De La Soul's 'Me Myself and I' without Funkadelic's '(Not Just) Knee Deep.' I just couldn't."

Before they were De La Soul, Posdnuos and Trugoy worked together at a Long Island mall, catching whatever the store speakers happened to play. Steely Dan's "Peg" came on often enough that it lodged in Posdnuos's head: "They would always play 'Peg' and we were, even then, aspiring to be a group, and we were like, 'Yo, that could be a dope song to use.'" Years later he built the loop for "Eye Know" around it. "It was fun," he said. "It was kinda my first time programming a beat."

listen: upstream & heresource: WhoSampled — "Eye Know" samples Steely Dan's "Peg" ↗share

1977

PegSteely Dan

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1989

Eye KnowDe La Soul

listen forListen for the bassline and horn stabs that open Steely Dan's "Peg" — a clean, jazz-inflected hook built from take after multi-tracked take until it sat right. De La Soul loop that same figure under "Eye Know" and drop the original's own vocal snippet, "I know I'll love you better," into a recurring hook, so a pristine studio-rock record becomes the rhythm bed under a completely different set of voices.

"Say No Go" started with a phrase, not a sample. "We grew up around neighborhoods where there was an epidemic," Trugoy said of the crack years on Long Island. "Those three words, 'say no go,' kinda caught our ear and we thought we could make that about not doing drugs." For the hook they turned to Daryl Hall & John Oates's "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)," looping its title line into an anti-drug chorus. John Oates, for his part, was glad to hear it: "Puff Daddy sampled it, De La Soul sampled it. I like it."

listen: upstream & hereshare

1981

I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)Daryl Hall & John Oates

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1989

Say No GoDe La Soul

listen forHall & Oates's "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" rides on Daryl Hall's cool, elastic falsetto looping the title phrase over a spare, synth-driven groove. De La Soul lift that same vocal hook nearly whole into "Say No Go," but strip the surrounding track down to a stark drum loop and push the words into a new, literal meaning — "no can do" becomes a warning about the corner, not a lover's kiss-off. The hook is identical; what it says to the listener has completely changed.